The two places beside our own in the inside were occupied by a lady and her maid and two children—an interpretation of number two to which I would not have agreed if I could have helped it. We cannot always tell at first sight what will be most amusing, however; and the child of two years, who sprawled over my rheumatic knees with her mother’s permission, thereby occasioning on my part a most fixed look out of the window, furnished me with a curious bit of observation. At one of the commons we passed, the children running out from a gipsy encampment flung bunches of heath flowers into the coach, which the little girl appropriated, and commenced presenting rather graciously to her mother, the maid, and Mrs. W., all of whom received them with smiles and thanks. Having rather a sulky face of my own when not particularly called on to be pleased, the child omitted me for a long time in her distributions. At last, after collecting and redistributing the flowers for above an hour, she grew suddenly grave, laid the heath all out upon her lap, selected the largest and brightest flowers, and made them into a nosegay. My attention was attracted by the seriousness of the child’s occupation; and I was watching her without thinking my notice observed, when she raised her eyes to me timidly, turned her new boquet over and over, and at last, with a blush, deeper than I ever saw before upon a child, placed the flowers in my hand and hid her face in her mother’s bosom. My sulkiness gave way, of course, and the little coquette’s pleasure in her victory was excessive. For the remainder of the journey, those who had given her their smiles too readily were entirely neglected, and all her attentions were showered upon the only one she had found it difficult to please. I thought it as pretty a specimen of the ruling passion strong in baby-hood as I ever saw. It was a piece of finished coquetry in a child not old enough to speak plain.
The coachman of “the Age” was a young man of perhaps thirty, who is understood to have run through a considerable fortune, and drives for a living—but he was not at all the sort of looking person you would fancy for a “swell whip.” He drove beautifully, helped the passengers out and in, lifted their baggage, &c., very handily, but evidently shunned notice, and had no desire to chat with the “outsides.” The excessive difficulty in England of finding any clean way of making a living after the initiatory age is passed—a difficulty which reduced gentlemen feel most keenly—probably forced this person as it has others to take up a vocation for which the world fortunately finds an excuse in eccentricity. He touches his hat for the half crown or shilling, although probably if it were offered to him when the whip was out of his hand he would knock the giver down for his impertinence. I may as well record here, by the way, for the benefit of those who may wish to know a comparison between the expense of travelling hero and at home, for two inside places for thirty miles the coach fare was two pounds, and the coachman’s fee five shillings, or half a-crown each inside. To get from the post town to —— Park (two miles) cost me five-and-sixpence for a “fly,” so that for thirty-two miles travel I paid 2l. 10s. 6d., a little more than twelve dollars.
And speaking of vocations, it would be a useful lesson to some of our ambitious youths to try a beginning at getting a living in England. I was never at all aware of the difficulty of finding even bread and salt for a young man till I had occasion lately to endeavor to better the condition of a servant of my own—a lad who has been with me four or five years, and whose singular intelligence, good principle and high self-improvement, fitted him, I thought, for any confidential trust or place whatever.[[2]] His own ideas, too (I thought, not unreasonably,) had become somewhat sublimated in America, and he was unwilling to continue longer as a servant. He went home to his mother, a working woman of London, and I did my utmost, the month I was in town, inquiring among all classes of my friends, advertising, &c., to find him any possible livelihood above menial service. I was met everywhere with the same answer; “There are hundreds of gentleman’s sons wearing out their youth in looking for the same thing.” I was told daily that it was quite in vain—that apprenticeships were as much sought as clerkships, and that every avenue to the making of a sixpence was overcrammed and inaccessible. My boy and his mother at last came to their senses; and, consenting to apply once more for a servant’s place, he was fortunate enough to engage as valet to bachelor, and is now gone with his new master on a tour to France. As Harding the painter said to me, when he returned after his foreign trip; “England is a great place to take the nonsense out of people.”
When London shall have become the Rome or Athens of a fallen empire (qu. will it ever?) the termini of the railways will be among its finest ruins. That of the Birmingham and Liverpool track is almost as magnificent as that flower of sumptuousness, the royal palace of Caserta, near Naples. It is really an impressive scene simply to embark for “Brummagem;” and there is that utility in all this showy expenditure for arch, gateway, and pillar, that no one is admitted but the passenger, and you are refreshingly permitted to manage your baggage, &c. without the assistance of a hundred blackguards at a shilling each. Then there are “ladies’ waiting-rooms,” and “gentlemen’s waiting-rooms,” and attached to them every possible convenience, studiously clean and orderly. I wish the president and directors of the Utica and other American railroads would step over and take a sumptuary hint.
