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.
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