At last, when pressed to the proper thinness and
length, it is coiled up into a circle by the help of a machine contrived
for the purpose, which rolls it up as a shopkeeper rolls up a ribbon.
We found a man near where we stood, begrimed by the soot of the furnaces,
handling the clumsy masses of iron which bear the name of bloom. The
rolling mill, he said, belonged to Rodenbough, Stewart & Co., who had very
extensive contracts for furnishing iron to the nailmakers and wire
manufacturers.
"Will they stop the mill for the new tariff?" said I.
"They will stop for nothing," replied the man. "The new tariff is a good
tariff, if people would but think so. It costs the iron-masters fifteen
dollars a ton to make their iron, and they sell it for forty dollars a
ton. If the new tariff obliges them to sell it for considerable less they
will still make money."
So revolves the cycle of opinion. Twenty years ago a Pennsylvanian who
questioned the policy of the protective system would have been looked upon
as a sort of curiosity. Now the bloomers and stable-boys begin to talk
free trade. What will they talk twenty years hence?
Letter XL.
Boston. - Lawrence. - Portland.
Portland, _July_ 31, 1847.
I left Boston for this place, a few days since, by one of the railways. I
never come to Boston or go out of it without being agreeably struck with
the civility and respectable appearance of the hackney-coachmen, the
porters, and others for whose services the traveller has occasion. You
feel, generally, in your intercourse with these persons that you are
dealing with men who have a character to maintain.
There is a sober substantial look about the dwellings of Boston, which
pleases me more than the gayer aspect of our own city. In New York we are
careful to keep the outside of our houses fresh with paint, a practice
which does not exist here, and which I suppose we inherited from the
Hollanders, who learned it I know not where - could it have been from the
Chinese? The country houses of Holland, along the canals, are bright with
paint, often of several different colors, and are as gay as pagodas. In
their moist climate, where mould and moss so speedily gather, the
practice may be founded in better reasons than it is with us.
"Boston," said a friend to whom I spoke of the appearance of comfort and
thrift in that city, "is a much more crowded place than you imagine, and
where people are crowded there can not be comfort.