The cars are divided into stalls, i. e. each passenger is cushioned off by a stuffed partition from his neighbor’s shoulder, and sleeps without offence or encroachment. When they are crowded, that is an admirable arrangement; but I have found it very comfortable in long journeys in America to take advantage of an empty car, and stretch myself to sleep along the vacant seat. Here, full or empty, you can occupy but your upright place. In every car are suspended lamps to give light during the long passages through the subterranean tunnels.
We rolled from under the Brobdignag roof of the terminus, as the church of Mary-le-bone (Cockney for Marie la-bonne, but so carved on the frieze) struck six. Our speed was increased presently to thirty miles in the hour; and with the exception of the slower rate in passing the tunnels, and the slackening and getting under way at the different stations, this rate was kept up throughout. We arrived at Liverpool (205 miles or upward) at three o’clock, our stoppages having exceeded an hour altogether.
I thought toward the end, that all this might be very pleasant with a consignment of buttons or an errand to Gretna Green. But for the pleasure of the thing I would as lief sit in an arm-chair and see bales of striped green silk unfolded for eight hours as travel the same length of time by the railroad. (I have described in this simile exactly the appearance of the fields as you see them in flying past.) The old women and cabbages gain by it, perhaps, for you cannot tell whether they are not girls and roses. The washerwoman at her tub follows the lady on the lawn so quickly that you confound the two irresistibly—the thatched cottages look like browsing donkeys, and the browsing donkeys like thatched cottages—you ask the name of a town, and by the time you get up your finger you point at a spot three miles off—in short, the salmon well packed in straw on the top of the coach, and called fresh fish after a journey of 200 miles, sees quite as much of the country as his most intellectual fellow-passenger. I foresee in all this a new distinction in phraseology. “Have you travelled in England?” will soon be a question having no reference to railroads. The winding turnpike and cross-roads, the coaches and post carriages, will be resumed by all those who consider the sense of sight as useful in travel, and the bagmen and letter-bags will have almost undisputed possession of the rail-cars.
The Adelphi is the Astor house of Liverpool, a very large and showy hotel near the terminus of the railway. We were shown into rather a magnificent parlor on our arrival; and very hungry with rail-roading since six in the morning, we ordered dinner at their earliest convenience. It came after a full hour, and we sat down to four superb silver covers, anticipating a meal corresponding to the stout person and pompous manners of the fattest waiter I have seen in my travels. The grand cover was removed with a flourish and disclosed—divers small bits of second hand beefsteak, toasted brown and warped at the corners by a second fire; and, on the removal of the other three silver pagodas, our eyes were gratified by a dish of peas that had been once used for green soup, three similarly toasted and warped mutton chops, and three potatoes. Quite incredulous of the cook’s intentions, I ventured to suggest to the waiter that he had probably mistaken the tray and brought us the dinner of some sportsman’s respectable brace of pointers; but on being assured that there were no dogs in the cellar, I sent word to the master of the house that we had rather a preference for a dinner new and hot, and would wait till he could provide it. Half an hour more brought up the landlord’s apologies and a fresh and hot beefsteak, followed by a tough crusted apple-pie, custard, and cheese—and with a bottle of Moselle which was good, we finished our dinner at one of the most expensive and showy hotels in England. The manners and fare at the American hotels being always described as exponents of civilization by English travellers, I shall be excused for giving a counter-picture of one of the most boasted of their own.
Regretting exceedingly that the recent mourning of my two companions must prevent their presence at the gay festivities of Eglington, I put them on board the steamer, bound on a visit to relatives in Dublin, and returned to the Adelphi to wait en garçon for the Glasgow steamer of Monday. My chamber is a large and well-furnished room, with windows looking out on the area shut in by the wings of the house; and I must make you still more contented at the Astor, by describing what is going on below at this moment. It is half-past eight, and a Sunday morning. All the bells of the house, it seems to me, are ringing, most of them very impatiently, and in the area before the kitchen windows are six or eight idle waiters, and four or five female scullions, playing, quarrelling, scolding and screaming; the language of both men and women more profane and indecent than anything I have ever before chanced to hear, and every word audible in every room in this quarter of the hotel. This has been going on since six this morning; and I seriously declare I do not think I ever heard as much indecent conversation in my life as for three mortal hours must have “murdered sleep” for every lady and gentleman lodged on the rear side of the “crack hotel” of Liverpool.