[C]This trial took place at Mechi's some three weeks later, and resulted in a complete triumph for the reaper, which thereupon received an award (already accorded it by the Council of Chairmen, subject to revision upon the result of this trial), of a first-class or Great-Medal.
[C]This trial took place at Mechi's some three weeks later, and resulted in a complete triumph for the reaper, which thereupon received an award (already accorded it by the Council of Chairmen, subject to revision upon the result of this trial), of a first-class or Great-Medal.
[D]He has since done so, to the perfect satisfaction of the judges.
[D]He has since done so, to the perfect satisfaction of the judges.
Newcastle, Eng., Tuesday, July 29, 1851.
I came up through the heart of England by railroad yesterday from London by Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, near Sheffield and Leeds, through York, near Durham, to this place, where Coal is found in proverbial abundance, as its black canopy of smoke might testify. Newcastle lies at the head of navigation on the Tyne, about thirty miles inland from the E. N. E. coast of England, three hundred miles from London, and is an ancient town, mainly built of brick, exhibiting considerable manufacturing and commercial activity.
The British Railroads are better built, more substantial and costly than ours, but their management does not equal my anticipations. They make no such time as is currently reported on our side, and are by no means reliable for punctuality. The single Express Train daily from London to Edinburgh professes to make the distance (428 miles) in about twelve hours, which is less than 36 miles per hour, with the best of double tracks, through a remarkably level country, everything put out of its way, and no more stops than its own necessities of wood and water require. We should easily beat this in America with anything like equal facilities, and without charging the British price—£4 7s. (or over $21) for a distance not equal to the length of the Erie Railroad, almost wholly through a populous and busy region, where Coal is most abundant and very cheap.
Our train (the Mail) started from London at 10½ A. M. and should have been here at 11 P. M. or in a little less than 25 miles per hour. But the running throughout the country is now bewitched with Excursion Trains and throngs of passengers flocking on low-priced Excursion return tickets to see the Great Exhibition, which is quite as it should be, but the consequent delay and derangement of the regular trains is as it shouldnotbe. The Companies have no moral right to fish up a quantity of irregular and temporary business to the violation of their promises and the serious disappointment of their regular customers. As things are managed, we left London with a train of twenty-five cars, half of them filled with Excursion passengers for whom a separate engine should have been, but was not, provided; so that we were behind time from the first and arrived here at 1 this morning instead of 11 last night.
The spirit of accommodation is not strikingly evinced on British Railroads. The train halts at a place to which you are a stranger, and you perhaps hear its name called out for the benefit of the passengers who are to stop there; but whether the halt is to last half a minute, five minutes, or ten, you must find out as you can. The French Railroads are better in this respect, and the American cannot be worse, though the fault is not unknown there. A penny programme for each train, to be sold at the chief stations on each important route, stating not merely at what place but exactly how long each halt of that particular train would be made, is one of the yet unsatisfied wants of Railroad travelers. Our "Path-finders" and "Railway Guides" undertake to tell so much that plain people are confused and often misled by them, and are unable to pick out the little information they actually need from the wilderness of figures and facts set before them. Let us have Guides so simple that no guide is needed to explain them.
There is much sameness in English rural scenery. I have now traveled nearly a thousand miles in this countrywithout seeing anything like a mountain and hardly a precipice except the chalky cliffs of the sea shore. Nearly every acre I have seen is susceptible of cultivation, and of course either cultivated, built upon, or devoted to wood. A few steep banks of streams or ravines, almost uniformly wooded, and some small marshes, mainly on the sea-coast, are all the exceptions I remember to the general capacity for cultivation. Usually, the aspect of the country is pleasant—beautiful, if you choose—but nowise calculated to excite wonder or evoke enthusiasm. The abundance of evergreen hedges is its most striking characteristic. I judge that two-thirds of England is in Grass (meadow or pasture), very green and thrifty, and dotted with noble herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. They are anxious to finish Hay-making throughout the region we traversed yesterday; but as there has been scarcely an hour of very bashful sunshine during the last six days, more than half of which have been rainy, the operation is one rather trying to human patience. Some of the cut grass looks as if it were Flax spread out to rot, and all of it evinces a want of shelter. This morning is almost fair, though hazy, so that the necessity of taking in and drying the hay by a fire may be obviated, but a great deal of it must be seriously damaged. (P. S. 10 o'clock.—It is cloudy and raining again.)
