THE WESTERN WORLD.*

THE changes which the United States are constantly exhibiting in every national point of view are so great, that the progress made by them could not only furnish material for a new work each year, but also for a record that could not fail to be full of stirring interest. Mr. Mackay's book is just the kind of thing that is wanted. A sober serious observer, he surveys the developments of the institutions of a democratic people with the eye of a philosopher, and yet as quite alive at the same time to the social developments going on around him, he sketches off the peculiarities of the people with all the colouring and strength of outline of a successful artist.

Landed at Boston, our traveller contrasts the civility and courtesy extended by the federal officers both to strangers and natives landing in the country with the wanton and unmannerly conduct which is too often pursued at our own ports. Passing Tremont House, which, as usually occurs in the case of one or two hotels in every large city in the States, is full, our traveller drew up at the United States Hotel, which he describes as an enormous pile of red brick, perforated by, he is afraid to say, how many rows of windows, having a large wing on one side, called Texas, and one in process of completion on the other to be called Oregon. The next addition that will have to be made will be doubtless California.

We are ushered up a marble staircase into a spacious hall, the floor of which looks like a gigantic chequer-board, being composed of alternate squares of black and white marble, looking exceedingly elegant, but, during this season of the year, being both very cold and very slippery. We apply for rooms at the bar, which, in the usual sense of the term, is no bar, but the countinghouse of the establishment, in which a clerk, elaborately caparisoned, sits enthroned, at a considerable elevation, before a desk, which, in point of cost and construction, would be a piece of extravagance in the Bank parlour. The walls around him are literally covered with bells, each having beneath it the number of the room to which it corresponds, and they count by hundreds. My flesh creeps at the bare contemplation of the possibility of their being all rung at once.

We dine comfortably in a private room, to gain which we have to thread countless lobbies, lying at all conceivable angles to each other. How a warm meal finds its way such a distance from a fixed kitchen is a mystery to us. But, notwithstanding the appalling difficulties obviously in the way, for it is brought all the way from Texas to Oregon,—it is as speedily as it is well served.

Boston, however, has been so often described, that the varied craft in its harbour, its busy wharves, its characteristic stores, its well dressed intellectual male, and its fair female population, may be quickly passed by, premising that in this land of liberty, nay, in front of Fanneuil Hall itself, where its tocsin first sounded, the smoking of a cigar is not permitted under a penalty of five dollars.

In addition to the round-about journey by sea, the city of New York is approached from Boston by three different routes, each of which is a

• The Western World; or, Travels in the United States in 1846-47: exhibiting them in their latest development, social, political, and industrial; including a chapter on California. By Alex. Mackay, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barristerat-Law. 3 vols. Richard Bentley.

combination of railway and steam-boat travelling. Mr. Mackay appears to have chosen his time ill. He was in New England when he ought to have been in Alabama, and in the Southern States when he ought to have been in the Northern. Railway travelling in the States, however, whether it be in winter or summer, has many marked annoyances. First as to a specimen of a class of carriage very common in the United States:

It consisted of one great compartment, constructed to accommodate sixty people. It was like a small church upon wheels. At either end was a door leading to a railed platform in the open air; from door to door stretched a narrow aisle, on either side of which was a row of seats, wanting only book-boards to make them look exactly like pews, each being capable of seating two reasonably-sized persons. The car was so lofty that the tallest man present could promenade up and down the aisle with his hat on. In winter, two or three seats are removed from one side to make way for a small stove; and, as I was rather late in taking my place, the only vacant seat I could find was one on the pew adjoining this portable fire-place. My immediate companion was a gentlemanly-looking man under forty years of age, a loose drab coat enveloping his person, and a bushy fur-cap covering his head. Directly opposite him sat a lady of about sixteen stone weight, who crushed up against the side of the car a gaunt lanky Vermonter, in such a manner as to render me apprehensive that she would occasion involuntary squirts of the tobacco-juice which he was industriously distilling from his quid. Her travelling stock consisted of a carpet-bag, almost as plump and bulky as herself, which, as she was bringing herself to a comfortable bearing, she consigned to the safe keeping of the gentleman in the drab coat. The poor man had leisure afterwards to repent of the preference shown him, for having once hoisted it upon his knee, the owner, although she constantly kept her eye fixed upon it, never offered to remove it. He could not put it on the floor, which was moist with expectoration; nor could he put it on the stove, which was already getting red-hot. He had no alternative but to carry it the whole night upon his knee; but then the ladies are used to such attentions in America. I had no reason to complain, so long as I was not the man in drab.

Finding, ere long, the heat of the stove rather uncomfortable, our traveller repaired to one of the platforms attached to the car, where he endeavoured to wile away time in the open air, smoking a cigar, observing the country, and reflecting upon that great social and political system, which, in its colossal strides, threatens ere long to monopolize the continent.

