But Do Not Let Any Visitor Mix In The Browns
With Too Heavy A Hand!
At the Massachusetts Cotton Mills they were working with about two-
thirds of their full number of hands, and
This, I was told, was
about the average of the number now employed throughout Lowell.
Working at this rate they had now on hand a supply of cotton to
last them for six months. Their stocks had been increased lately,
and on asking from whence, I was informed that that last received
had come to them from Liverpool. There is, I believe, no doubt but
that a considerable quantity of cotton has been shipped back from
England to the States since the civil war began. I asked the
gentleman, to whose care at Lowell I was consigned, whether he
expected to get cotton from the South - for at that time Beaufort,
in South Carolina, had just been taken by the naval expedition. He
had, he said, a political expectation of a supply of cotton, but
not a commercial expectation. That at least was the gist of his
reply, and I found it to be both intelligent and intelligible. The
Massachusetts Mills, when at full work, employ 1300 females and 400
males, and turn out 540,000 yards of calico per week.
On my return from Lowell in the smoking car, an old man came and
squeezed in next to me. The place was terribly crowded, and as the
old man was thin and clean and quiet, I willingly made room for
him, so as to avoid the contiguity of a neighbor who might be
neither thin, nor clean, nor quiet. He began talking to me in
whispers about the war, and I was suspicious that he was a
Southerner and a secessionist. Under such circumstances his
company might not be agreeable, unless he could be induced to hold
his tongue. At last he said, "I come from Canada, you know, and
you - you're an Englishman, and therefore I can speak to you
openly;" and he gave me an affectionate grip on the knee with his
old skinny hand. I suppose I do look more like an Englishman than
an American, but I was surprised at his knowing me with such
certainty. "There is no mistaking you," he said, "with your round
face and your red cheeks. They don't look like that here," and he
gave me another grip. I felt quite fond of the old man, and
offered him a cigar.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
We all know that the subject which appears above as the title of
this chapter is a very favorite subject in America. It is, I hope,
a very favorite subject here also, and I am inclined to think has
been so for many years past. The rights of women, as
contradistinguished from the wrongs of women, has perhaps been the
most precious of the legacies left to us by the feudal ages. How,
amid the rough darkness of old Teuton rule, women began to receive
that respect which is now their dearest right, is one of the most
interesting studies of history.
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