Wheat covers perhaps an eighth of all Central England, is now ripening and generally heavy, but much of it is beaten down by the wind and rain, and looks as if a herd of buffaloes had been chased through it by a tribe of mounted Indians. If the weather should be mainly fair henceforth, the crop may be saved, but it must already have received material damage, and the process of harvesting it must be tedious. Barley is considerably grown, and has also been a good deal prostrated. Oats have suffered less, being more backward.—Potatoes look vigorous, though not yet out of danger from blight or rot. Not a patch of Indian Corn is to be seen throughout. Considerablegrass-land has been plowed up for Wheat next season, and some Turnips are just visible; but it is evident that Grass and Stock, under the influence of the low prices of Grain produced by the repeal of the Corn-laws, are steadily gaining upon Tillage, of course throwing tens of thousands of Agricultural laborers out of employment, and driving them to emigration, to manufactures, or the poor-house. Thus the rural population of England is steadily and constantly decreasing.
The best feature of English landscape is formed by its Trees. Though rarely relied on for fuel, there is scarcely an area of forty acres without them, while single trees, copses, more rarely rows, and often petty forests, are visible in all quarters. The trees are not the straight, tall, trim, short-limbed, shadeless Poplars, &c., of France and Italy, but wide-spreading, hospitable Oaks, Yews and other sturdy battlers with wind and storm, which have a far more genial and satisfactory appearance. And the trees of England have a commercial as well as a less measurable value; for timber of all sorts is in demand in the collieries, manufactories and mines, and bears a high price, the consumption far exceeding the domestic supply. But for the trees, these sullen skies and level grounds would render England dreary enough.
Newcastle is the location of one of those immense structures which illustrate the Industrial greatness and pecuniary strength of Britain, and illustrate also the meagerness of her Railroad dividends. The Tyne is here a furlong wide or more, running through a narrow valley or wide ravine perhaps 150 feet below the average level of the great plain which encloses it, and hardly more than half a mile wide at the top. Across this river and gorge is thrown a bridge of iron, with abutments and piers of hewn stone, the arches of said bridge having a total length of 1,375 feet, with 512 feet water-way, while the railway is 112½ feet above high-water mark, with a fine carriage andfootway underneath it at a hight of 86 feet, and a total hight from river-bed to parapet of 132½ feet. The gigantic arches have a span of over 124 feet each, and the total cost of the work was £304,500, or about $1,500,000. Near this is a Central Railway Station (there are two others in the place), built entirely, including the roof, of cut stone, save a splendid row of glass windows on either side—said dépôt being over 592 feet long, the passengers' department being 537 by 183 feet, and the whole costing over $500,000. Here, then, are about $2,000,000 expended on a single mile of railroad, in a city of by no means primary importance. If any one can see how fair dividends could be paid on railroads constructed at such expense, the British shareholders generally would be glad to avail themselves of his sagacity. And it is stated that the Law Expenses of several of the British roads, including procurement of charter and right of way, have exceeded $2,500,000. Add to this rival lines running near each other, and often three where one should suffice, and you have the explanation of a vast, enormous and ruinous waste of property. Let the moral be heeded.
Edinburgh, July 29—Evening.
From Newcastle to the Tweed (70 miles) the country continues level and mainly fertile, but the Grain is far more backward than in the vicinity of London, and very little of it has been blown down. More Wheat and far less Grass are grown here than below York, while Barley, Oats and Potatoes cover a good share of the ground, and the Turnip is often seen. All look well, but the Potato, though late, is especially hearty and thrifty. Shade-trees in the cultivated fields are rare; in fact, wood is altogether rarer than at the south, though small forests are generally within sight. I should judge from what I see and feel thatshade is seldom wanting here, except as a shield from the rain. Desperate attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen; they were scarce from London to York, but now have disappeared. Our road runs nearer and nearer the North Sea, which at length is close beside us on the right, but no town of any importance is visible until we cross the Tweed on a long, high, costly stone bridge just above Berwick of historic fame, and are in
Here the growing crops are much the same as throughout the North of England—Wheat, Potatoes, Barley, Oats, and Grass—save that the Turnip has become an article of primary importance. From some points, hundreds of acres of the Swedish and French may be seen, and they are rarely or never out of view. They are sown in rows or drills, some eighteen inches or two feet apart, so as to admit of cultivation by the plow, which is now in progress. The most forward of the plants now display a small yellow blossom. All are healthy and promising, and are kept thoroughly clear of weeds. I infer that they are mainly grown for feeding cattle, and this seems a good idea, since they can be harvested in defiance of rain and mist, which is rather more difficult with Hay. They become more and more abundant as we approach this city, and are grown up to its very doors. Heavy stone walls laid in mortar and copses or little forests of Oak are among the characteristicsof the rural district around Edinburgh, whereof the culture is widely famed for its excellence. The only Scottish town of any note we pass is Dunbar, by the sea-side, though Dunse, Haddington and Dalkeith lie but a few miles inland from our road, with which they are connected by branches. We reached this city about 3 P. M. or in five hours from Newcastle, 130 miles.
