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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Glances at Europe," Horace Greeley offers a keen observational travelogue that artfully intertwines sociopolitical commentary with vivid descriptions of the European landscape in the mid-19th century. Through a series of essays, Greeley not only captures the essence of countries like England, France, and Germany but also reflects on the prevailing social movements and the conditions of the working classes. His literary style is marked by a blend of analytical rigor and passionate rhetoric, providing readers with insights into the revolutionary spirit of his time, while his use of personal anecdotes enhances the narrative's authenticity and immediacy. A prominent American newspaper editor and founder of the New-York Tribune, Greeley's career was deeply influenced by his commitment to social reform and political activism. His experiences as an advocate for labor rights and education reform in post-Civil War America galvanized his perspective on European socialism and democracy, enriching the context of his observations. This background not only shapes his critiques of European society but also foregrounds his aspirations for a more equitable America, linking transatlantic socio-political dynamics. Readers interested in the historical context of the 19th century, as well as those who appreciate profound travel literature, will find "Glances at Europe" an invaluable resource. Greeley's insightful reflections challenge contemporary readers to consider the interconnectedness of cultures and political ideologies, making this work a timeless exploration of progress and reform. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Glances at Europe
Table of Contents
Introduction
At once a journey and a measure, Glances at Europe follows an inquisitive American editor as he crosses the Atlantic to examine how the Old World’s industries, institutions, and everyday customs might illuminate, challenge, or refine the ideals of a young republic, engaging with the tensions between tradition and reform, hierarchy and equality, poverty and prosperity, and in the process testing the uses and limits of travel itself as a means of moral inquiry, political comparison, and practical instruction for readers eager to understand their era’s swiftly changing social landscape.
Written by Horace Greeley, a prominent nineteenth-century American journalist, this work belongs to the lineage of travel writing that doubles as public argument. First issued in the early 1850s, it draws on the author’s European tour during the age of steam and rapid industrialization, when railways, factories, and new communications were transforming daily life. The book’s observations arrive in the immediate aftermath of the revolutions of 1848, a context that shapes the political and social atmosphere he encounters. Glances at Europe occupies the borderland between reportage and reflection, offering a contemporary American vantage on European conditions and debates.
The premise is straightforward and inviting: a traveler of practical bent surveys a range of European scenes and institutions and reports what he sees with an eye to what might matter back home. Rather than a single continuous narrative, the book presents an episodic series of impressions that move from public spaces to workplaces, from countryside to cities, and from formal ceremonies to ordinary routines. The voice is brisk, candid, and comparative, favoring plain statement and concrete detail. Readers should expect a mixture of descriptive sketches and evaluative commentary that maintains a steady, purposeful curiosity rather than an ornate or romantic mood.
Underlying the itinerary are questions that preoccupied reformers and readers in the mid-nineteenth century: How do labor and capital relate under accelerating industrial change? What arrangements best foster education, public health, and civic participation? Where do entrenched hierarchies impede opportunity, and where do communal traditions support stability and mutual aid? Greeley’s approach is to treat travel as evidence-gathering, distilling observations into practical lessons while acknowledging complexities. His comparisons are not merely national scorekeeping; they probe how policy, custom, and material conditions interact, inviting readers to consider the costs and benefits of different social models without assuming that any single system offers universal solutions.
Contemporary readers will find in this book a useful mirror for present-day debates about globalization, migration, work, and the responsibilities of the press. Glances at Europe models a mode of journalism that insists on seeing for oneself, weighing competing claims, and making comparisons cautiously but clearly. It reminds us that transatlantic exchanges of ideas and practices long predate our time, and that reforms often travel by way of vivid example as much as by theory. At the same time, the narrative reveals the blind spots and priorities of its moment, allowing modern audiences to question as well as glean insight.
Stylistically, the book favors clarity over flourish, foregrounding the author’s practical sensibility. He combines statistics, anecdotes, and institutional snapshots to build cumulative arguments rather than dramatic set pieces. The pace is steady and purposeful, sustained by a conviction that careful observation can inform public judgment. While sympathetic to social improvement, the tone resists sweeping generalization, focusing instead on what can be witnessed, counted, or reasonably inferred. This careful balance of reportage and reflection offers a reading experience that is both accessible and intellectually engaged, well suited to readers who appreciate narratives that link ground-level detail to broader civic questions.
