Having enjoyed a visit to a friend in one of the suburban villas inland, to which he drove me in his light waggon, another vehicular cicerone insisted that I should drive out to his uncle's, and spend a day at his marine villa, about twelve miles distant. I joyfully assented to so pleasant a proposition, and, "hitching a three-forty before a light waggon"—as the term is in America—we were soon bowling away merrily along a capital road. A pleasant drive of nine miles brought us to a little town called Lynn, after Lynn Regis in England, from which place some of the early settlers came. How often has the traveller to regret the annihilation of the wild old Indian names, and the substitution of appellatives from every creek and corner of the older continents; with Poquanum, Sagamore, Wenepoykin, with Susquehanna, Wyoming, Miami, and a thousand other such of every length and sound, all cut-and-dried to hand, it is more than a pity to see so great a country plagiarizing in such a wholesale manner Pekins, Cantons, Turing, Troys, Carmels, Emmauses, Cairos, and a myriad other such borrowed plumes, plucked from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and hustled higgledy-piggledy side by side, without a single element or association to justify the uncalled-for robbery.

Forgive me, reader,—all this digression comes from my wishing Lynn had kept its old Indian name of Saugus; from such little acorns will such great oak-trees spring.—To resume. The said town of Lynn supplies understandings to a very respectable number of human beings, and may be called a gigantic shoemaker's shop, everything being on the gigantic scale in America. It employs 11,000, out of its total population of 14,000, in that trade, and produces annually nearly 5,000,000 of women's and children's boots, shoes, and gaiters, investing in the business a capital amounting to 250,000l. Moses and Son, Hyam and Co., Nicoll and Co., and the whole of the three-halfpence-a-shirt-paying capitalists, can show nothing like my shoemakers' shop, "fix it how you will,"—as they say in the Great Republic.

The three-forty trotter soon left boots, shoes, and all behind, and deposited us at the door of the uncle's villa, where a friendly hand welcomed us to its hospitalities. It was very prettily situated upon a cliff overlooking Massachusetts Bay, in which said cliff a zigzag stepway was cut down to the water, for the convenience of bathing. The grounds were nicely laid out and planted, and promised in time to be well wooded, if the ocean breeze driving upon them did not lay an embargo upon their growth, in the same heartless manner as it does upon the west coast of Scotland, where, the moment a tree gets higher than a mop handle, its top becomes curved over by the gales, with the same graceful sweep as that which a successful stable-boy gives a birch broom after a day's soaking. I hope, for my hospitable friend's sake, it may not prove true in his case; but I saw an ostrich-feathery curve upon the tops of some of his trees, which looked ominous. Having spent a very pleasant day, and enjoyed good cheer and good company, Three-forty was again "hitched to;" joined hands announced the parting moment had arrived; wreaths of smoke from fragrant Havanas ascended like incense from the shrine of Adieu; "G'lang"—the note of advance—was sounded; Three-forty sprang to the word of command; friends, shoes, and shoemakers were soon tailed of; and ere long your humble servant was nestling his nose in his pillow at Boston.

Hearing that the drama was investing its talent in Abolitionism, I went one evening to the theatre, to see if I could extract as much fun from the metropolis of a free state as I had previously obtained from the capital of slave-holding Maryland; for I knew the Americans, both North and South, were as ticklish as young ladies. I found very much the same style of thing as at Baltimore, except that her abolitionist highness, the Duchess of Southernblack, did not appear on the stage by deputy; but as an atonement for the omission, you had a genuine Yankee abolitionist; poor Uncle Tom and his fraternity were duly licked and bullied by a couple of heartless Southern nigger-drivers; and while their victims were writhing in agony, a genuine abolitionist comes on the stage and whops the two nigger-drivers, amid shouts of applause. The suppliant Southerners, midst sobs and tears, plead for mercy, and in vain, until the happy thought occurs to one of them, to break forth into a wondrous tale of the atrocities inflicted upon the starving and naked slaves of English mines and factories, proving by contrast the superior happiness of the nigger and the greater mercifulness of his treatment. The indignant abolitionist drops the upraised cowhide, the sobs and tears of the Southerners cease, the whole house thunders forth the ecstasy of its delight, the curtain drops, and the enchanted audience adjourn to the oyster saloons, vividly impressed with British brutality, the charms of slavery, and the superiority of Abolitionism.

How strange, that in a country like this, boasting of its education, and certainly with every facility for its prosecution—how strange, that in the very Athens of the Republic, the deluded masses should exhibit as complete ignorance as you could find in the gallery of any twopenny-halfpenny metropolitan theatre of the old country!