I knew this was a city of noble and beautiful structures, but the reality surpasses my expectation. The old town was mainly built in a deep valley running northward into the Firth of Forth, with the Royal Palace of Holyrood in its midst, the port of Leith on the Firth a few miles northward, and the Castle on a commanding crag overlooking the old town from the west. The Canongate and High-street lead up to the esplanade of the Castle from the east, but its other sides are precipitous and inaccessible, a deep valley skirting it on the north, while the south end of the old town fills the other side. The former or more northern valley has for the most part been kept clear of buildings, the spacious Prince's-street Gardens and the grounds of several charitable institutions having had possession of it, until they were recently required to surrender a part for the Railroads running south to Berwick, &c., and west to Glasgow for a General Depot. Across this deep valley or chasm, northward, rises the eminence on which the new town of Edinburgh is constructed, with the deep chasm in which runs the rapid mill-stream known as the "Water of Leith," separating it from a like, though lower, hill still further north and west, on which a few fine buildings and very pleasant gardens are located. The new town is thus perhaps 150 feet above the old town, a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, commanding magnificent views of the old town, the port of Leith, the broad, ocean-like Firth ofForth, and the finely cultivated country stretching southward; and, as if these were not enough to secure its salubrity, it has more gardens and public squares than any other city of its size in the world. Its streets are broad and handsome; its houses built almost wholly of stone, and I never saw so many good ones with so few indifferent. If I were to choose from all the world a city wherein to make an effort for longevity, I would select the new town of Edinburgh; but I should prefer to live fewer years where there is more sunshine.
Public Monuments would seem to be the grand passion of the Edinburghers. The most conspicuous are those of Lord Nelson on Calton Hill (next to the Castle, if not before it, the most commanding location in the city) and of Walter Scott on Prince's-street, nearly opposite the Castle, across the glen, in full sight of all who arrive in Edinburgh by Railroad, as also from the Castle and its vicinity, as well as from the broad and thronged street beside which it is located. But there are Monuments also to Pitt, to Lord Melville, and some twenty or thirty other deceased notables. These are generally located in the higher squares or gardens which wisely occupy a large portion of the ground-plot of the new town. Public Hospitals and Infirmaries are also a prominent feature of the Scottish capital, there being several spacious and fine edifices devoted to the healing of the sick, most if not all of them founded and endowed by private munificence. There are several Bridges across the two principal and more on the secondary or cross valleys, ravines or gorges which may well attract attention. These Bridges are often several hundred feet long, and from thirty to eighty feet high, and you look down from their roadway upon the red-tiled roofs of large eight or nine-story houses beside and below them. Nearly or quite every house in Edinburgh is built of stone, which is rather abundant in Scotland, and often of a fair, free, easily worked quality. Many even of the larger houses, especially in the old town,are built of coarse, rough, undressed stone, often of round, irregular boulders, made to retain the places assigned them by dint of abundant and excellent mortar. In the better buildings, however, the stone is of a finer quality, and handsomely cut, though almost entirely of a brown or dark gray color. The winding drive to the summit of Calton Hill, looking down upon large, tall, castle-like houses of varied material and workmanship, with the prospect from the summit, are among the most impressive I have seen in Europe.
I was interested this afternoon in looking around from one to another of the edifices with which History or the pen of the Wizard of the North has rendered us all familiar—the Tolbooth, the Parliament House, the Castle, the house of John Knox, the principal Churches, &c., &c. I spent most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, which, though unwisely located, never gorgeously furnished, and long since abandoned of Royalty to dilapidation and decay, still wears the stamp of majesty and will be regal even when crumbled into ruins. Its tapestries are faded and rotten; its paintings, never brilliant specimens of the art, have also felt the tooth of Time; its furniture, never sumptuous, would but poorly answer at this day the needs of an ordinary family; its ball-room is now a lumber-room; its royal beds excite premonitions of rheumatism: its boudoir says nought of Beauty but that it passeth away. Yet the carefully preserved ivory miniature of the hapless Queen of Scots is still radiant with that superlative loveliness which seems unearthly and prophetic of coming sorrows; and it were difficult to view without emotion the tapestry she worked, the furniture she brought over from France, some mementoes of her unwise marriage, the little room in which she sat at supper with Rizzio and three or four friends when the assassins rushed in through a secret door, stabbed her ill-starred favorite, and dragged him bleeding through her bed-room into an outer audience chamber, andthere left him to die, his life-blood oozing out from fifty-six wounds. The partition still stands which the Queen caused to be erected to shut off the scene of this horrible tragedy from that larger portion of the reception-room which she was obliged still to occupy, therein to greet daily those whom public cares and duties constrained her to confer with and listen to, though Murder had stained ineffaceably the floor of that regal hall. Alas! unhappy Queen!—and yet not all unhappy. Other sovereigns have their little day of pomp and adulation, then shrivel to dust and are forgotten; but she still lives and reigns wherever Beauty finds admirers or Suffering commands sympathy. Other Queens innumerable have lived and died, and their scepters crumbled to dust even sooner than their clay; but Mary is still Queen of Scots, and so will remain forever.
