The Number Of Carriages, Invariably Drawn By Two Horses, Astonished Me.
They Were The "Red Horses" Of Kentucky And The Jet Black Of Ohio,
Splendid, Proud Looking Animals, Looking As If They Could Never Tire Or
Die.
Except the "trotting baskets" and light waggons, principally driven
by "swells" or "Young Americans," all the vehicles were covered, to
preserve their inmates from the intense heat of the sun.
In the evening
hundreds, if not thousands, of carriages are to be seen in the cemetery
and along the roads, some of the German ladies driving in low dresses and
short sleeves. As everybody who has one hundred yards to go drives or
rides, rings are fastened to all the side walks in the town to tether the
horses to. Many of the streets are planted with the ilanthus-tree, and
frequently one comes upon churches of tasteful architecture, with fretted
spires pointing to heaven.
I went upon the Ohio, lessened by long drought into a narrow stream, in a
most commodious high-pressure steamboat, and deemed myself happy in
returning uninjured; for beautiful and fairy-like as these vessels are,
between their own explosive qualities and the "snags and sawyers" of the
rivers, their average existence is only five years!
Cincinnati in 1800 was a wooden village of 750 inhabitants; it is now a
substantially-built brick town, containing 200,000 people, and thousands
of fresh settlers are added every year. There are nearly 50,000 Germans,
and I believe 40,000 Irish, who distinctly keep up their national
characteristics. The Germans almost monopolise the handicraft trades,
where they find a fruitful field for their genius and industry; the Irish
are here, as everywhere, hewers of wood and drawers of water; they can do
nothing but dig, and seldom rise in the social scale; the Germans, as at
home, are a thinking, sceptical, theorising people: in politics,
Socialists - in religion, Atheists. The Irish are still the willing and
ignorant tools of an ambitious and despotic priesthood. And in a land
where no man is called to account for his principles, unless they proceed
to physical development, these errors grow and luxuriate. The Germans, in
that part of the town almost devoted to themselves, have succeeded in
practically abolishing the Sabbath, as they utterly ignore that divine
institution even as a day of rest, keeping their stores open the whole
day. The creeds which they profess are "Socialism" and "Universalism," and
at stated periods they assemble to hear political harangues, and address
invocations to universal deity. Skilled, educated, and intellectual, they
are daily increasing in numbers, wealth, and political importance, and
constitute an influence of which the Americans themselves are afraid.
The Irish are a turbulent class, for ever appealing to physical force,
influencing the elections, and carrying out their "clan feuds" and
"faction fights." The Germans, finding it a land like their own, of corn
and vineyards, have named the streets in their locality in Cincinnati
after their towns in the Old World, to which in idea one is frequently
carried back.
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