CHAPTER XXXI.
Virginia—The Hotels—The South—I will Kill a Railway Conductor before I leave America—Philadelphia—Impressions of the Old City.
Petersburg, Va., March 3.
Left New York last night and arrived here at noon. No change in the scenery. The same burnt-up fields, the same placards all over the land. The roofs of houses, the trees in the forests, the fences in the fields, all announce to the world the magic properties of castor oil, aperients, and liver pills.
| MY SUPPER. |
A little village inn in the bottom of old Brittany is a palace of comfort compared to the best hotel of a Virginia town. I feel wretched. My bedroom is so dirty that I shall not dare to undress to-night. I have just had lunch: a piece of tough dried-up beef, custard pie, and a glass of filthy water, the whole served by an old negro on an old, ragged, dirty table-cloth.
Petersburg, which awakes so many souvenirs of the War of Secession, is a pretty town scattered with beautiful villas. It strikes one as a provincial town. To me, coming from the busy North, it looks asleep. The South has not yet recovered from its disasters of thirty years ago. That is what struck me most, when, two years ago, I went through Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia.
Now and then American eccentricity reveals itself. I have just seen a church built on the model of a Greek temple, and surmounted with a pointed spire lately added. Just imagine to yourself Julius Cæsar with his toga and buskin on, and having a chimney-top hat on his head.
The streets seemed deserted, dead.
To my surprise, the Opera House was crowded to-night. The audience was fashionable and appreciative, but very cool, almost as cool as in Connecticut and Maine.
Heaven be praised! a gentleman invited me to have supper at a club after the lecture.
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March 4.
I am sore all over. I spent the night on the bed, outside, in my day clothes, and am bruised all over. I have pains in my gums too. Oh, that piece of beef yesterday! I am off to Philadelphia. My bill at the hotel amounts to $1.50. Never did I pay so much through the nose for what I had through the mouth.
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Philadelphia, March 4.
Before I return to Europe I will kill a railway conductor.
“IMAGINE JULIUS CÆSAR WITH A BIG HAT.”
From Petersburg to Richmond I was the only occupant of the parlor car. It was bitterly cold. The conductor of the train came in the smoke-room, and took a seat. I suppose it was his right, although I doubt it, for he was not the conductor attached to the parlor car. He opened the window. The cold, icy air fell on my legs, or (to use a more proper expression, as I am writing in Philadelphia) on my lower limbs. I said nothing, but rose and closed the window. The fellow frowned, rose, and opened the window again.
“Excuse me,” I said; “I thought that perhaps you had come here to look after my comfort. If you have not I will look after it myself.” And I rose and closed the window.
“I want the window open,” said the conductor, and he prepared to re-open it, giving me a mute, impudent scowl.
I was fairly roused. Nature has gifted me with a biceps and a grip of remarkable power. I seized the man by the collar of his coat.
“As true as I am alive,” I exclaimed, “if you open this window, I will pitch you out of it.” And I prepared for war. The cur sneaked away and made an exit compared to which a whipped hound’s would be majestic.
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I am at the Bellevue, a delightful hotel. My friend Wilson Barrett is here, and I have come to spend the day with him. He is playing every night to crowded houses, and after each performance he has to make a speech. This is his third visit to Philadelphia. During the first visit, he tells me that the audience wanted a speech after each act.
It is always interesting to compare notes with a friend who has been over the same ground as yourself. So I was eager to hear Mr. Wilson Barrett’s impressions of his long tour in the States.
Several points we both agreed perfectly upon at once; the charming geniality and good-fellowship of the best Americans, the brilliancy and naturalness of the ladies, the wonderful intelligence and activity of the people, and the wearing monotony of life on the road.
THE WHIPPED CONDUCTOR.
After the scene in the train, I was interested, too, to find that the train conductors—those mute, magnificent monarchs of the railroad—had awakened in Mr. Barrett much the same feeling as in myself. We Europeans are used to a form of obedience or, at least, deference from our paid servants, and the arrogant attitude of the American wage-earner first amazes, and then enrages us—when we have not enough humor, or good-humor, to get some amusement out it. It is so novel to be tyrannized over by people whom you pay to attend to your comfort! The American keeps his temper under the process, for he is the best-humored fellow in the world. Besides, a small squabble is no more in his line than a small anything else. It is not worth his while. The Westerner may pull out a pistol and shoot you if you annoy him, but neither he nor the Eastern man will wrangle for mastery.
A BOSS.
If such was not the case, do you believe for a moment that the Americans would submit to the rule of the “Rings,” the “Leaders,” and the “Bosses”?
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I like Philadelphia, with its magnificent park, its beautiful houses that look like homes. It is not brand new, like the rest of America.
My friend, Mr. J. M. Stoddart, editor of Lippincott’s Magazine, has kindly chaperoned me all the day.