The Clyde, Wednesday, July 30, 1851.
I am leaving Scotland without having seen half enough of it. My chief reasons are a determination to run over a good part of Ireland and an engagement to leave Europe in my favorite ship Baltic next week; but, besides these, this continual prevalence of fog, mist, cloud, drizzle and rain diminish my regret that I am unable to visit the Highlands. My friends who, having a day's start of me, went up the Forth from Edinburgh to Stirling, thence visiting Lochs Lomond and Katrine, thence proceeding by boat to Glasgow, were unable to see aught of the mountains but their bases, their heads being shrouded in vapor; and, being landed from a steamboat at the head of Lake navigation on Loch Lomond, found five miles of land-carriage between them and a comfortable shelter, and only vehicles enough to take the women and part of the men; the rest being obliged to make the distance on foot in a drenching rain, with night just at hand. Such adventures as this,—and they are common in this region,—console me for my disappointment in not having been able to see the Heather in its mountain home. The Gorse, the Broom, the Whins, not to speak of the Scottish Thistle, have been often visible by the roadside, and the prevalence of evergreens attests the influence of a colder clime than that of England; indeed, the backwardness of all the crops argues a difference of at least a fortnight in climate betweenEdinburgh and London. Wheat has hardly filled yet in the Scottish Lowlands; Oats are barely headed; and the Grass is little more than half cut and not half dried into Hay; on the contrary, it now looks as if it must winter on the ground or be taken in thoroughly water-soaked. Being so much later, the crops are far less blown down here than they are in England; but neither Grass nor Grain is generally heavy, while Potatoes and Turnips, though backward, looked remarkably vigorous and promising. Beautifully farmed is all this Lowland country, well fenced, clear of weeds, and evidently in the hands of intelligent, industrious, scientific cultivators. Wood is quite plentiful, Oak especially, though shade-trees are not so frequent in cultivated fields as in England; but rough, rocky, precipitous spots are quite common here, though in the Lowlands, and these are wisely devoted to growing timber. Belgium is more genial and more fertile, but I have rarely seen a tract of country better farmed than that stretching westward from Edinburgh to Glasgow (48 miles) and thence down the Clyde to Greenock, some 22 miles further. The farmers in our Mohawk Valley ought to pass through this gloomy, chilly, misty country, and be shamed into a better improvement of their rare but misused advantages.
Traveling is useful in that it gives us a more vivid idea of the immense amount of knowledge we yet lack. I supposed till to-day that, by virtue of a Scotch-Irish ancestry (in part) and a fair acquaintance with the works of Walter Scott, Burns, Hogg, &c., I knew the Lowland Scotch dialect pretty thoroughly; and yet a notice plainly posted up, "This Lot ToFeu," completely bothered me. On inquiry, I learned thatto feua lot means to let or lease it for building purposes—in other words, to be built upon on a ground-rent. I suppose I learned this years ago, but had entirely forgotten it.
The Clyde, though a fair stream at Glasgow, is quitenarrow for twelve to fifteen miles below that city, seeming hardly equal to the Connecticut at Hartford, or the Hudson at Waterford; but then it has a good tide, which helps the matter materially, and has at great expense been dredged out so as to be navigable for vessels of several hundred tuns. We passed a fine American packet-ship with a very wholesome looking body of Scotch emigrants, hard aground some ten miles below Glasgow, and I was informed that a large vessel, even though towed by a steamboat, is seldom able to get down into deep water upon a single tide, but is stopped half way to wait for another. This river fairly swarms with small steamboats, of which there are regular lines connecting Glasgow with Londonderry, Belfast, Dublin, Fleetwood (north-west of England), Liverpool, London, &c. We met four or five boats returning from Excursion parties crowded with the better paid artisans and laborers of Glasgow, their wives and children.
