and
oposed trip would carry me through, I could not blind myself to the sad fact, that the gorgeous mantle of autumn had fallen from the forest, and left in its stead the dreary nakedness of winter. The time I could allot to the journey was unfortunately
order so prevalent in the railway establishments in this country, made it anything but an agreeable operation. Our individual tickets were obtained under shelter, but in an office of such Lilliputian dimensions, that the ordinary press of passengers made it like a
onsolation, and shrouded ourselves in its fragrant clouds. On we went, hissing through the snow-storm, till the waters of the Delaware brought us to a stand-still; then, changing to a steamer, we crossed the broad stream, on which to save time, they served dinner, and almost before it was ended we had reached Philadelphia, where 'busses were in waiting to take us to the railway. I may as well mention here, that one of th
red to viser the tickets: he would solve our doubts.-"I say, conductor, is our luggage which came from New York, left behind?" "Ay, I guess it is, every stick of it; and if you had been ten minutes later, I guess you might have stayed with it; it'll come on to-night, and be at Baltimore to-morrow morning about half-past four; if you'll give me your tickets, and tell me what hotel you are going to, I'll have it sent up." Upon inquiry, we found this was a very common event, nor did anybody seem to think it a subject worth taking pains to have rectified, though the smallest amount of common sense and common arrangement might easily obviate it. And why this indifference? Because, first it would cost a few
ffectually concealed; and after a day's journey, which, for aught we saw, might as well have been over the Shra
belonging to General Cadwallader, and is situated in one of the endless inlets with which Chesapeake Bay abounds. All being arranged, our friend appeared in a light waggon, with a pair of spicy trotters before it. The road out was dreary and uninteresting enough; but when we left it, and turned into a waggon way through an extensive forest, I could not but feel what a lovely ride or drive it must be in the more genial seasons of the year,
ober to the middle of November, and what produces the sport is, the ducks shifting their feeding-ground, in performing which operation they cross over this long point. As the season gets later, the birds do not shift their ground so frequently; and, moreover, getting scared by the eternal cannonade which is kept up, they fly very high when they do cross. The best times are daybreak and just before da
look out carefully from side to side, and the moment any ducks are seen in motion, the cry is given "bay" or "river," according to the side from which they are approaching. Each sportsman, the moment he "views the ducks," crouches down in his blind as much out of sight as possible, waiting till they are nearly overhead, then, rising with his murderous weapon, lets drive at them the moment they have passed. As they usually fly very high, their thick downy coating would turn any shots directed against them, on thei
The first piece you put in your mouth, as it melts away on the palate, dissipates the thought, and you unhesitatingly pronounce it the most delicious morsel you ever tasted. In they come, hot and hot; and, like Oliver, you ask for more, but with better success. Your host, when he sees you flagging, urges, "one" more cut. You hesitate, thinking a couple of ducks a very fair allowance. He replies,-"'Pon my word, it's such light food; you can eat a dozen!" A jovial son of Aesculapius, on whom Father Time had set his mark, though he has left his conviviality in all the freshness of youth, is appealed to. He declares, positively, that he knows nothing so easy of digestion as a canvas-back duck; and he eats away jollily up to his assertion. How very catching it is!--each fresh arrival from the kitchen brings a fresh appetite to the party. "One down, t'other come
ck breakfast, a meal at which, it is needless to say, the "glorious bird" was plentifully distributed. After breakfast, I amused myself with a telescope, watching the ducks diving and fighting for the wild celery which covers the bottom of these creeks and bays, and which is generally supposed to give the birds their rich and peculiar flavour. They know the pow
a stick, on the end of which you tie a handkerchief, and keep waving it steadily backwards and forwards. The other method is to employ a dog in lieu of the stick and handkerchief. They have a regular breed for the purpose, about the size of a large Skye terrier, and of a sandy colour. You keep throwing pebbles to the water's edge, which the dog follows; and thus he is ever running to and fro. In either case,
os, on Lake Menzaleh; which is, for the huntsman to put a gourd on his head, pierced sufficiently to see through, and by means of which,-the rest of his body being thoroughly immersed in
ound it, and, deluging it with expectorated showers of real Virginian juice, the hissing and stench became insufferable. I had no resource but to open my window, and let the driving sleet drench one side of me, while the other was baking; thus, one cheek was in an ice-house, and the other in an oven. At noon we came to "a fix;" the railway bridge across to Harrisburg had broken down. There was nothing for it but patience; and, in due time, it was rewarded by the arrival of three omnibuses and a luggage-van. As there were about
rn to the little inn, and fortify ourselves for the trial with such good things as mine host of the "Culverley" could p
tick in his left hand to operate upon; and the floor bore testimony to his untiring zeal. When the important question was propounded to him, he ceased from his whittling labours, and, burying the blade deep between his ivories, looked out of the window with an authoritative air, apparently endeavouring, first, to ascertain what depth of snow was on the ground, and then, by an upward glance, to calculate how much more was likely to follow. Having duly weighed these points, and having perfected the channel between his ivories, he sucked the friendly blade, and replied, with a stoical indifference-which, considering my anxiety, might almost be styled heartless-"I guess, if it goes on snowing like this, you'll have no cars here