I had not been long engaged in such reflections, when from the next car, the platform of which adjoined that on which I was standing, emerged the "conductor," alias the check-taker-who is, in America, a peripatetic, instead of, as with us, a stationary functionary. Having received my ticket, he was about entering the car which I had just quitted, when he stopped short, and without speaking a word, eyed me for a moment, as if he took a great interest in me. At length, having permitted his quid to change sides in his mouth, he observed, in a tone which brooked not of contradiction, that it was "tarnation cold." To this I readily assented; when, finding me of a communicative disposition, he offered me his tobacco-box, and inquired if I preferred standing where I was to being seated within.

"'Tis but a poor choice between being frozen and being roasted," I observed. He looked at me again, as if he questioned my judgment, and then said

"You're a stranger in these parts, I reckon."

I replied that I was; and, to avoid questions, continued, that I had arrived that very day by the Hibernia, after a very boisterous passage; that I was on April.-VOL. LXXXV. NO. CCCXL.

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my way to New York, whence I intended to proceed further south, and after seeing the country, to return to Europe before the close of the year. All this he received with great apathy, and then intimated that he was merely acting the part of a friend in telling me that I would be safer inside.

"Is there any danger ?" inquired I.

Supposing there was to be an accident," said he, "you wouldn't stand no chance here."

"Do they frequently occur with you?" I demanded, somewhat hastily.

"We do sometimes run off the rail, that's all ;" said he, without the slightest emotion; and then passed into the car without deigning to know how I received the announcement. There was but a pitiful choice, certainly, between an instantaneous crush to death, and a slow broil by the stove; but, preferring the latter, I repaired to my place, and submitted to it until the train reached Worcester.

Nor is this all. Take a peep at a station, that of Worcester, where the line branches off in two :

For some minutes it appeared to me as if the Bedlam hard by had been let loose upon the station, or depôt, as it is universally called in America. To give a true picture of the confusion—the rushing to and fro-and the noise, with which all this was accompanied, is impossible. Some pounced upon the refreshment-room, as if they fancied it the up-train, and in danger of an immediate start; others flew about, frantically giving orders, which there was no one to obey; whilst by far the greater number were assuring themselves of the safety of their baggage. This was very necessary, inasmuch as the line here branched off into two; the one proceeding to Albany, and the other to Norwich, en route to New York. It is by no means an uncommon thing for a passenger to find, at his journey's end, that his luggage has, from this point, taken an independent course for itself, pursuing the shortest road to the far-west, whilst its owner is on his way south, or vice versa. This sometimes arises from the luggage being put into the wrong van, and at others from the vans themselves being put upon the wrong lines. Sometimes the separations are most heart-rending-husbands and wives, parents and children, being sent off in different directions. I found afterwards that this was the case with a lady in the carriage immediately behind that in which I sat. She had been torn both from her husband and her bandbox. She had no concern about the former, as she said he knew how to take care of himself; but her new velvet bonnet, oh!- -She consoled herself by abusing the conductor, who bore it meekly for some time, but was at last goaded into telling her that that was not the way in which to treat a gentleman, and that she had no business to get into the wrong train; from which he derived but little satisfaction, as she insisted the whole way that it was the train that was going wrong.

At Norwich, we have again the usual scramble for hotels, which were all full to overflowing, and not a spare bed to be had for love or money :

The ponderous but very comfortable arm-chairs, which invariably form the chief feature in the garniture of an American tap-room, were immediately appropriated, as were also the chairs and tables in the adjoining rooms. Some laid themselves down upon the floor, with billets of wood for their pillows. I had luckily been able to seize upon a chair, and sat for sometime musing upon the strangeness of my position. On my left sat a large burly man, about forty, in the attire of a farmer, and who, like myself, seemed indisposed to slumber. He chewed with unusual vehemence; and my attention was first attracted to him by the unerring certainty with which he expectorated over one of them, into a spittoon, which lay between two sleepers on the floor. He occasionally varied his amusement by directing his filthy distillations against the stove, from the hot side of which they sometimes glanced with the report of a pistol. Byand-bye we got into conversation, when I discovered that he was from the

Granite State, as New Hampshire is called, and that he was on his way to Oregon, via New York and Cape Horn, a distance of 15,000 miles, but of which he seemed to make very light. His only trouble was, that he would be too late for the ship, which was to sail on the following day. I observed, that in that case his disappointment must be very great, inasmuch as many weeks must elapse ere a similar opportunity again presented itself to him. He assured me that it would be very trifling, for he had made up his mind, since he had supped, should he miss the ship, to "go west" to "Illinois State." I was astonished at the facility and apparent indifference with which he abandoned the one purpose for the other. But it is this flexibility of character that is at the very foundation of American enterprise. Let your genuine Yankee find one path impracticable, and he turns directly into another, in pursuing which he never permits his energies to be crippled by futile lamentations over past disappointments.