The banks of the Clyde for some miles below Glasgow are low and marshy, much of the intervale being devoted to pasturage, while a rude embankment has been interposed on either side, consisting of stones of five to fifty pounds each, intended to prevent the washing away of the banks by the ripple raised by the often-passing steamboats. The end is fairly though not cheaply subserved. As we descend, the shores become bolder; the rugged hills, at first barely visible on the right, come near and nearer the water: low rocks begin to lift their heads above the surface of the stream, while others have their innate modesty overpowered by wooden fixtures lifting their heads above the highest tides to warn the mariner of his danger. At length a gigantic cone of rock rises out of the water on the right of the channel to a height of fifty or sixty feet, resembling some vast old cathedral: this is Dumbarton Castle, with the anciently famous but now decaying town of Dumbarton lying at the head of a small bay behind it. A little lower on the left is Port Glasgow,the head of navigation for very large vessels; and three miles lower still is Greenock, quite a stirring seaport, somewhat addicted to ship-building. Here our boat, which had left Glasgow (22 miles above) at 4 P. M. held on till 8 for the train which left the same port at 7 with the mail and additional passengers; and then laid her course directly across the channel to Belfast, 138 miles from Glasgow, where she is due at 5 to-morrow morning.
Looks more American than any other city I have seen in Europe. Half of Pittsburgh spliced on to half of Philadelphia would make a city very like Glasgow. Iron is said to be made cheaper here than elsewhere in the world, the ore being alloyed with a carbonaceous substance which facilitates the process and reduces the cost of melting. Tall chimneys and black columns of smoke are abundant in the vicinity. The city is about twice the size of Edinburgh, with more than double the trade of that capital, and has risen rapidly from relative insignificance. New rows of stately houses have recently been built, and the "court end" of the city is extending rapidly toward the West. A brown or dark gray stone, as in Edinburgh, is the principal material used, and gives the city a very substantial appearance. Most of the town, being new, has wide and straight streets; in the older part, they are perverse and irrational, as old concerns are apt obstinately to be. They have an old Cathedral here (now Presbyterian) of which the citizens seem quite proud, I can't perceive why. Architecturally, it seems to me a sad waste of stone and labor. The other churches are also mainly Presbyterian, and, while making less pretensions, are far more creditable to the taste of their designers. The town is built on both sides of the Clyde, which is crossed by fine stone bridges, but seven-eighths of it lie on the north. Ancient Glasgow,embracing the narrow and crooked streets, lies nearly in the center, and is crowded with a squalid and miserable population, at least half the women and children, including mothers with children in their arms, and grandmothers, or those who might well be such, being without shoes or stockings in the cold and muddy streets. Intemperance has many votaries here, as indeed, throughout Scotland; "Dealers in Spirits," or words to that effect, being a fearfully common sign. I am afraid the good cause of Total Abstinence is making no headway here—Glasgow has a daily paper (the first in Scotland) and many weeklies, one of the best of them being a new one, "The Sentinel," which has a way of going straight to the core of public questions, and standing always on the side of thorough Reform. Success to it, and a warm good-bye to the rugged land of Song and Story—the loved home of Scott and Burns.
Dublin, Thursday, July 31, 1851.
Though the night was thick, the wind was light, and we had a very good passage across the North Channel, though our boat was very middling, and I was nearly poisoned by some of my fellow-sleepers in the gentlemen's cabin insisting that every window should be closed. O to be Pope for one little week, just long enough to set half a million pulpits throughout the world to ringing the changes on the importance, the vital necessity, of pure, fresh air! The darkness, or rather the general misapprehension, which prevails on this subject, is a frightful source of disease and misery. Nine-tenths of mankind have such a dread of "a draught" or current of air that they will shut themselves up, forty together, in a close room, car or cabin, and there poison each other with the exhalations of their mutual lungs, until disease and often death are the consequences. Why won't they study and learn that a "draught" of pure air will injure only those who by draughts of Alcoholic poison or some other evil habit or glaring violation of the laws of life, have rendered themselves morbidly susceptible, and that even a cold is better than the noxiousness of air, already exhausted of its oxygen by inhalation? Nothing physical is so sorely needed by the great majority as a realizing sense of the blessedness, the indispensable necessity of pure, fresh air.
We landed at Belfast at 5 this morning under a pouring rain, which slacked off two hours later, but the skies arestill clouded, as they have been since Tuesday of last week, and there has been some sprinkling through the day.
Of course the Crops are suffering badly. Flax is a great staple of the North of Ireland, and three fourths of it is beaten flat to the earth. Wheat is injured and poor, though not so generally prostrate; Oats look feeble, and as if half drowned; some of these are, and considerable Barley is thrown down; Grass is light, much of it uncut, and much that is cut has lain under the stormy or cloudy skies through the last week and looks badly; only the Potatoes look strong and thrifty, and promise an ample yield. I shall be agreeably disappointed if Ireland realizes a fair average harvest this year.