s combined against us. The rain and the snow were fighting together, and producing that slushiness of atmosphere which obscures all scenery; added to which, the unfortunate foreknowledge that we were doomed to fifteen or sixteen hours of these combinations of misery, made it indeed a wretched day. My only resource was to open a window, which the moment I attempted, a hulking fellow, swaddled up in coats and comforters, and bursting with health, begged it might be closed as "It was so cold:" the thermometer, I am sure, was ranging, within the car, from ninety to a hundred degrees. He then tried to hector and bully, and finding that of no use, he appealed to the guthe level of the sea. The want of proper arrangement and sufficient hands made this a most dilatory and tedious operation. Upon asking why so 'cute and go-ahead a people had tolerated such bad engineering originally, and such dilatory arrangements up to the present hour, I was answered, "Oh, sir, that's easily explained; it is a government road and a monopoly, but another road is nearly completed, by which all this
ound that it really was part of a canal-boat, and that the remaining portions were following in the rear. The boats are made, some in three, some in five co
hich more anon-were waiting ready; and as there were several ladies in the cars, I thought the stages might be induced to draw up close to the scantily-covered platform to take up the passengers; but no such idea entered their heads. I imagine such an indication of civilization would have been at variance with their republican notions of liberty; and the fair ones had no alternative but to pull their garments up to the altitude of those of a ballet-dancer, and to bury their neat feet and well-turned ankles deep, deep, deep in the filthy mire. But what made
and sleepy children, the "hush-hushes" of affectionate mammas, the bustle of gathering packages, and the expiring heat of the poison
is built, and on the bosom of the former the fruits of its labour are borne down to New Orleans, via the Mississippi-a distance of two thousand and twenty-five miles exactly. Coal and iron abound in the neighbourhood; they are as handy, in reality, as the Egyptian geese are in the legend, where they are stated to fly about ready roasted, crying, "Come and eat me!" Perhaps, then, you will ask, why is the town not larger, and the business not more active? The answer is simple. The price of labour is so high, that they cannot compote with the parent rival; and the ad valorem duty on iron, though it may bring in a revenue to the government, is no protection to the home trade. What changes emigration fro
in the breeze, and finds no echo; the giant monarchs of the forest line the road on either side, like a guard of Titans, their nodding heads inquiring, as it were curiously, why their ranks were thinned, and what strange meteor is that which, with clatter and roar, rushes past, disturbing their peaceful solitude. Patience my noble friends; patience, I say. A few short years more, and many of you, like your deceased brethren, will bend your proud heads level with the dust, and those giant limbs, which now kiss the
s of the Forest Monarch;" or, as the public like mystery, he might make a good hit by entitling it "The Child of the Woods that danced on the Wave." Swift has immortalized a tub; other aut
ry out lustily. We hear the name of the house to which we are bound, and prepare to follow. The touter carries a lantern of that ingenious size which helps to make the darkness more visible; two steps, and you are over the ankles in mud. "Show a light, boy." He turns round, and, placing his lantern close to the ground, you see at a glance the horrid truth revealed-you are in a perfect mud swamp; so, tuck up your trowsers, and wade away to the omnibuses, about a quarter of a mile off. Gracious me! there are two ladies, with their dresses hitched up like kilts, sliding and floundering through the slushy road. H
, old and young, male and female, all seemed chorusing together-feet clattered, passages echoed-it was a very Babel of noise and confusion. What strange beings we are! Not two hours before, I had said and felt that laughing was catching; now, although the merry chirp of youth mingled with it, I wished the whole party at the residence of an old
the children to share it with them. I must not be understood to cast any reflections upon the happy pair, when I say that the marriage took place in the morning, and that the children were laughing at night, for remember, I never inquired into the parentage of the little ducks. On le
, get more fully developed, and when the new canal pours the commerce of Lake Superior into Lake Erie. Cleveland is situated on the slope of a hill commanding a beautiful and extensive view; the latter I was told, for as it rained incessantly, I had no opportunity of judging. Here we are at the station, i.e., two hundred yards off it, which we are allowed to walk, so as to damp ourselves pleasantly before we start. Places taken, in we get; we move a few hundred yards, a
about 3000 are coloured. The Americans constitute 54 per cent.; Germans, 28; English, 16; other foreigners, 2 per cent. of the population. They have 102 schools, and 357 teachers, and 20,737 pupils are yearly instructed by these means. Of these schools 19 are free, instructing 12,240 pupils, not in mere writing and reading,
which, it has added endowments for numerous universities, &c." We have seen that the public schools in this city cost 13,500l., of which sum they receive from the State fund above alluded to 1500l., the remainder being raised by a direct tax upon the property of the city, and increased from time to time in proportion to the wants of the schools. One of the schools is for coloured children, and contains 360 p
ound the still wine rather thin and tart, but, as the weather was very cold, that need not affect the truth of my friend's assertion, that in summer it was a very pleasant beverage. The sparkling wine was much more palatable, and reminded me of a very superior kind of perry. They cannot afford to sell it on the spot under four shillings a bottle, and of course the ho
