Cincinnati, March 7.
My arrival in Cincinnati this morning was anything but triumphal.
On leaving the car, I gave my check to a cab-driver, who soon came to inform me that my valise was broken. It was a leather one, and on being thrown from the baggage-van on the platform, it burst open, and all my things were scattered about. In England or in France, half a dozen porters would have immediately come to the rescue, but here the porter is practically unknown. Three or four men belonging to the company gathered round, but, neither out of complaisance nor in the hope of gain, did any of them offer his services. They looked on, laughed, and enjoyed the scene. I daresay the betting was brisk as to whether I should succeed in putting my things together or not. Thanks to a leather strap I had in my bag, I managed to bind the portmanteau and have it placed on the cab that drove to the Burnet House.
Immediately after registering my name, I went to buy an American trunk, that is to say, an iron-bound trunk, to place my things in safety. I have been told that trunk makers give a commission to the railway and transfer baggagemen who, having broken trunks, recommend their owners to go to such and such a place to buy new ones. This goes a long way toward explaining the way in which baggage is treated in America.
MY BROKEN VALISE.
On arriving in the dining-room, I was surprised to see the glasses of all the guests filled with lemonade. “Why,” thought I, “here is actually an hotel which is not like all the other hotels.” The lemonade turned out to be water from the Ohio River. I could not help feeling grateful for a change; any change, even that of the color of water. Anybody who has traveled a great deal in America will appreciate the remark.
Cincinnati is built at the bottom of a funnel from which rise hundreds of chimneys vomiting fire and smoke. From the neighboring heights, the city looks like a huge furnace, and so it is, a furnace of industry and activity. It reminded me of Glasgow.
If the city itself is anything but attractive, the residential parts are perfectly lovely. I have seen nothing in America that surpasses Burnet Wood, situated on the bordering heights of the town, scattered with beautiful villas, and itself a mixture of a wilderness and a lovely park. A kind friend drove me for three hours through the entire neighborhood, giving me, in American fashion, the history of the owner of each residence we passed. Here was the house of Mr. A., or rather Mr. A. B. C, every American having three names. He came to the city twenty years ago without a dollar. Five years later he had five millions. He speculated and lost all, went to Chicago and made millions, which he afterward lost. Now again he has several millions, and so on. This is common enough in America. By and by, we passed the most beautiful of all the villas of Burnet Wood—the house of the Oil King, Mr. Alexander Macdonald, one of those wonderfully successful men, such as Scotland alone can boast all the world over. America has been a great field for the display of Scotch intelligence and industry.
After visiting the pretty museum at Eden Park, a museum organized in 1880 in consequence of Mr. Charles W. West’s offer to give $150,000 for that purpose, and already in possession of very good works of art and many valuable treasures, we returned to the city and stopped at the Public Library. Over 200,000 volumes, representing all the branches of science and literature, are there, as well as a collection of all the newspapers of the world, placed in chronological order on the shelves and neatly bound. I believe that this collection of newspapers and that of Washington are the two best known. In the public reading-room, hundreds of people are running over the newspapers from Europe and all the principal cities of the United States. My best thanks are due to Mr. Whelpley, the librarian, for his kindness in conducting me all over this interesting place. Upstairs I was shown the room where the members of the Council of Education hold their sittings. The room was all topsy-turvey. Twenty-six desks and twenty-six chairs was about all the furniture of the room. In a corner, piled up together, were the cuspidores. I counted. Twenty-six. Right.