Belfast is a busy, growing town, the emporium of the Linen Manufacture, and the capital of the Province of Ulster, the Northern quarter of Ireland. It seems prosperous, though no wise remarkably so; and I have been painfully disappointed in the apparent condition of the rural peasantry on the line of travel from Belfast to Dublin, which I had understood formed an exception to the general misery of Ireland. Out of the towns not one habitation in ten is fit for human beings to live in, but mere low, cramped hovels of rock, mud and straw; not one-half the families on the way seem to have so much as an acre of land to each household; not half the men to be seen have coats to their backs; and not one in four of the women and children have each a pair of shoes or stockings. And those feet!—if the owners would only wash them once a week, the general aspect of affairs in this section would be materially brightened. Wretchedness, rags and despair salute me on every side; and if this be the best part of Ireland, what must the state of the worst be?
From Belfast we had railroad to Armagh, 35 miles; then 13 miles by omnibus to Castle Blayney. We came over this latter route with ten or twelve passengers, and a tun or so of luggage on the outside of the Railroad Company'somnibus, with thirteen of us stowed inside, beside a youngster in arms, who illustrated the doctrine of Innate Depravity by a perpetual fight with his mother. Yet, thus overloaded we were driven the thirteen miles of muddy road in about two hours, taking at Castle Blayney another railroad train, which brought us almost to Drogheda, some 25 miles, where we had to take another omnibus for a mile or two, for want of a railroad bridge over the Boyne, thus reaching another train which brought us into Dublin, 32 miles. The North of Ireland is yet destitute of any other railroads than such patches and fragments as these, whereby I am precluded from seeing Londonderry, and its vicinity, which I much desired. At length we were brought into Dublin at half-past three o'clock, or in eight hours from Belfast, about one hundred and thirty miles.
The face of the country through this part of Ireland is moderately rolling, though some fair hills appear in the distance. The land is generally good, though there are considerable tracts of hard, thin soil. Small bogs are frequently seen, but no one exceeding a dozen acres; the large ones lying farther inland. Taking so little room and supplying the poor with a handy and cheap fuel, I doubt that these little bogs are any detriment to the country. Some of them have been made to take on a soil (by draining, cutting, drying and burning the upper strata of peat, and spreading the ashes over the entire surface), and are now quite productive.—Drainage and ridging are almost universally resorted to, showing the extraordinary humidity of the atmosphere. The Potato is now generally in blossom, and, having a large breadth of the land, and being in fine condition, gives an appearance of thrift and beauty to the landscape. But, in spite of this, the general yield of Ireland in 1851 is destined to be meager. There is more misery in store for this unhappy people.
We cross two small lakes some ten to fifteen miles northof this city, and run for some distance close to the shore of the Channel. At length, a vision of dwellings, edifices and spires bounds the horizon of the level plain to the south-west, and in a few minutes we are in Dublin.
Galway, Ireland, Aug. 2, 1851.
I came down here yesterday from Dublin (126½ miles) by the first Railroad train ever run through for the traveling public, hoping not only to acquire some personal knowledge of the West of Ireland, but also to gain some idea of the advantages and difficulties attending the proposed establishment of a direct communication by Mail Steamers between this port and our own country. And although my trip is necessarily a hurried one, yet, having been rowed down and nearly across the Bay, so as to gain some knowledge of its conformation and its entrance, and having traversed the town in every direction, and made the acquaintance of some of its most intelligent citizens, I shall at all events return with a clearer idea of the whole subject than ever so much distant study of maps, charts and books could have given me.
The Midland Railroad from Dublin passes by Maynooth, Mullingar, Athlone (where it crosses the Shannon by a noble iron bridge), and Ballinasloe to this place, at the head of Galway Bay, some twenty-five miles inland from the broad Atlantic. The country is remarkably level throughout, and very little rock-cutting and but a moderate amount of excavation have been required in making the Railroad, of which a part (from Dublin to Mullingar) has been for some time in operation, while the residue has just been opened. (The old stage-road from Dublin to Galwaymeasures 133 miles, or nearly seven more than the Railroad.) I presume there is nowhere an elevation of forty feet to the mile, and with a good double track (now nearly completed), there can be no difficulty in running express trains through in three hours. From Dublin to Holyhead will require four hours, and from Holyhead to London six more, making fifteen hours in all (including two for coming into Galway) for the transportation of the Mails from the broad Atlantic off this port to London. Allow three more for leeway, and still the entire Mails may be distributed in London about the time that the steamship can now be telegraphed as off Holyhead, and at least twelve (I hope fifteen) hours earlier than the Mails can now be received in London, to say nothing of the saving of thirty or forty hours on the Mails to and from Ireland, and twenty or so for those of Scotland. Is there any good reason why those hours should not be saved? I can perceive none, even though the steamships should still proceed to Liverpool as heretofore.