atisfaction I derived from the sight of the proprietor, who, in the spotless cleanliness of his person and his "dimity," and s
begin at the beginning; but first let me warn you, if your nerves are at all delicate, to pass this description over, for, though perfectly true, it is very horrid. "Poor pig
ay impede the free use of his brawny arms. The time arrived, down comes the hammer with deadly accuracy on the forehead of poor piggy, generally killing but sometimes only stunning him, in which case, as he awakes to consciousness in the scalding caldron, his struggles are frightful to look at, but happily very short. A trap-hatch opens at the side of this enclosure, through which the corpses are thrust into the sticking-room, whence the blood flows into tanks beneath, to be sold, together with the hoofs and hair, to the manufacturers of prussiate of potash and Prussian blue. Thence they are pushed down an inclined plane into a trough containing a thousand gallons of boiling water, and broad enough to take in piggy lengthways. By the time they have passed down this caldron, they are ready for scraping, for which purpose a large table is joined on to the lower end of the caldron, and on which they are artistically thrown. Five men stand in a row
lieve, to Germans, though of course a Hebrew might purchase if he had a fancy therefor. The head off, two blows sever him lengthways; the hams, the shoulders, and the rib-pieces fly off at a blow each, and it has been stated that "two hands, in less than thirteen hours, cut up eight hundred and fifty hogs, averaging over two hundred pounds each, two others placing them on the blocks for the purpose. All these hogs were weighed singly on the scales, in the course of eleven hours. Another hand trimmed the hams-seventeen hundred pieces-as fast as they were separated from the carcasses. The hogs were thus cut up and disposed of at the rate of more than one to
may not be uninteresting to my reader, or
Pork, 196 lbs. ea
25,0
ard 16,
e by Hydraulic pr
ap 6,2
ap, &c.
---
280
Oil, 1,200,
and that the annual number cured at Cincinnati is about 500,000 head, and the value of these animals when cured, &c., was estimated in 1851 at about 1,155,000l. What touching statistics the for
cky. They stall-feed very fat, no doubt; but though generally very good, I have never, in any part of the States, tasted beef equal to the best in
e value of 560,000l. There are forty-four foundries, one-third of which are employed in the stove-trade; as many
up, to Marietta. From that port, which is nearly two thousand miles from the ocean, the "Muskingum," a barque of three hundred and fifty tons, went laden with provisions, direct to Liverpool, in 1845, and various other vessels have since that time been built at Cin
On going up to one of these latter, what was my astonishment to find in his basket, volume after volume of publications such as Holywell-street scarce ever dared to exhibit; these he offered and commended with the most unblushing effrontery. The first lad having such a collection, I thought I would look at the others, to see if their baskets were similarly supplied; I found them all alike without exception, I then became curious to know if these debauched little urchins found any purchasers, and, to ascertain the fact, I ensconced myself among some of the freight, and watched one of them. Presently a passenger came up, and these books were brought to his notice: he looked cautiously round, and, thinking himself unobserved, he began to examine them. The lad, finding the bait had taken, then looked cautiously round on his side, and stealthily drew two more books from his breast, evidently of the same kind, and it is reasonable to suppose infinitely worse. After a careful examination of the various volumes, th
e woods, and are clotted about the more cultivated parts; but, despite this, the dreary mantle of winter threw a cold churlishness over everything. The boat I shall describe hereafter, w
uld have been descried. The arms hung down on either side like the funnel of a cabin stove, exciting the greatest wonder and the liveliest curiosity to know how the skin of the shoulder obtained the elasticity requisite to exhibit such a phenomenon. On the top of the cylinder was a beautifully polished ebony pedestal, about two inches high on one side, tapering away to nothing at the other, so that whatever might be
She revelled in this luxurious operation so long, that I began to fear she was suffering from the antipodes to a lockjaw, and that she was unable to close the chasm; but at last the demijohn rose slowly and solemnly from the horizontal, the gulf gradually closed until, obtaining the old angle of forty-five degrees, the two dusty pieces of beefsteak once more stood sentry over the abyss. Prosecuting my observations along the upper surface, I next came to the proboscis, which suggested the idea of a Bologna sausage after a passage through a cotton-press. Along the upper part, the limits were invisible, so beautifully did it blend with the sable cheek on each side; but the lower part seemed to have been outside the press during the process, and therefore to have
OF "THE LAD
deeply imbedded therein, and in no way disturbing the smooth surface. All higher information was of course wrapt in the mystery of conjecture; but from the waddling gait and the shoulders working to and fro at every step, the concealed cylinders doubtless increased in size to such an extent, that the passing one before the other was a task of considerable difficulty; and if the motion was not dignified, it was imposingly slow,
solidity of these ladies being their great point of attraction in his estimation. Had he but seen my lovely stewardess, I am sure he would i
TNO
J
Cadwallader has taken the
K
hat to "whittle" is to cut little chips of wood-if, when the fit c
L
1792, upon a canal in the neighbourhood of Colebrook Dale, where the boats were raised by stationary engines up two inclines, one of 207 feet, and the other of 126 feet. I believe this is the first in