During the four or five hours that I was playing the hanger-on to a vulgar and saucy custom house officer at Liverpool, one or two contrasts crept in at my dull eyes—contrasts between what I had left, and what was before me. The most striking was the utter want of hope in the countenances of the working classes—the look of dogged submission and animal endurance of their condition of life. They act like horses and cows. A showy equipage goes by, and they have not the curiosity to look up. Their gait is that of tired donkeys, saving as much trouble at leg-lifting as possible. Their mouths and eyes are wholly sensual, expressing no capability of a want above food. Their dress is without a thought of more than warmth and covering, drab covered with dirt. Their voices are a half-note above a grunt. Indeed, comparing their condition with the horse, I would prefer being an English horse to being an English working-man. And you will easily see the very strong contrast there is, between this picture, and that of the ambitious and lively working-men of our country.
Another contrast strikes, probably, all Americans on first landing—that of female dress. The entire absence of the ornamental—of any thing indeed, except decent covering—in all classes below the wealthy, is particularly English and particularly un-American. I do not believe you would find ten female servants in New-York without (pardon my naming it) a “bustle.” Yet I saw as many as two hundred women in the streets of Liverpool, and not one with a bustle! I saw some ladies get out of carriages who wore them, so that it is not because it is not the fashion, but simply because the pride (of those whose backs form but one line) does not outweigh the price of the bran. They wore thick shoes, such as scarcely a man would wear with us, no gloves of course, and their whole appearance was that of females in whose minds never entered the thought of ornament on week days. This trifling exponent of the condition of women in England, has a large field of speculation within and around it, and the result of philosophizing on it would be vastly in favor of our side of the water.
As this letter is written on my first day of sitting up, and directly against the doctor’s orders, you will give my invalid brain the credit of coming cheerfully into harness.
LETTER II.
Having some delay in giving my little Imogen her first English dinner, we saved our passage by half a minute, and were off from Liverpool at 4 precisely. The distance to London is, I believe, 220 miles, and we did it in five hours—an acceleration of speed which is lately introduced upon the English railways. There are slower trains on the same route, and the price, by these, is less. There are also three or four different kinds of cars to each train, and at different prices. I chanced to light upon the first class, and paid £5 for two places—my nurse and child counting as one. I understand, since, that many gentlemen and ladies of the most respectable rank take the second-class cars—(as few Americans would, I am sorry to say, though there would be two degrees still below them.)
This travelling at forty odd miles the hour give one’s eyes hardly time to know a tree from a cow, but here and there I got a distant view in crossing a valley, and recognized the lovely rural beauty of England, the first impression of which lasts one, like an enchanted memory, through life. Notwithstanding the great speed, the cars ran so evenly on their admirable rails, that there was no jar to prevent one’s sleeping or being comfortable, and I awoke from a very pleasant dream to find myself in London.
As I was dressing to dine out on the following day, I stopped tying my cravat to send for a physician, and here, if you please, we will make a jump over twelve days, and come to a bright morning when I was let out for a walk in Regent-street.
It is extraordinary how little the English change! Regent-street, after four or five years, is exactly what Regent-street was. The men have the same tight cravats, coats too small, overbrushed whiskers, and look of being excessively wash’d. The carriages and horses exactly the same. The cheap shops have the same placard of “selling off” in their broad windows. The blind beggars tell the same story, and are led by the same dogs; but what is stranger than all this sameness, is that the ladies look the same! The fashions have perhaps changed—in the milliners’ shops! But the Englishing that is done to French bonnets after they are bought, or the English way in which they are worn, overpowers the novelty, and gives the fair occupants of the splendid carriages of London the very same look they had ten years ago.
Still there are some slight differences observable in the street, and among others, I observe that the economical private carriage called a “Brougham” is very common. These are low cabs, holding two or four persons, with a driver, and perhaps a footman in livery on the outside seat, and one horse seems to do the work as well as two. This fashion would be well, introduced into New York—that is to say, if our city is ever to be well enough paved to make a drive any thing but a dire necessity. The paving of London is really most admirable. Vast city as it is, the streets are smooth as a floor all over it, and to ride is indeed a luxury. The break-neck, hat-jamming and dislocating jolts of Broadway must seem to English judgment an inexcusable stain on our public spirit. And, apropos of paving—the wooden pavement seems to be entirely out of favor. Regent-street is laid in wooden blocks, and in wet weather (and it rains here some part of every day,) it is so slippery that an omnibus which has been stopped in going up the street is with difficulty started again. The horses almost always come to their knees, though the ascent is very slight, and the falls of cart and carriage-horses are occurring continually. Nothing seems to “do” like the McAdam pavement, and wherever you find it in London, you find it in as perfect order as the floor of a bowling-alley. I see that all heavy vehicles are compelled to have very broad wheels, and they rather improve the road than spoil it. A law to the same effect should be passed in New York, if it ever has a pavement worth preserving.