Embarking on the steamer from Alleyn's point, on the River Thames, our traveller was borne past a tall obelisk, raised to the memory of some Americans, who are said to have been treacherously massacred, during the revolutionary war, by British soldiers :—

Whilst looking at this, two men, who were on deck, advanced and stopped within a pace or two of me. The elder, and spokesman of the two, was about forty-five years of age, and was dressed in a long overcoat, which was unbuttoned, and hung very slovenly down to his heels. He stooped, not at the shoulders, but from the stomach; whilst his sallow face was furrowed like a newly ploughed field. His lips were thin to a degree, his mouth being marked but by a sharp short line; and when he looked at you, it was with nervous and uneasy glances, furtively shot from beneath a pair of shaggy halfgrey eyebrows. His expression was malignant, his tout ensemble repulsive. I instinctively turned away from him, but it seems I was not to escape, for, having brought me, as he thought, within hearing distance, he muttered to his companion, but evidently at me--" Yes, there's a moniment raised to the eternal shame of the bloody Britishers; but we'll take the change out of them for that yet, or Colonel Polk's not my man, by G-d!" I looked at him, mechanically, as he uttered these words. He stood between me and his companion, as motionless as a statue, his eye, which turned neither to the right nor to the left, apparently fixed on the distant shore of Long Island, but with ears erect, in evident expectation of some rejoinder to this flattering harangue. Deeming it more prudent to make none, I turned away and paced the deck, which I had the satisfaction of perceiving caused him no little disappointment.

It is but just to remark, however, that this occurred during the Oregon mania, and that the man who could manifest his hostility in so gross a manner was one of the few to be met with in the sea-board and commercial States, who had been seized with the mania, and so powerfully did the poison operate upon him that he could not keep from biting.

As the steamer approached New York, a more amusing and equally characteristic scene occurred :

After breakfast, I seated myself by the stove, and commenced reading, but had been thus engaged only a few minutes when I was accosted by a stout short elderly gentleman, dressed in snuff-coloured cloth from head to foot, who made me his confidant so far as to inform me that we had been very lucky in getting a boat. Having nothing to object to so obvious a proposition, I categorically assented, in the hope of being able to resume my book. But in this I was disappointed, for he was soon joined by a middle-aged man, with very self-sufficient expression, who asked me

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'Didn't our Prez'dent's message put the old Lion's back up?"

The steamer by which I had arrived being the first that had left Liverpool

after the receipt in England of the President's warlike message, the most intense interest was manifested on all hands to know the effect which it had produced in Europe. I, therefore, replied-" Considerably."

"We expected it would rile him a bit- rayther-we did;" added he. "Didn't it frighten him a leetle?" asked the gentleman in snuff-colour. "As an Englishman, I would fain be spared the humiliating confession," replied I; "particularly as the whole will be published in the papers in the course of a few hours.'

This, as I expected, only made them the more curious. The first speaker returned to the charge, urging me to let them know what had taken place, and advising me, at the same time, that I might consider myself amongst friends; and that the Americans were not a "crowin' people."

"Well, gentlemen," said I; "if you can sympathise with a fallen enemy, I have no objection to speak plainly with you." They shook their heads affirmatively, and showed, by drawing closer to, that they really meant kindly towards me.

"The publication of the Message," I continued, " was all that was necessary to shake to its foundation the European settlement of 1815. Prince Metternich immediately dismissed Reis Effendi across the Balkan. M. Guizot notified Abd-el-Kader that the triple alliance was at an end; whilst England, in alarm, threw herself into the hands of Russia, entering into an alliance offensive and defensive with that power; and, as a guarantee of good faith, giving up the temporary possession of Tilbury Fort to the Autocrat, whose troops now garrison the key of the Thames."

"Is that the way the British Lion took the lash of Young Hickory?" asked the first speaker. "Well, I swan —”

"He needn't have been scared in such a hurry, neither," said the gentleman in snuff-colour; "for maybe we didn't mean it, after all.”

The aspect presented by New York in 1846, so much resembles that which it presented in 1844 and 1845, that it need not detain us. The steam-boat, the rail, and less frequented cities have at least the attraction of greater variety. The passenger from New York to Philadelphia has to be conveyed to the station by steam-boat across the Hudson. On gaining the opposite shore Mr. Mackay describes the passengers as jumping in crowds upon the floating slip where they landed, and flying with a precipitation which might have led one to suppose that each and every of them had been pursued by a sheriff's officer. We wonder what chance ladies have in a country where every thing, seats in carriages, berths in steam-boats, beds in hotels, and plates at dinner, are only obtained by a rush and a struggle?

The snow was drifted in wreaths on the rail, and the train, preceded by a snow-plough, would rush at these like a huge battering-ram, and if it did not succeed in forcing its way, would back and rush to the charge again and again, throwing all the passengers of a heap into the fore part of the carriages. Sometimes. in tender mercy to the said passengers, the train would be detached, and the locomotives set at it themselves, taking a good race, so as to strike with more effect. The breach at length made, back they would come for the train, which they tugged along like so many camp followers, until a fresh obstacle had to be stormed.

New as all this was to me, it was exciting and amusing enough so long as it occasioned us no serious detention; but just as we were approaching the New Brunswick station, we ran into a tremendous wreath with such force, as to baffle all our efforts to get out of it again. In vain did the engineers use every device which mortal engineer could hit upon. There were the locomo