The
Heat In This State, In Midsummer, Is Very Great, Especially In The
Valleys Of The Rivers.
At St. Louis, on the Mississippi, it reaches
commonly to ninety degrees, and very frequently goes above that.
The
Nights, moreover, are nearly as hot as the days; but this great
heat does not last for any very long period, and it seems that white
men are able to work throughout the year. If correspondingly severe
weather in winter affords any compensation to the white man for what
of heat he endures during the summer, I can testify that such
compensation is to be found in Missouri. When I was there we were
afflicted with a combination of snow, sleet, frost, and wind, with a
mixture of ice and mud, that makes me regard Missouri as the most
inclement land into which I ever penetrated.
St. Louis, on the Mississippi, is the great town of Missouri, and is
considered by the Missourians to be the star of the West. It is not
to be beaten in population, wealth, or natural advantages by any
other city so far west; but it has not increased with such rapidity
as Chicago, which is considerably to the north of it, on Lake
Michigan. Of the great Western cities I regard Chicago as the most
remarkable, seeing that St. Louis was a large town before Chicago
had been founded.
The population of St. Louis is 170,000. Of this number only 2000
are slaves. I was told that a large proportion of the slaves of
Missouri are employed near the Missouri River in breaking hemp. The
growth of hemp is very profitably carried on in that valley, and the
labor attached to it is one which white men do not like to
encounter. Slaves are not generally employed in St. Louis for
domestic service as is done almost universally in the towns of
Kentucky. This work is chiefly in the hands of Irish and Germans.
Considerably above one-third of the population of the whole city is
made up of these two nationalities. So much is confessed; but if I
were to form an opinion from the language I heard in the streets of
the town, I should say that nearly every man was either an Irishman
or a German.
St. Louis has none of the aspects of a slave city. I cannot say
that I found it an attractive place; but then I did not visit it at
an attractive time. The war had disturbed everything, given a
special color of its own to men's thoughts and words, and destroyed
all interest except that which might proceed from itself. The town
is well built, with good shops, straight streets, never-ending rows
of excellent houses, and every sign of commercial wealth and
domestic comfort - of commercial wealth and domestic comfort in the
past, for there was no present appearance either of comfort or of
wealth. The new hotel here was to be bigger than all the hotels of
all other towns.
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