The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird
























































































































 - 

I'm an Englishman, and I tell you I won't be brow-beat by you beastly
Yankees. I've paid for my - Page 45
The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird - Page 45 of 128 - First - Home

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"I'm An Englishman, And I Tell You I Won't Be Brow-Beat By You Beastly Yankees.

I've paid for my seat, and I mean to keep it," savagely shouted the offender, thus verifying my worst suspicions.

"I thought so! - I knew it! - A regular John Bull trick! just like them!" were some of the observations made, and very mild they were, considering the aggravated circumstances.

Two men took the culprit by his shoulders, and the others, pressing behind, impelled him to the door, amid a chorus of groans and hisses, disposing of him finally by placing him in the emigrant-car, installing the lady in the vacated seat. I could almost fancy that the shade of the departed Judge Lynch stood by with an approving smile.

I was so thoroughly ashamed of my countryman, and so afraid of my nationality being discovered, that, if any one spoke to me, I adopted every Americanism which I could think of in reply. The country within fifty miles of Detroit is a pretty alternation of prairie, wood, corn- fields, peach and apple orchards. The maize is the staple of the country; you see it in the fields; you have corn-cobs for breakfast; corncobs, mush, and hominy for dinner; johnny-cake for tea; and the very bread contains a third part of Indian meal!

I thought the little I saw of Michigan very fertile and pretty. It is another of the newly constituted States, and was known until recently under the name of the "Michigan Territory." This State is a peninsula between the Huron and Michigan Lakes, and borders in one part closely on Canada. It has a salubrious climate and a fertile soil, and is rapidly becoming a very productive State. Of late years the influx of emigrants of a better class has been very great. The State has great capabilities for saw and flour mills; the Grand Rapids alone have a fall of fifteen feet in a mile, and afford immense water-power.

In Michigan, human beings have ceased to be "alligators" they are "hosses." Thus one man says to another, "How do you do, old hoss?" or, "What's the time o' day, old hoss?" When I reached Detroit I was amused when a conductor said to me, "One o' them 'ere hosses will take your trunks," pointing as he spoke to a group of porters.

On arriving at Detroit I met for the first time with tokens of British enterprise and energy, and of the growing importance of Canada West. Several persons in the cars were going to New York, and they took the ferry at Detroit, and went down to Niagara Bridge by the Canada Great Western Railway, as the most expeditious route. I drove through the very pleasant streets of Detroit to the National Hotel, where I was to join the Walrences. Having indulged the hope of rejoining my former travelling companions here, I was greatly disappointed at finding a note from them, containing the intelligence that they had been summoned by telegraph to Toronto, to a sick relative. They requested me to join them there, and hoped I should find no difficulty on the journey!

It was the time of the State fair, and every room in the inn was occupied; but Mr. Benjamin, the very popular host of the National, on hearing my circumstances, would on no account suffer me to seek another abode, and requested a gentleman to give up his room to me, which with true American politeness he instantly did. I cannot speak too highly of the National Hotel, or of its deservedly popular landlord. I found that I could not leave Detroit before the next night, and at most hotels a lady alone would have been very uncomfortably placed. Breakfast was over, but, as soon as I retired to my room, the waiter appeared with an abundant repast, for which no additional charge was made. I sat in my room the whole day, and Mr. Benjamin came twice to my door to know if I wanted anything. He introduced me to a widow lady, whose room I afterwards shared; and when I went down at night to the steamer, he sent one of his clerks with me, to save me any trouble about my luggage. He also gave me a note to an hotel-keeper at Buffalo, requesting him to pay me every attention, in case I should be detained for a night on the road. The hotel was a perfect pattern of cleanliness, elegance, and comfort; and the waiters, about fifty of whom were Dutch, attended scrupulously to every wish, actual or supposed, of the guests. If these pages should ever meet Mr. Benjamin's eye, it may be a slight gratification to him to know that his kindness to a stranger has been both remembered and appreciated.

I had some letters of introduction to residents at Detroit, and here, as in all other places which I visited, I had but to sow them to reap a rich harvest of kindness and hospitality. I spent two days most agreeably at Detroit, in a very refined and intellectual circle, perfectly free from those mannerisms which I had expected to find in a place so distant from the coast. The concurrent testimony of many impartial persons goes to prove that in every American town highly polished and intellectual society is to be met with.

My bed-room window at the National Hotel looked into one of the widest and most bustling streets of Detroit. It was the day of the State fair, consequently I saw the town under a very favourable aspect. The contents of several special trains, and hundreds of waggons, crowded the streets, the "waggons" frequently drawn by very handsome horses. The private carriages were of a superior class to any I had previously seen in the States; the harness was handsome and richly plated, and elegantly dressed ladies filled the interiors. But in amusing contrast, the coachmen all looked like wild Irishmen enlisted for the occasion, and drove in a standing posture.

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