I visited in detail the State House, Independence Square. These words evoke sentiments of patriotism in the hearts of the Americans. Here was the bell that “proclaimed liberty throughout the Colonies” so loudly that it split. It was on the 8th of July, 1776, that the bell was rung, as the public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place in the State House on that day, and there were great rejoicings. John Adams, writing to Samuel Chase on the 9th of July, said: “The bell rang all day, and almost all night.”
| THE OLD LIBERTY BELL. |
It is recorded by one writer that, on the 4th of July, when the motion to adopt the declaration passed the majority of the Assembly, although not signed by all the delegates, the old bell-ringer awaited anxiously, with trembling hope, the signing. He kept saying: “They’ll never do it, they’ll never do it!” but his eyes expanded, and his grasp grew firm when the voice of a blue-eyed youth reached his ears in shouts of triumph as he flew up the stairs of the tower, shouting: “Ring, grandpa, ring; they’ve signed!”
What a day this old “Liberty Bell” reminds you of!
There, in the Independence Hall, the delegates were gathered. Benjamin Harrison, the ancestor of the present occupier of the White House, seized John Hancock, upon whose head a price was set, in his arms, and placing him in the presidential chair, said: “We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making our president a Massachusetts man, whom she has excluded from pardon by public proclamation,” and, says Mr. Chauncey M. Depew in one of his beautiful orations, when they were signing the Declaration, and the slender Elbridge Gerry uttered the grim pleasantry, “We must hang together, or surely we will hang separately,” the portly Harrison responded with more daring humor, “It will be all over with me in a moment, but you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone.”
| THE INKSTAND. |
The National Museum is the auxiliary chamber to Independence Hall, and there you find many most interesting relics of Colonial and Revolutionary days: the silver inkstand used in signing the famous Declaration; Hancock’s chair; the little table upon which the document was signed, and hundreds of souvenirs piously preserved by generations of grateful Americans.
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It is said that Philadelphia has produced only two successful men, Mr. Wanamaker, the great dry-goods-store man, now a member of President Benjamin Harrison’s Cabinet, and Mr. George W. Childs, proprietor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, one of the most important and successful newspapers in the United States.
I went to Mr. Wanamaker’s dry-goods-store, an establishment strongly reminding you of the Paris Bon Marché, or Mr. Whiteley’s warehouses in London.
By far the most interesting visit was that which I paid to Mr. George W. Childs in his study at the Public Ledger’s offices. It would require a whole volume to describe in detail all the treasures that Mr. Childs has accumulated: curios of all kinds, rare books, manuscripts and autographs, portraits, china, relics from the celebrities of the world, etc. Mr. Childs, like the Prussians during their unwelcome visit to France in 1870, has a strong penchant for clocks. Indeed his collection is the most remarkable in existence. His study is a beautiful sanctum sanctorum; it is also a museum that not only the richest lover of art would be proud to possess, but that any nation would be too glad to acquire, if it could be acquired; but Mr. Childs is a very wealthy man, and he means to keep it, and, I understand, to hand it over to his successor in the ownership of the Public Ledger.
Mr. George W. Childs is a man of about fifty years of age, short and plump, with a most kind and amiable face. His munificence and philanthropy are well known and, as I understand his character, I believe he would not think much of my gratitude to him for the kindness he showed me if I dwelt on them in these pages.
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Thanks to my kind friends, every minute has been occupied visiting some interesting place, or meeting some interesting people. I shall lecture here next month, and shall look forward to the pleasure of being in Philadelphia again.
WHEN IRELAND IS FREE.
At the Union League Club I met Mr. Rufus E. Shapley, who kindly gave me a copy of his clever and witty political satire, “Solid for Mulhooly,” illustrated by Mr. Thomas Nast. I should advise any one who would understand how Jonathan is ruled municipally, to peruse this little book. It gives the history of Pat’s rise from the Irish cabin in Connaught to the City Hall of the large American cities.
“When one man,” says Mr. Shapley, “owns and dominates four wards or counties, he becomes a leader. Half a dozen such leaders combined constitute what is called a Ring. When one leader is powerful enough to bring three or four such leaders under his yoke, he becomes a Boss; and a Boss wields a power almost as absolute, while it lasts, as that of the Czar of Russia or the King of Zululand.”
Extracts from this book would not do it justice. It should be read in its entirety. I read it with all the more pleasure that, in “Jonathan and His Continent,” I ventured to say: “The English are always wondering why Americans all seem to be in favor of Home Rule, and ready to back up the cause with their dollars. Why? I will tell you. Because they are in hopes that, when the Irish recover the possession of Ireland, they will all go home.”
A foreigner who criticises a nation is happy to see his opinions shared by the natives.
