LETTER I.

WHAT THE WRITER HAS SEEN OF THIS WORLD FOR TWENTY-FOUR DAYS.—THE PASSENGERS OF THE BRITANNIA.—THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE AMERICAN AND ENGLISH CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS.—THE WORKING CLASSES.—FEMALE DRESS.—BUSTLES.—WRITING AGAINST THE DOCTOR’S ORDERS, ETC.

My Dear Morris.—All I have seen of England for the last twelve days, has been the four walls of a bedroom, and, as all I saw of the world for the twelve days previous, was the interior of a packet’s state-room, I may fairly claim, like the razor-grinder, to have “no story to tell.” You shall have, however, what cobwebs I picked from the corners.

If the ‘Britannia’ had burnt on the passage, and a phœnix had arisen from its ashes, the phœnix would have been a well compounded cosmopolite, for—did you ever see such variety of nation in one ship’s company as this?

FromEngland,16FromMexico,1
Scotland,6West Indies,2
Ireland,3East Indies,3
Wales,1British Guiana,1
Canada,2Guatamala,2
United States,12Denmark,1
France,4Poland,1
Spain,1Germany,9

Of the Germans, 2 were from Hanover, 2 from Hamburgh, 1 from Baden, 1 from Lubec, 2 from Bremen, and 1 from Heinault. Mr. Robert Owen was one of the Scotchmen, and he was the only one on board, I fancy, for whom fame had made any great outlay of trumpeting. Six clergymen (!!) served as our protection against the icebergs. I doubt whether the Atlantic, had, ever before such a broadwake of divinity drawn across it. Probably, the true faith was in some one of their keepings!

I wish to ask a personal favor of all the friends of the Journal who are in the offices of the American Custom Houses, viz: that they would retaliate upon Englishmen in the most vexatious manner possible, the silly and useless impediments thrown in the way of passengers landing at Liverpool. We dropped anchor with a Custom House steamer alongside, and our baggage lay on deck two hours, (time enough to be examined twice over) before it was transferred to the government vessel. We and our baggage were then taken ashore and landed at a Custom House. But not to be examined there! Oh, no! It must be put into carts, and carried a mile and a half to another Custom House, and there it would be delivered to us if we were there to see it examined! We landed at ten o’clock in the morning, and with my utmost exertions, I did not get my baggage till three. The cost to me, of porterage, fees, etc., was three dollars and a half, besides the theft of two or three small articles belonging to my child. I was too ill to laugh, and I therefore passed the matter over to my resentments.

During the four or five hours that I was playing the hanger-on to a vulgar and saucy custom house officer at Liverpool, one or two contrasts crept in at my dull eyes—contrasts between what I had left, and what was before me. The most striking was the utter want of hope in the countenances of the working classes—the look of dogged submission and animal endurance of their condition of life. They act like horses and cows. A showy equipage goes by, and they have not the curiosity to look up. Their gait is that of tired donkeys, saving as much trouble at leg-lifting as possible. Their mouths and eyes are wholly sensual, expressing no capability of a want above food. Their dress is without a thought of more than warmth and covering, drab covered with dirt. Their voices are a half-note above a grunt. Indeed, comparing their condition with the horse, I would prefer being an English horse to being an English working-man. And you will easily see the very strong contrast there is, between this picture, and that of the ambitious and lively working-men of our country.

Another contrast strikes, probably, all Americans on first landing—that of female dress. The entire absence of the ornamental—of any thing indeed, except decent covering—in all classes below the wealthy, is particularly English and particularly un-American. I do not believe you would find ten female servants in New-York without (pardon my naming it) a “bustle.” Yet I saw as many as two hundred women in the streets of Liverpool, and not one with a bustle! I saw some ladies get out of carriages who wore them, so that it is not because it is not the fashion, but simply because the pride (of those whose backs form but one line) does not outweigh the price of the bran. They wore thick shoes, such as scarcely a man would wear with us, no gloves of course, and their whole appearance was that of females in whose minds never entered the thought of ornament on week days. This trifling exponent of the condition of women in England, has a large field of speculation within and around it, and the result of philosophizing on it would be vastly in favor of our side of the water.

As this letter is written on my first day of sitting up, and directly against the doctor’s orders, you will give my invalid brain the credit of coming cheerfully into harness.