“That person,” replied the Doctor, “is the celebrated Cockburn of Rochester, the universal statistician[statistician], who has weighed, measured, proportioned, and calculated everything. Question this harmless maniac, he will tell you how much bread a man of fifty has eaten in his life, and how many cubic feet of air he has breathed. He will tell you how many volumes in quarto the words of a Temple lawyer would fill, and how many miles the postman goes daily carrying nothing but love-letters; he will tell you the number of widows who pass in one hour over London Bridge, and what would be the height of a pile of sandwiches consumed by the citizens of the Union in a year; he will tell you—”
The Doctor, in his excitement, would have continued for a long time in this strain, but other passengers passing us were attracted by the inexhaustible stock of his original remarks. What different characters there were in this crowd of passengers! not one idler, however, for one does not go from one continent to the other without some serious motive. The most part of them were undoubtedly going to seek their fortunes on American ground, forgetting that at twenty years of age a Yankee has made his fortune, and that at twenty-five he is already too old to begin the struggle.
Among these adventurers, inventors, and fortune-hunters, Dean Pitferge pointed out to me some singularly interesting characters. Here was a chemist, a rival of Dr. Liebig, who pretended to have discovered the art of condensing all the nutritious parts of a cow into a meat-tablet, no larger than a five-shilling piece. He was going to coin money out of the cattle of the Pampas. Another, the inventor of a portable motive-power—a steam horse in a watch-case—was going to exhibit his patent in New England. Another, a Frenchman from the “Rue Chapon,” was carrying to America 30,000 cardboard dolls, which said “papa” with a very successful Yankee accent, and he had no doubt but that his fortune was made.
But besides these originals, there were still others whose secrets we could not guess; perhaps among them was some cashier flying from his empty cash-box, and a detective making friends with him, only waiting for the end of the passage to take him by the collar; perhaps also we might have found in this crowd clever genii, who always find people ready to believe in them, even when they advocate the affairs of “The Oceanic Company for lighting Polynesia with gas,” or “The Royal Society for making incombustible coal.”
But at this moment my attention was attracted by the entrance of a young couple who seemed to be under the influence of a precocious weariness.
“They are Peruvians, my dear sir,” said the Doctor, “a couple married a year ago, who have been to all parts of the world for their honeymoon. They adored each other in Japan, loved in Australia, bore with one another in India, bored each other in France, quarrelled in England, and will undoubtedly separate in America.”
“And,” said I, “who is that tall, haughty-looking man just coming in? from his appearance I should take him for an officer.”
“He is a Mormon,” replied the doctor, “an elder, Mr. Hatch, one of the great preachers in the city of Saints. What a fine type of manhood he is! Look at his proud eye, his noble countenance, and dignified bearing, so different from the Yankee. Mr. Hatch is returning from Germany and England, where he has preached Mormonism with great success, for there are numbers of this sect in Europe, who are allowed to conform to the laws of their country.”
“Indeed!” said I; “I quite thought that polygamy was forbidden them in Europe.”
“Undoubtedly, my dear sir, but do not think that polygamy is obligatory on Mormons; Brigham Young has his harem, because it suits him, but all his followers do not imitate him, not even those dwelling on the banks of the Salt Lake.”