Last winter in the United States

by F. Barham Zincke

There remains the class which corresponds with what we call the Upper Ten Thousand—that is, the class of the refined and highly educated. Now, these persons do themselves form the aristocracy of American society. It is true that, speaking generally, they are all in business of one kind or another, some even in what we would speak of as retail business; but, in the almost total absence of anything higher, they constitute, and feel that they do so, a kind of social aristocracy. And though most of them would, theoretically, condemn aristocracies, yet they would have neither a contemptuous nor a bitter feeling against what they were condemning. Some of this class, following an inextinguishable feeling of human nature, have begun to look about, and see whether they are not connected by descent with old families of the old country. And this instantly gives rise to exclusiveness of feeling, because they are seeking for an advantage in which the multitude cannot participate. Here, therefore, it would be contradictory and inconsistent were there any strong feeling against aristocracy. Of themselves, such persons would be far more disposed to leave the thing alone, than to join in any endeavours to overturn it. But, practically, it is of little consequence, except to themselves, what this class thinks or feels. The majority disposes of everything in America; and the first step towards gaining its support in the race for power and place, is to suppress in one’s self everything that would be distasteful to it.

For himself an American claims the same social position which in Europe is accorded to the possessors of hereditary wealth and hereditary titles; and he grounds his claim on the simple fact that he is an American. It may be as well that we should recognise and that he should enforce this claim; because it is part of a system which has for its aim to elevate every individual in the population of a mighty continent, by awakening in each a sense of political responsibility, by opening every career to everyone, and by obliging all to think for, and to depend on, themselves. This is a grander effort than any other political system has ever before made for humanity; and it is being worked out under the most favourable circumstances, for in America there are employment, food, and position for everybody, and no old and firmly established antagonistic institutions to be fought against and overthrown in opening the course for the new order of things. Slavery alone was arrayed against it; but that having been swept away in a convulsion that was felt not in America only, but all over the civilised world, the stage is now everywhere perfectly clear, and the great experiment can be fairly tried.

CHAPTER XIV.

PRAIRIE FROM CHICAGO TO OMAHA—PLAINS FROM NORTH PLATTE TO THE MOUNTAINS—OMAHA, THE INTERSECTION OF THE PACIFIC RAILWAY AND THE MISSOURI—TEMPORARY BRIDGE OVER THE MISSOURI—INDIFFERENCE TO RISKS AFFECTING LIFE—A PRAIRIE FIRE—THE FOREST ON THE MOUNTAINS ON FIRE—FIRE THE CAUSE OF THE TREELESSNESS OF THE PRAIRIES—FIRST-FOUND ANIMAL LIFE ABOUNDING IN THE VALLEY OF THE PLATTE—‘THE HARDEST PLACE, SIR, ON THIS CONTINENT’—ITS PREDECESSOR—HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH LYNCH LAW AT SHYENNE—MY FIRST NIGHT IN SHYENNE—A SECOND NIGHT AT SHYENNE—NECESSITY AND ADVANTAGES OF LYNCH LAW—‘THE USE OF THE PISTOL’—A MAN SHOT BECAUSE ‘HE MIGHT HAVE DONE SOME MISCHIEF’—NEWNESS OF ASPECTS BOTH OF SOCIETY AND OF NATURE.

I left Chicago for the Rocky Mountains at 3 P. M. Twice the day wore out, and twice the night came down on the prairie, and twice the sun rose from the level horizon as it were out of the sea; and the third night was closing in upon us, before the iron horse, that never tires, could bring us to the farther side of the land-ocean, here 1,000 miles wide. And such is the scale of all alike, of plains and valleys, of rivers, forests, lakes and mountains, in the United States.

In this journey we crossed the Mississippi at Fulton, by a covered wooden bridge a mile in length, the Missouri at Omaha, and the north fork of the Platte, at a place called North Platte, by a bridge that appeared to be about half a mile long.

The Prairie to Omaha.

As far as Omaha—that is, for the first 500 miles—and then again for some distance beyond Omaha, the prairie is generally of a deep black soil, capable of producing most abundant crops of anything. The first 300 miles is all settled. The remainder is taken up and partially settled, of course more closely in the neighbourhood of Omaha, and none of it can now be had in lots contiguous to the railway at less than thirty dollars an acre. This will give some conception of the inexhaustible agricultural wealth of the United States.

As the Platte is approached, you enter on the dry prairie, where there is not sufficient rain to admit of cultivation. There is, however, abundance of the finest grass for sheep and cattle, and this continues for 300 miles more to the foot of the mountains. This dry region is called ‘The Plains.’

Of all the astonishing sights in this land of surprises, none takes one more by surprise than the town of Omaha. At home we have been taught to regard Chicago as the extremity of civilisation, and therefore as one of the wonders of the world. But when you have turned your back on Chicago, and been borne away into the western prairie by the locomotive for 500 miles, you find that you have reached a thriving town, of brick buildings and large hotels, containing now 16,000 inhabitants, and which is destined to become—probably in a very few years—a second Chicago. For, being on the Pacific Railway, the grandest of all railways, as well as on that grandest of all arterial lines of water-communication, the Missouri, which is navigable for a thousand miles beyond the town for the same steamer that might have ascended the stream from New Orleans, it must soon become the depôt for the two greatest lines of American traffic—that between the East and the West, and that between the North and the South, which will cross here. It does not appear possible that anything can arise to prevent its expanding, with a rapidity unexampled even in America, into one of the great commercial centres of this vast and rich continent.