Another of the lions of Boston which I determined to witness, if possible, was "spirit-rapping." A friend undertook the arrangement for me; but so fully were the hours of the exhibitor taken up, that it was five days before we could obtain a spare hour. At length the time arrived, and, fortified with a good dinner and a skinful of "Mumm Cabinet," we proceeded to the witch's den. The witch was a clean and decent-looking girl about twenty, rather thin, and apparently very exhausted; gradually a party of ten assembled, and we gathered round the witch's table. The majority were ladies—those adorers of the marvellous! The names of friends were called for; the ladies took the alphabet, and running over it with the point of a pencil, the spirit rapped as the wished-for letter was reached. John Davis was soon spelt, each letter probably having been indicated by the tremulous touch of affectionate hope. Harriet Mercer was then rapped out by the obliging spirit. The pencil and the alphabet were then handed to me, and the spirit being asked if it would answer my inquiries, and a most satisfactory "Yes" being rapped out, I proceeded to put its powers to the test. I concentrated my thoughts upon a Mr. L---- and his shop in Fleet-street, with both of which being thoroughly familiar I had no difficulty in fixing my attention upon them. The pencil was put in motion, powerful rappings were heard as it touched the D. I kept my gravity, and went on again and again, till the name of the illustrious duke, whose death the civilized world was then deploring with every token of respect, was fully spelt out. The witch was in despair; she tried again and again to summon the rebellious spirit, but it would not come. At last, a gentleman present, and who evidently was an habitué of the witch's den, proposed that the refractory spirit should be asked if any of the company were objectionable to it. This being done, a rattling "Yes" came forth, upon which each person asked in succession, "Am I objectionable to you?" There was a dead silence until it came to my friend and myself, to each of whom it gave a most rappingly emphatic "Yes." Accordingly, we rose and left the field to those whose greater gullibility rendered them more plastic objects for working upon. Never in my life did I witness greater humbug; and yet so intense was the anxiety of the Boston public to witness the miracle, that during all the day and half the night the spirit was being invoked by the witch, into whose pockets were pouring the dollars of thousands of greater gabies than myself, for many went away believers, receiving the first germs of impressions which led them to a Lunatic Asylum, or an early grave, as various statistics in America prove most painfully.

To show the extent to which belief in these absurdities goes, I subjoin an extract from a paper, by which it appears that even the solemnities of a funeral cannot sober the minds of their deluded followers. Mr. Calvin R. Brown—better known as the husband of Mrs. Anne L. Fish, a famous "spirit medium" in New York—having died, we read the following notice of the funeral:—"After prayer, the Rev. S. Brittan delivered an address, in which he dwelt with much earnestness upon the superiority of the life of the spirit, as compared with that of the body. At various points in his address there were rappings, sometimes apparently on the bottom of the coffin, and at others upon the floor, as if in response to the sentiments uttered. After concluding his address, Professor Brittan read a communication purporting to have come from the deceased after his entrance into the spirit world. While it was being read, the reporter states that the rappings were distinctly heard. Several friends then sang, "Come, ye disconsolate," after which the Rev. Mr. Denning made a few remarks, during which the rappings were more audible than before. Other ceremonies closed the funeral. The whole party, preachers, physicians, and all, were spiritualists," &c.

But I have before me a letter written by Judge Edmonds, which is a more painful exemplification of the insanity superinduced by giving way to these absurdities; in that document you will find him deliberately stating, that he saw heavy tables flying about without touch, like the leaves in autumn; bells walking off shelves and ringing themselves, &c. Also, you will find him classing among his co-believers "Doctors, lawyers, clergymen, a Protestant bishop, a learned and reverend president of a college, judges of higher courts, members of congress, foreign ambassadors (I hope not Mr. Crampton), and ex-members of the United States Senate."

The ladies of the old country will, no doubt, be astonished to hear that their sisters of the younger country have medical colleges in various States; but, I believe, mostly in the northern ones. To what extent their studies in the healing art are carried, I cannot precisely inform them; it most probably will not stop at combinations of salts and senna, or spreading plasters—for which previous nursery practice with bread and butter might eminently qualify them. How deeply they will dive into the mysteries of anatomy, unravelling the tangled web of veins and arteries, and mastering the intricacies of the ganglionic centre; or how far they will practise the subjugation of their feelings, whether only enough to whip off some pet finger and darling little toe, or whether sufficiently to perform more important operations, even such as Sydney Smith declared a courageous little prime minister was ready to undertake at a minute's notice; these are questions which I cannot answer: but one thing is clear, the wedge is entered. How far it will be driven in, time must show.[[AK]]

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