Approached today, Glances at Europe invites a double reading: as a historical artifact capturing European life in the early industrial age through American eyes, and as a case study in how comparative travel writing can sharpen civic imagination. It will appeal to those interested in journalism’s formative traditions, to students of transatlantic history, and to general readers seeking thoughtful, on-the-ground perspective. Without demanding specialized background, the book offers a disciplined curiosity that rewards attentive reading, leaving audiences with a richer sense of how observation, argument, and empathy can together illuminate the shared challenges of different societies.
Synopsis
Glances at Europe collects Horace Greeley’s letters from a mid-nineteenth-century tour across Great Britain and the Continent. Written as dispatches for American readers, the book traces his itinerary from the Atlantic crossing to major capitals and industrial centers. Greeley sets out to observe public institutions, labor and agriculture, political arrangements, and the visible results of 1848’s upheavals. The letters emphasize direct observation, statistics gathered on the spot, and conversations with officials and workers. Without elaborate narrative ornament, the work proceeds chronologically, framing each city or region through its social organization, economic structure, and civic culture, while keeping American comparisons in view for context.
Arrival in Britain leads quickly to London and the Great Exhibition of 1851, the organizing event that anchors Greeley’s opening chapters. He describes the Crystal Palace, the classification of exhibits, and what the displays suggest about applied science, manufacturing, and design. Particular attention goes to machine tools, textiles, metallurgy, and agricultural implements, including the standing of American contributions. London’s immensity, transport systems, newspapers, and charitable institutions appear alongside its slums and sanitary challenges. The letters sketch the city’s governing bodies and police, the cost of living, and the habits of crowds in parks and thoroughfares, establishing a baseline for later comparisons across Europe.
From London the route extends to Britain’s manufacturing districts, with stops in Birmingham, Sheffield, and Manchester. Greeley visits mills and foundries to note power sources, factory discipline, hours, wages, and the condition of women and children in workrooms. He outlines the Poor Law apparatus, friendly societies, and savings banks, relating them to social mobility. The legacy of Chartism and ongoing reform efforts are summarized without polemic. Turning to agriculture, he contrasts large estates, enclosure, and tenantry with market gardening and improved breeds. Scottish towns and rural districts introduce parish schools, frugality, and kirk organization, offering a variant of British institutional life within the same constitutional framework.
A passage to Ireland presents a sustained inquiry into a nation still reeling from the famine. Greeley surveys Dublin’s public works and then moves into rural counties to record cabin housing, potatoes and grain rotations, and the prevalence of conacre. He outlines the relation between landlords, middlemen, and tenants, and notes sales under the Encumbered Estates Act. Emigration figures, remittances, and the traffic to American ports are set against the workings of the national schools and the positions of clergy. The account stresses observable facts—rent levels, yields, and relief arrangements—while situating Ireland’s distress within the island’s legal and property systems.
Crossing to France, the narrative centers on Paris as the political and cultural hub of the Second Republic. Greeley examines administrative centralization, the press regime, and the police alongside museums, lycées, and artisan workshops. He recapitulates the sequence from the 1848 uprising through subsequent elections, presenting competing currents—socialist associations, conservative order, and Bonapartist popularity—without advocacy. Beyond the capital, provincial tours highlight peasant proprietorship, road quality, and the diffusion of small savings. The letters note viticulture, silk, and rural industry, and how widespread landholding shapes taxation, conscription, and public sentiment, providing a counterpoint to the British pattern of large landed estates.
Belgium appears next as a compact constitutional monarchy with dense industry in Ghent, Liège, and Antwerp. Greeley remarks on municipal cleanliness, thrift, and rail connectivity, then passes into the Rhineland. Along the Rhine, he inventories customs arrangements, the Zollverein’s trade effects, and the organization of guilds and chambers of commerce. Cathedrals, universities, and technical schools are described as supports for skilled manufacture. In Prussian jurisdictions, he records bureaucratic regularity, military service requirements, and passport controls as everyday facts. The letters balance scenic description with statistics on wages and prices, linking educational provisions to the quality of metalwork, chemicals, and fine mechanical production.
