On leaving New York a friend of mine, a Custom House officer, told me he needed a coast coat, suitable to the service he was engaged in, and that he would be much obliged if I would have one made for him in England. He would leave it to me to contrive how it could reach him. The coat he wanted, he said, would cost him £9 in New York. I had it made in London, entirely to his satisfaction, for £4 15s., but how to get it to him free of Custom duties was a problem. I had to wait until a friend of mine—a property owner in Montreal—was returning there. He went out in the vessel in which Princess Louise sailed. He wore it occasionally on deck to qualify it being regarded as a personal garment. So it arrived duty free at Montreal. After looking about for two or three months for a friend who would wear it across the frontier, it arrived, after six months' travelling diplomacy, at the house of my friend in New York.
I did not find in America or Canada anything more wonderful, beggarly and humiliating than the policy of Protection. But we are not without counterparts in folly of another kind.
Visitors to England no doubt wonder to find us, a commercial nation, fining the merchant of enterprise a shilling (the workman was so fined until late years) for every pound he expends on journeys of business—keeping a travelling tax to discourage trade. But John Bull does not profess to be over-bright, while Uncle Sam thinks himself the smartest man in creation. We retain in 1904 a tax Peel condemned in 1844. But then we live under a monarchy, from which Uncle Sam is free.
France used to be the one land which was hospitable to new ideas, and for that it is still pre-eminent in Europe. But America excels Europe now in this respect. Canada has not emerged from its Colonialism, and has no national aspiration. Voltaire found when he was in London, that England had fifty religions and only one sauce. America has no distinction in sauces, but it has more than 200 religions, and having no State Church there is no poison of Social Ascendency in piety, but equality in worship and prophesying. I found that a man might be of any religion he pleased—though as a matter of civility he was expected to be of some—and if he said he was of none, he was thought to be phenomenally fastidious, if not one of theirs would suit him, since America provided a greater variety for the visitor to choose from than any other country in the world.
Though naturally disappointed at being unable to suit the stranger's taste, they were not intolerant. He was at liberty to import or invent a religion of his own. Let not the reader imagine that because people are free to believe as they please, there is no religion in America.
Nearing Santa Fe in New Mexico, I passed by the adobe temple of Montezuma. Adobe is pronounced in three syllables—a-do-be—and is the Mexican name for a mud-built house, which is usually one story high; so that Santa Fe has been compared to a town blown down. When the Emperor Montezuma perished he told his followers to keep the fire burning in the Temple, as he would come again from the east, and they should see "his face bright and fair." In warfare and pestilence and decimation of their race, these faithful worshippers kept the fire burning night and day for three centuries, and it has not long been extinguished. Europe can show no faith so patient, enduring, and pathetic as this.
The pleasantest hours of exploration I spent in Santa Fe were in the old church of San Miguel. Though the oldest church in America, there are those who would remove rather than restore it. A book lay upon an altar in which all who would subscribe to save it had inserted their names, and I added mine for five shillings.
When an Englishman goes abroad, he takes with him a greater load of prejudices than any man of any other nation could bear, and, as a rule, he expresses pretty freely his opinion of things which do not conform to his notions, as though the inhabitants ought to have consulted his preferences, forgetting that in his own country he seldom shows that consideration to others. On fit occasion I did not withhold my opinion of things which seemed to me capable of improvement; but before giving my impressions I thought over what equivalent absurdity existed in England, and by comparing British instances with those before me, no one took offence—some were instructed or amused at finding that hardly any nation enjoyed a monopoly of stupidity. There is all the difference in the world between saying to an international host, "How badly you do things in your country," and saying, "We are as unsuccessful as you in 'striking twelve all at once.'"
We all know the maxim: "'Before finding fault with another, think of your own." But Charles Dickens, with all his brightness, forgot this when he wrote of America. Few nations have as yet attained perfection in all things—not even England.
When in Boston, America, 1879, I went to the best Bible store I could find or be directed to, to purchase a copy of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. In a church where I had to make a discourse, I wanted to read the dialogue between the prophet Esdras and the angel Uriel. The only copy I could obtain was on poor, thin paper; of small, almost invisible print, and meanly bound. The price was 4s. 2d. "How is it," I inquired, "that you ask so much in the Hub of the Universe for even this indifferent portion of Scripture—seeing that at the house of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, in Northumberland Avenue, London, a house ten times handsomer than yours, in a much more costly situation—I can buy the same book on good, strong paper, in large type, in a bright, substantial cover for exactly 3s. less than you ask me." "You see, sir," said the manager of the store, "we have duty to pay." "Duty!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean me to understand that in this land of Puritan Christians, you tax the means of salvation?" He did not like to admit that, and could not deny it, so after a confused moment he answered: "All books imported have to pay twenty-five per cent, duty." All I could say was that "it seemed to me that their protective duties protected sin; and, being interested in the welfare of emigrants, I must make a note counselling all who wish to be converted, to get that done before coming out; for if they arrive in America in an unconverted state they could not afford to be converted here." Until then I was unaware that Protection protected the Devil, and that he had a personal interest in its enactment.