And the Reverend Mr Reid also echoes the praise of the factory girls given by others, although he admits that their dress was above their state and condition, and that he was surprised to see them appear “in silks, with scarfs, veils, and parasols.”
Here is a mass of evidence opposed to me, but the American evidence must be received with all due caution; and as for the English, I consider it rather favourable to my side of the question than otherwise. Miss Martineau says that “the girls have too much pride for domestic service,” and, therefore, argues that they will not be immoral; now, the two great causes of women falling off from virtue, are poverty and false pride. What difference there is between receiving money for watching a spinning-jenny, and doing household work, I do not see; in either case it is servitude, although the former may be preferred, as being less under control, and leaving more time at your own disposal. I consider the pride, therefore, which Miss Martineau upholds, to be false pride, which will actuate them in other points; and when we find the factory girls vying with each other in silks and laces, it becomes a query whether the passion for dress, so universal in America, may not have its effect there as well as elsewhere. I must confess that I went to Lowell doubting all I had heard—it was so contrary to human nature that five hundred girls should live among a population of fifteen hundred, or more, all pure and virtuous, and all dressed in silks and satin.
When I went to Lowell I travelled with an American gentleman, who will, I have no doubt, corroborate my statement, and I must say that, however pure Lowell may have been at the time when the encomiums were passed upon it, I have every reason to believe, from American authority as well as my own observation, that a great alteration has taken place, and that the manufactories have retrograded with the whole mass of American society. In the first place, I never heard a more accomplished swearer, east of the Alleghanies, than one young lady who addressed me and my American friend, and as it was the only instance of swearing on the part of a female that I ever met with in the United States, it was the more remarkable. I shall only observe, that two days at Lowell convinced me that “human nature was the same every where,” and thus I dismiss the subject.
Mr Carey compels me to make a remark which I would gladly have avoided, but as he brings forward his comparative statements of the number of illegitimate children born in the two countries as a proof of the superior morality of America, I must point out to him what I suspect he is not aware of. Public opinion acts as law in America; appearances are there substituted for the reality, and provided appearances are kept up, whether it be in religion or morality, it is sufficient; but should an exposure take place, there is no mercy for the offender. As those who have really the least virtue in themselves are always the loudest to cry out at any lapse which may be discovered in others, so does society in America pour out its anathemas in the inverse ratio of its real purity. Now, although the authority I speak from is undoubted, at the same time I wish to say as little as possible. That there are fewer illegitimate children born in the United States is very true. But why so? because public opinion there acts as the bastardy clause in the new poor law bill has done in this country; and if Mr Carey will only inquire in his own city, he will find that I should be justified if I said twice as much, as I have been compelled in defence of my own country to say, upon so unpleasant a subject.
Note 1. Bigamy is not uncommon in the United States from the women being in too great a hurry to marry, and not obtaining sufficient information relative to their suitors. The punishment is chipping stone in Sing Sing for a few years. It must, however, be admitted, that when a foreigner is the party, it is rather difficult to ascertain whether the gentleman has or has not left an old wife or two in the Old World.
Note 2. A Washington belle related to me the sad story of the death of a young man who fell from a small boat into the Potomac in the night,—it is supposed in his sleep. She told me where and how his body was found; and what relations he had left; and finished with “he will be much missed at parties.”