Galway Bay is abundantly large enough and safe enough for steamships, even as it is, though its security is susceptible of easy improvement. It has abundant depth inside, but hardly twenty feet at low water on a bar in the harbor, so that large steamships coming in would be obliged to anchor a mile or so from the dock for high water if they did not arrive so as to hit it, as they must now wait off the bar at Liverpool, only much further from the dock. But what I contemplate as a beginning is not the bringing in of the Steamships but of their Mails. Let a small steamboat be waiting outside when a Mail Steamer is expected (as now off the bar at Liverpool), and let the Mails and such passengers as would like to feel the firm earth under their feet once more, be swiftly transferred to the little boat, run up to Galway, put on an express train, started for Dublin, and thence sent over to Holyhead, and dispatched to London and Liverpool forthwith. Let Irish Mails for Galway, Dublin, &c., and Scotch Mails for Glasgow be made up onour side, and let us see, by three or four fair trials, what saving of time could be effected by landing the Mails at Galway, and then we shall be in a position to determine the extent and character of the permanent changes which are required. That a saving of fully twelve hours for England and thirty for Ireland may be secured by making Galway the European terminus of the Atlantic Mail Route, I am very confident, while in the calculations of those who feel a local and personal interest in the change the saving is far greater. But this is quite enough to justify the inconsiderable expense which the experiment I urge would involve.
Galway was formerly a place of far greater commerce and consequence than it now is. It long enjoyed an extensive and profitable direct trade with Spain, which, since the Union of Ireland with England, is entirely transferred to London, so that not a shadow of it remains. At a later day, it exported considerable Grain, Bacon, &c., to England, but the general decline of Irish Industry, and the low prices of food since Free Trade, have nearly destroyed this trade also, and there are now, except fishing-boats, scarcely half a dozen vessels in the harbor, and of these the two principal are a Russian from the Black SeasellingCorn, to a district whose resources are Agricultural or nothing, and a smart-looking Yankee clipper taking in a load of emigrants and luggage for New-York—the export of her population being about the only branch of Ireland's commerce which yet survives the general ruin. Galway had once 60,000 inhabitants; she may now have at most 30,000; but there is no American seaport with 5,000 which does not far surpass her annual aggregate of trade and industry. What should we think in America of a seaport of at least 35,000 inhabitants, the capital of a large, populous county, located at the head of a noble, spacious bay, looking off on the broad Atlantic some twenty miles distant, with cities of twenty, fifty, and a hundred thousand inhabitants within a few hours' reach on either side of her,yet not owning a single steamboat of any shape or nature, and not even visited by one daily, weekly, monthly, or at any stated period? Truly, the desolation of Ireland must be witnessed or it cannot be realized.
I judge that of nearly thirty thousand people who live here not ten thousand have any regular employment or means of livelihood. The majority pick up a job when they can, but are inevitably idle and suffering two-thirds of the time. Of course, the Million learn nothing, have nothing, and come to nothing. They are scarcely in fault, but those who ought to teach them, counsel them, employ them, until they shall be qualified to employ themselves, are deplorably culpable. Here are gentlemen and ladies of education and wealth (dozens where there were formerly hundreds) who year after year and generation after generation have lived in luxury on the income wrung from these poor creatures in the shape of Rent, without ever giving them a helping hand or a kind word in return—without even suspecting that they were under moral obligation to do so. Here is a Priesthood, the conscience-keepers and religious instructors of this fortunate class, who also have fared sumptuously and amassed wealth out of the tithes wrenched by law-sanctioned robbery from the products of this same wretched peasantry, yet never proffered them anything in return but conversion to the faith of their plunderers—certainly not a tempting proffer under the circumstances. And here also is a Priesthood beloved, reverenced, confided in by this peasantry, and loving them in return, who I think have done far less than they might and should have done to raise them out of the slough in which generation after generation are sinking deeper and deeper. I speak plainly on this point, for I feel strongly. The Catholic Priesthood of Ireland resist the education of the Peasantry under Protestant auspices and influences, for which we will presume they have good reason; but, in thus cutting themoff from one chance of improving their social and intellectual condition, they double their own moral responsibility to secure the Education of the Poor in some manner not inconsistent with the preservation of their faith. And, seeing what I have seen and do see of the unequaled power of this Priesthood—a power immensely greater in Ireland than in Italy, for there the Priests are generally regarded as the allies of the tyrant and plundering class, while here they are doubly beloved as its enemies and its victims—I feel an undoubting conviction that simply an earnest determination of the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland that every Catholic child in the country shall receive a good education would secure its own fulfilment within five years, and thenceforth for ever. Let but one generation be well educated, and there can be no rational apprehension that their children or grandchildren will be allowed to grow up in ignorance and helplessness. Knowledge is self-perpetuating, self-extending. And, dreadfully destitute as this country is, the Priesthood of the People can command the means of educating that People, which nobody without their coöperation can accomplish. Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thousands and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents, from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every parish would gladly proffer them. There is really no serious obstacle in the way of this first great step toward Ireland's regeneration if the Priesthood will zealously attempt it.