The Swiss cantons furnish a case of local autonomy and civic instruction. Greeley describes Landsgemeinde practice where present, common schools, and the militia, together with alpine agriculture and cooperative dairying. Transit over passes leads into Northern Italy, where Lombardy’s fertile plains sit under Austrian administration. Milan and Venice illustrate the effects of censorship, garrisons, and the aftershocks of the 1848 campaigns upon commerce and civic life. Continuing to Vienna, he notes the imperial bureaucracy, cultural institutions, and the multiethnic character of the Habsburg domains. Throughout this section, the letters keep to observed arrangements—taxation, police, and public works—rather than the rhetoric of national causes.
The homeward course revisits German cities and returns to Britain, allowing synthesis and contrast. Greeley inventories improvements in rail speed, fares, and postal efficiency, and he inspects hospitals, asylums, and prisons as measures of public provision. Agricultural shows and model farms prompt a comparative review of yields, rotations, and breeding across countries. Emigration depots and passenger lists illustrate population movements from continent to America. The Great Exhibition reappears as a touchstone for weighing the relative pace of invention. The letters draw recurrent contrasts between peasant proprietorship and tenancy, centralized bureaucracy and local self-government, and the differing pathways taken toward urban sanitation and industrial order.
In concluding chapters, Greeley summarizes Europe’s principal strengths and hindrances as they appeared in 1851. He highlights technical proficiency, artistic refinement, and maturing networks of transport, alongside persistent class distinctions, land concentration, and restrictive administrative habits. The book’s closing pages gather lessons for an American readership on education, land distribution, labor organization, and the relation of tariffs to infant industries, stated as observations from abroad. Without sweeping judgments, the letters suggest avenues for peaceful improvement and mutual understanding among nations. The journey ends with a return across the Atlantic, the correspondence arranged to preserve the sequence and substance of what was seen.
Historical Context
Horace Greeley’s Glances at Europe is set in the summer and early autumn of 1851, when the editor of the New-York Tribune crossed the Atlantic by steamship to tour Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, and parts of German-speaking Europe. He encountered a continent still vibrating from the failed Revolutions of 1848 and newly dazzled by the Great Exhibition in London. Britain was in the high Victorian era under Queen Victoria; Paris was governed by President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte; Italy remained divided among Austrian-controlled territories, restored monarchies, and the Papal States; while Switzerland had just refounded itself as a federal state (1848). Railways, steam, and bustling newspapers framed his observations.
The Revolutions of 1848—beginning in February with the overthrow of King Louis-Philippe in France and rippling through Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Budapest, and beyond—form the essential backdrop to Greeley’s journey. In France, a Provisional Government proclaimed universal male suffrage, but the closure of the National Workshops precipitated the bloody June Days (June 23–26, 1848). In the Habsburg lands, demonstrations in Vienna forced Prince Metternich’s flight (March 1848); in December, Franz Joseph I ascended the throne, ultimately presiding over restoration after imperial and Russian forces crushed Lajos Kossuth’s Hungarian revolution in 1849. The Frankfurt Parliament (May 1848–May 1849) sought a liberal German constitution and unity, offering a crown to Prussia’s Frederick William IV, who refused it in March 1849, signaling liberal defeat. In Italy, Charles Albert of Sardinia-Piedmont fought Austria in the First War of Independence, suffering major defeats at Custoza (July 1848) and Novara (March 1849), while Rome’s brief republic (1849) fell to a French siege. Switzerland’s internal conflict, the Sonderbund War (1847), had already ushered in a democratic federal constitution in 1848. Greeley’s letters repeatedly measure Europe’s political atmosphere against the shattered hopes of 1848: he observes garrisons, police vigilance, and refugees, and he probes the prospects for constitutionalism, civil liberty, and social reform after reaction had reasserted itself. Writing for American readers in 1851, he interprets rail stations, boulevards, and parliamentary debates as evidence of whether the continent’s republican energies had been permanently stifled or merely forced into new channels.
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (1 May–15 October 1851) in London, housed in Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, embodied Britain’s industrial and imperial confidence. With over 6 million visitors and thousands of exhibits drawn from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, it showcased machine tools, textiles, steam power, and applied science. Organized under Prince Albert’s patronage, it also symbolized free-trade triumphalism after repeal of the Corn Laws (1846) and the Navigation Acts (1849). Greeley visited and reported on the Exhibition’s machinery halls and artisan displays, admiring technological ingenuity while scrutinizing how free trade and industrial organization affected labor, wages, and social welfare.
