Persons Are For Ever Passing Backwards And
Forwards, Exclusive Of The Conductor Whose Business It Is, And Water-
Carriers, Book, Bonbon, And Peach Venders.
No person connected with these
railways wears a distinguishing dress, and the stations, or "depots" as
they are called, are generally of the meanest description, mere wooden
sheds, with a ticket-office very difficult to discover.
If you are so
fortunate as to find a man standing at the door of the baggage-car, he
attaches copper plates to your trunks, with a number and the name of the
place you are going to upon them, giving you labels with corresponding
numbers. By this excellent arrangement, in going a very long journey, in
which you are obliged to change cars several times, and cross rivers and
lakes in steamers, you are relieved of all responsibility, and only
require at the end to give your checks to the hotel-porter, who regains
your baggage without any trouble on your part.
This plan would be worthily imitated at our termini in England, where I
have frequently seen "unprotected females" in the last stage of frenzy at
being pushed out of the way, while some persons unknown are running off
with their possessions. When you reach a depôt, as there are no railway
porters, numerous men clamour to take your effects to an hotel, but, as
many of these are thieves, it is necessary to be very careful in only
selecting those who have hotel-badges on their hats.
An emigrant-car is attached to each train, but there is only one class:
thus it may happen that you have on one side the President of the Great
Republic, and on the other the gentleman who blacked your shoes in the
morning. The Americans, however, have too much respect for themselves and
their companions to travel except in good clothes, and this mingling of
all ranks is far from being disagreeable, particularly to a stranger like
myself, one of whose objects was to see things in their everyday dress. We
must be well aware that in many parts of England it would be difficult for
a lady to travel unattended in a second-class, impossible in a third-class
carriage; yet I travelled several thousand miles in America, frequently
alone, from the house of one friend to another's, and never met with
anything approaching to incivility; and I have often heard it stated that
a lady, no matter what her youth or attractions might be, could travel
alone through every State in the Union, and never meet with anything but
attention and respect.
I have had considerable experience of the cars, having travelled from the
Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the Mississippi to the St. Lawrence,
and found the company so agreeable in its way, and the cars themselves so
easy, well ventilated, and comfortable, that, were it not for the
disgusting practice of spitting upon the floors in which the lower classes
of Americans indulge, I should greatly prefer them to our own exclusive
carriages, denominated in the States "'coon sentry-boxes." Well, we are
seated in the cars; a man shouts "Go a-head!" and we are off, the engine
ringing its heavy bell, and thus begin my experiences of American travel.
I found myself in company with eleven gentlemen and a lady from Prince
Edward Island, whom a strange gregarious instinct had thus drawn together.
The engine gave a hollow groan, very unlike our cheerful whistle, and,
soon moving through the town, we reached the open country.
Fair was the country that we passed through in the States of Maine, New
Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Oh very fair! smiling, cultivated, and
green, like England, but far happier; for slavery which disgraces the New
World, and poverty which desolates the Old, are nowhere to be seen.
There were many farmhouses surrounded by the nearly finished harvest, with
verandahs covered with vines and roses; and patriarchal-looking family
groups seated under them, engaged in different employments, and enjoying
the sunset, for here it was gorgeous summer. And there were smaller houses
of wood painted white, with bright green jalousies, in gardens of
pumpkins, and surrounded by orchards. Apples seemed almost to grow wild;
there were as many orchards as corn-fields, and apple and pear trees grew
in the very hedgerows.
And such apples! not like our small, sour, flavourless things, but like
some southern fruit; huge balls, red and yellow, such as are caricatured
in wood, weighing down the fine large trees. There were heaps of apples on
the ground, and horses and cows were eating them in the fields, and rows
of freight-cars at all the stations were laden with them, and little boys
were selling them in the cars; in short, where were they not? There were
smiling fields with verdant hedgerows between them, unlike the untidy
snake-fences of the colonies, and meadows like parks, dotted over with
trees, and woods filled with sumach and scarlet maple, and rapid streams
hurrying over white pebbles, and villages of green-jalousied houses, with
churches and spires, for here all places of worship have spires; and the
mellow light of a declining sun streamed over this varied scene of
happiness, prosperity, and comfort; and for a moment I thought - O
traitorous thought! - that the New England was fairer than the Old.
Nor were the more material evidences of prosperity wanting, for we passed
through several large towns near the coast - Newbury Port, Salem, and
Portsmouth - with populations varying from 30,000 to 50,000 souls. They
seemed bustling, thriving places, with handsome stores, which we had an
opportunity of observing, as in the States the cars run right into the
streets along the carriage-way, traffic being merely diverted from the
track while the cars are upon it.
Most of the railways in the States have only one track or line of rails,
with occasional sidings at the stations for the cars to pass each other.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 27 of 128
Words from 26630 to 27630
of 129941