But closely allied to this subject, and not inferior to it in importance, stands that of Industrial Training. The Irish Peasantry are idle, the English say truly enough; but whoinquires whether there is any work within their reach? Suppose there was alwayssomethingto do, what avails that to millions who know not how to do that precise something? Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that labor. She answered, "Six-pence a car-load." "How long will it take you to break a car-load?" "About a fortnight." Further questions respecting her family, &c., were answered with equal directness and propriety, and with manifest truth. Here was a mere child, who should have been sent to school, delving from morning till night at an employment utterly unsuited to her sex and her strength, and which I should consider dangerous to her eyesight, to earn for her poor parents a half-penny per day. Think of this, ye who talk, not always without reason, of "factory slaves" and the meagre rewards of labor in America. In any community where labor is even decently rewarded, that child should have been enabled to earn every day at least as much as her fortnight's work on the stone-heap would command. And even in Galway, a concerted and systematic Industrial Education for the Poor would enable her to earn at some light and suitable employment six times what she now does.
In every street of the town you constantly meet girls of fourteen to twenty, as well as old women and children, utterly barefoot and in ragged clothing. I should judge from the streets that not more than one-fourth of the females of Galway belong to the shoe-wearing aristocracy. Now no one acquainted with Human Nature will pretend that girls of fourteen to twenty will walk the streets barefoot if the means of buying shoes and stockings by honest labor are fairly within their reach. But here there are none such for thousands. Born in wretched huts of roughstone and rotten straw, compared with which the poorest log-cabin is a palace, with a turf fire, no window, and a mass of filth heaped up before the door, untaught even to read, and growing up in a region where no manufactures nor arts are prosecuted, the Irish peasant-girl arrives at womanhood less qualified by experience, observation or training for industrial efficiency and usefulness than the daughter of any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, notallthe Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness," which means only inability to do what one has never evenseendone, is not confined to any class or nation, and should be regarded with every allowance.
An Industrial School, especially for girls, in every town, village and parish of Ireland, is one of the crying needs of the time. I am confident there are in Galway alone five thousand women and girls who would hail with gratitude and thoroughly improve an opportunity to earn six-pence per day. If they could be taught needle-work, plain dressmaking, straw-braiding, and a few of the simplest branches of manufactures, such as are carried on in households, they might and would at once emerge from the destitution and social degradation which now enshroud them into independence, comfort and consideration. Knowing how to work and to earn a decent subsistence, they would very soon seek and acquire a knowledge of letters if previously ignorant of them. In short, the Industrial Education of the Irish Peasantry is the noblest and the most hopeful idea yet broached for their intellectual and social elevation, and I have great hope of its speedy triumph. It is now being agitated in Dublin and many other localities, acentral and many auxiliary schools having already been established. But I will speak further on this point in another letter.
Galway has an immense and steady water-power within half a mile of its harbor, on the outlet of Lakes Corrib and Mash, by means of which it enjoys an admirable internal navigation extending some sixty miles northward. Here Manufactures might be established with a certainty of commanding the cheapest power, cheapest labor and cheapest fuel to be had in the world. I never saw a spot where so much water power yet unused could be obtained at so trifling a cost as here directly on the west line of the town and within half a mile of its center. A beautiful Marble is found on the line of the Railroad only a few miles from the town, and all along the line to Dublin the abundance and excellence of the building-stone are remarkable. Timber and Brick come down the Lake outlet as fast as they are wanted, while Provisions are here cheap as in any part of the British Isles. Nature has plainly designed Galway for a great and prosperous city, the site of extensive manufactures, the emporium of an important trade, and the gateway of Europe toward America; but whether all this is or is not to be dashed by the fatality which has hitherto attended Irish prospects, remains to be seen. I trust that it is not, but that a new Liverpool is destined soon to arise here; and that, should I ever again visit Europe, I shall first land on the quay of Galway.