The Irish Great Famine (1845–1852) and its grim aftermath remained visible in 1851: lingering blight, emptied villages, workhouses, and a transformed countryside. Roughly a million died and over a million emigrated, many to the United States, while measures such as the Encumbered Estates Act (1849) accelerated changes in land ownership. The British state’s relief policies—soup kitchens, public works, and the Poor Law—proved contentious and often inadequate. Greeley surveyed Irish towns and rural districts, connecting depopulation and landlordism to structural injustice. He linked Ireland’s condition to transatlantic migration he witnessed in New York, using his travel letters to argue for land reform, tenant rights, and policies that would avert similar misery elsewhere.
France’s volatile Second Republic (1848–1851) loomed over Greeley’s Paris sojourn. After the June Days, General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac suppressed insurgents, and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte won the presidency on 10 December 1848. The conservative Law of 31 May 1850 curtailed universal male suffrage, deepening tensions between executive power, the Assembly, and radical clubs. Though Greeley traveled months before the coup d’état of 2 December 1851, he noted press constraints, heavy policing, and public unease. He interprets monuments and boulevards through the memory of barricades, weighing whether French republican ideals could withstand social fear and economic distress or were yielding to a new authoritarian synthesis that would soon become the Second Empire.
In Italy, the Risorgimento’s first phase had crested and receded by 1851. The Five Days of Milan (March 1848) expelled Austrian troops temporarily, but Field Marshal Radetzky restored Habsburg rule after victories at Custoza (1848) and Novara (1849), prompting Charles Albert’s abdication in favor of Victor Emmanuel II. The Roman Republic (February–July 1849), guided by Giuseppe Mazzini and defended by Giuseppe Garibaldi, fell to a French siege under General Oudinot, and Pope Pius IX returned under foreign protection. In 1851, French garrisons maintained papal rule; Austrian forces dominated Lombardy–Venetia; and repression persisted in Naples. Greeley’s observations in Rome and northern Italy register surveillance, censorship, and the tenacity of national aspirations.
In the German states, liberal nationalism faltered after the Frankfurt Parliament’s collapse and Prussia’s retreat from leadership at Olmütz (29 November 1850), where it conceded to Austrian dominance. The First Schleswig War (1848–1851), pitting Danish authority against German duchy insurgents, wound down through international mediation, with a settlement codified in the London Protocol (1852) restoring a precarious status quo. Meanwhile, the Zollverein (from 1834) and rapid railway expansion in the 1840s integrated markets from the Rhine to Silesia. Greeley reads Prussian bureaucracy, military drill, and educational systems against these political failures, noting how economic modernization coexisted uneasily with curtailed parliamentary ambitions and unresolved national questions along the Elbe and Baltic.
Glances at Europe functions as social and political critique by staging a comparative inquiry into power, property, and labor amid post-1848 retrenchment. Greeley exposes urban poverty in London, agrarian misery in Ireland, clerical and police authority in Rome and Paris, and the gulf between industrial display and workers’ conditions at the Great Exhibition. He contrasts aristocratic land tenure and centralized bureaucracies with American republican ideals, urging land reform, public education, and broader civic participation. By linking concrete scenes—workhouses, barracks, tollgates, and factory yards—to policy debates, the book indicts class privilege and reactionary governance while pressing for practical, incremental reforms aligned with democratic social justice.
Glances at Europe
I.
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.
Liverpool (Eng.), April 28th, 1851.
The leaden skies, the chilly rain, the general out-door aspect and prospect of discomfort prevailing in New York when our good steamship Baltic cast loose from her dock at noon on the 16th inst., were not particularly calculated to inspire and exhilarate the goodly number who were then bidding adieu, for months at least, to home, country, and friends. The most sanguine of the inexperienced, however, appealed for solace to the wind, which they, so long as the City completely sheltered us on the east, insisted was blowing from "a point West of North"—whence they very logically deduced that the north-east storm, now some thirty-six to forty-eight hours old, had spent its force, and would soon give place to a serene and lucid atmosphere. I believe the Barometer at no time countenanced this augury, which a brief experience sufficed most signally to confute. Before we had passed Coney Island, it was abundantly certain that our freshening breeze hailed directly from Labrador and the icebergs beyond, and had no idea of changing its quarters. By the time we were fairly outside of Sandy Hook, we were struggling with as uncomfortable and damaging a cross-sea as had ever enlarged my slender nautical experience; and in the course of the next hour the high resolves, the valorous defiances, of the scores who had embarked in the settled determination that they would not be sea-sick, had been exchanged for pallid faces and heaving bosoms. Of our two hundred passengers, possibly one-half were able to face the dinner-table at 4 P. M.; less than one-fourth mustered to supper at 7; while a stern but scanty remnant—perhaps twenty in all—answered the summons to breakfast next morning.
I was not in any one of these categories. So long as I was able, I walked the deck, and sought to occupy my eyes, my limbs, my brain, with something else than the sea and its perturbations. The attempt, however, proved a signal failure. By the time we were five miles off the Hook, I was a decided case; another hour laid me prostrate, though I refused to leave the deck; at six o'clock a friend, finding me recumbent and hopeless in the smokers' room, persuaded and helped me to go below. There I unbooted and swayed into my berth, which endured me, perforce, for the next twenty-four hours. I then summoned strength to crawl on deck, because, while I remained below, my sufferings were barely less than while walking above, and my recovery hopeless.
I shall not harrow up the souls nor the stomachs of landsmen, as yet reveling in blissful ignorance of its tortures, with any description of sea-sickness. They will know all in ample season; or if not, so much the better. But naked honesty requires a correction of the prevalent error that this malady is necessarily transient and easily overcome. Thousands who imagine they have been sea-sick on some River or Lake steamboat, or even during a brief sleigh-ride, are annually putting to sea with as little necessity or urgency as suffices to send them on a jaunt to Niagara or the White Mountains. They suppose they may very probably be "qualmish" for a few hours, but that (they fancy) will but highten the general enjoyment of the voyage. Now it is quite true that any green sea-goer may be sick for a few hours only; he may even not be sick at all. But the probability is very far from this, especially when the voyage is undertaken in any other than one of the four sunniest, blandest months in the year. Of every hundred who cross the Atlantic for the first time, I am confident that two-thirds endure more than they had done in all the five years preceding—more than they would do during two months' hard labor as convicts in a State Prison. Of our two hundred, I think fifty did not see a healthy or really happy hour during the passage; while as many more were sufferers for at least half the time. The other hundred were mainly Ocean's old acquaintances, and on that account treated more kindly; but many of these had some trying hours.
Utter indifference to life and all its belongings is one of the characteristics of a genuine case of sea-sickness No. 1. I enjoyed some opportunities of observing this during our voyage. For instance: One evening I was standing by a sick gentleman who had dragged himself or been carried on deck and laid down on a water-proof mattress which raised him two or three inches from the floor. Suddenly a great wave broke square over the bow of the ship and rushed aft in a river through either gangway—the two streams reuniting beyond the purser's and doctor's offices, just where the sick man lay. Any live man would have jumped to his feet as suddenly as if a rattlesnake were whizzing in his blanket; but the sufferer never moved, and the languid coolness of eye wherewith he regarded the rushing flood which made an island of him was most expressive. Happily, the wave had nearly spent its force and was now so rapidly diffused that his refuge was not quite overflowed.
Of course, those who have voyaged and not suffered will pronounce my general picture grossly exaggerated; wherein they will be faithful to their own experience, as I am to mine. I write for the benefit of the uninitiated, to warn them, not against braving the ocean when they must or ought, but against resorting to it for pastime. Voyaging cannot be enjoyment to most of them; it must be suffering. The sonorous rhymesters in praise of "A Life on the Ocean Wave," "The Sea! the Sea! the Open Sea!" &c. were probably never out of sight of land in a gale in their lives. If they were ever "half seas over," the liquid which buoyed them up was not brine, but wine, which is quite another affair. And, as they are continually luring people out of soundings who might far better have remained on terra firma, I lift up my voice in warning against them. "A home on the raging deep," is not a scene of enjoyment, even to the sailor, who suffers only from hardship and exposure; no other laborer's wages are so dearly earned as his, and his season of enjoyment is not the voyage but the stay in port. He is compelled to work hardest just when other out-door laborers deem working at all out of the question. To him Night and Day are alike in their duties as in their exemptions; while the more furious and blinding the tempest, the greater must be his exertions, perils and privations. In fair weather his hours of rest are equal to his hours of labor; in bad weather he may have no hours of rest whatever. Should he find such, he flings himself into his bunk for a few hours in his wet clothes, and turns out smoking like a coal-pit at the next summons to duty, to be drenched afresh in the cold affusions of sea and sky—and so on. An old sea-captain assured me that his crew were sometimes in wet clothing throughout an Atlantic voyage.
Our weather was certainly bad, though not the worst. We started on our course, after leaving Sandy-Hook, in the teeth of a North-Easter, and it clung to us like a brother. It varied to East North-East, East South-East, South East, and occasionally condescended to blow a little from nearly North or nearly South, but we had not six hours of Westerly or semi-Westerly wind throughout the passage. There may have been two days in all, though I think not, in which some of the principal sails could be made to draw; but they were necessarily set so sharply at angles with the ship as to do little good. Usually, one or two trysails were all the canvass displayed, and they rather served to steady the ship than to aid her progress; while for days together, stripped to her naked spars, she was compelled to push her bowsprit into the wind's very eye by the force of her engines alone. And that wind, though no hurricane, had a will of its own; while the waves, rolled perpetually against her bow by so long a succession of easterly winds, were a decided impediment to our progress. I doubt whether there is another steamship which could have made the passage safely and without extra effort in less time than the Baltic[1] did.
Our weather was not all bad, though we had no thoroughly fair day—no day entirely free from rain—none in which the decks were dry throughout. In fact, the spray often kept them thoroughly drenched, especially aft, when there was no rain at all. During four or five of the twelve days we had some hour or more of semi-sunshine either at morning, midday or toward night. The only gales of much account were those of our first night off Long Island and our last before seeing land (Saturday), when on coming into soundings off the coast of Ireland, we had a very decided blow and (the ship having become very light by the consumption of most of her coal) the worst kind of a sea. It gave me my sickest hour, though not my worst day.
Our dreariest days were Wednesday and Thursday, 23d and 24th, when we were a little more than half way across. With the wind precisely ahead and very strong, the skies black and lowering, a pretty constant rain, and a driving, blinding spray which drenched every thing above the decks, themselves ankle-deep in water, I cannot well imagine how two hundred fellow-passengers, driven down and kept down in the cabins and state-rooms of a steamship, could well be treated to a more dismal prospect. I thought the philosophy even of the card-players (who were by far the most industrious and least miserable class among us) was tried by it.
Spacious as the Baltic is, two hundred passengers with fifty or sixty attendants, confined for days together to her cabins, fill her quite full enough. For those who are thoroughly well, there are society, reading, eating, play and other pastimes; but for the sick and helpless, who can neither read nor play, whom even conversation fatigues, and to whom the under-deck smell, especially in connection with food, is intensely revolting, I can imagine no heavier hours short of absolute torture. Having endured these, I had nothing beyond them to dread, and it was rather a satisfaction, on reaching the Irish coast, to be greeted with a succession of hail-squalls—to work up the Channel against a wet North-Easter, and be landed in Liverpool (after a tedious detention for lack of water on the bar at the mouth of the Mersey) under sullen skies and in a dripping rain. I wanted to see the thing out, and would have taken amiss any deceitful smiles of Fortune after I had learned to dispense with her favors.
There yet remains the grateful duty of speaking of the mitigations of our trials. And in the first place, the Baltic herself is unquestionably one of the safest and most commodious sea-boats in the world. She is probably not the fastest, especially with a strong head wind and sea, because of her great bulk and the area of resistance she presents both above and below the water-line; but for strength and excellence of construction, steadiness of movement, and perfection of accommodations, she can have no superior. Her wheels never missed a revolution from the time she discharged her New-York pilot till the time she stopped them to take on board his Liverpool counterpart, off Holyhead: and her sailing qualities, tested under the most unfavorable auspices, are also admirable. She needs but good weather to make the run in ten days from dock to dock; she would have done it this time had the winds been the reverse of what they were or as the Asia had them before her. The luck cannot always be against her.
Praise of commanders and officers of steamships has become so common that it has lost all emphasis, all force. I presume this is for the most part deserved; for it is not likely that the great responsibility of sailing these ships would be entrusted to any other than the very fittest hands; and this is a matter wherein mistakes may by care be avoided. The qualities of a seaman, a commander, do not lie dormant; the ocean tries and proves its men; while in this service the whole traveling public are the observers and judges. But such a voyage as we have just made tries the temper as well as the capacity, it calls into exercise every faculty, and lays bare defects if such there be. To sweep gaily on before a fresh, fair breeze, is comparatively easy, but few landsmen can realize the patient assiduity and nautical skill required to extract propelling power from winds determined to be dead ahead. How nicely the sails must be set at the sharpest angle with the course of the vessel, and sometimes that course itself varied a point or two to make them draw at all; how often they must be shifted, or reefed, or furled; how much labor and skill must be put in requisition to secure a very slight addition to the speed of the ship—all this I am not seaman enough to describe, though I can admire. And during the entire voyage, with its many vicissitudes, I did not hear one harsh or profane word from an officer, one sulky or uncivil response from a subordinate. And the perfection of Capt. Comstock's commandership in my eyes was that, though always on the alert and giving direction to every movement, he did not need to command half so much nor to make himself anything like so conspicuous as an ordinary man would. I willingly believe that some share of the merit of this is due to the admirable qualities of his assistants, especially Lieuts. Duncan and Hunter, of the U. S. Navy.
In the way of food and attendance, nothing desirable was wanting but Health and Appetite. Four meals per day were regularly provided—at 8, 12, 4 and 7 o'clock respectively—which would favorably compare with those proffered at any but the very best Hotels; and some of the dinners—that of the last Sunday especially—would have done credit to the Astor or Irving. Of course I state this with the reservation that the best water and the best milk that can be had at sea are to me unpalatable, and that, even when I can eat under a deck, it is a penance to do so. But these drawbacks are Ocean's fault, or mine; not the Baltic's. Many of the passengers ate their four meals regularly, after the first day out, with abundant relish; and one young New-Yorker added a fifth, by taking a supper at ten each night with a capital appetite, after doing full justice to the four regular meals. If he could only patent his digestion and warrant it, he might turn his back on merchandise evermore.
The attendance on the sick was the best feature of all. Aside from the constant and kind assiduities of Dr. Crary, the ship's physician, the patience and watchfulness with which the sick were nursed and tended, their wants sought out, their wishes anticipated, were remarkable. Many had three meals per day served to them separately in their berths or on deck, and even at unseasonable hours, and often had special delicacies provided for them, without a demur or sulky look. As there was no extra charge for this, it certainly surpassed any preconception on my part of steamship amenity. I trust the ever-moving attendants received something more than their wages for their arduous labors: they certainly deserved it.
The notable incidents of our passage were very few. An iceberg was seen to the northward one morning about sunrise, by those who were on deck at that hour; but it kept at a respectful distance, and we thought the example worthy of our imitation. I understand that the rising sun's rays on its surface produced a fine effect. A single school of whales exhibited their flukes for our edification—so I heard. Several vessels were seen the first morning out, while we were in the Gulf Stream: one or two from day to day, and of course a number as we neared the entrance of the Channel on this side; but there were days wherein we saw no sail but our own; and I think we traversed nearly a thousand miles at one time on this great highway of nations, without seeing one. Such facts give some idea of the ocean's immensity, but I think few can realize, save by experiment, the weary length of way from New-York to Liverpool, nor the quantity of blue water which separates the two points. Friends who went to California by Cape-Horn and were sea-sick, I proffer you my heart felt sympathies!—It was some consolation to me, even when most ill and impatient, to reflect that the gales, so adverse to us, were most propitious to the many emigrant-freighted packets which at this season are conveying thousands to our country's shores, and whose clouds of canvas occasionally loomed upon us in the distance. What were our "light afflictions" compared with those of the multitudes crowded into their stifling steerages, so devoid of conveniences and comforts! Speed on, O favored coursers of the deep, bearing swiftly those suffering exiles to the land of Hope and Freedom!
We had a law trial by way of variety last Saturday—Capt. Comstock having been duly indicted and arraigned for Humbug[2], in permitting us to be so long beset by all manner of easterly winds with never a puff from the westward. Hon. Ashbel Smith, from Texas, officiated as Chief Justice; a Jury of six ladies and six gentlemen were empaneled; James T. Brady conducted the prosecution with much wit and spirit; while Æolus, Neptune, Capt. Cuttle, Jack Bunsby, &c. testified for the prosecution, and Fairweather, Westwind, Brother Jonathan and Mr. Steady gave evidence for the defence. The fun was rather heavy, but the audience was very good natured, and whatever the witnesses lacked in wit, they made up in extravagance of costume, so that two hours were whiled away quite endurably. The Jury not only acquitted the Captain without leaving their seats, but subjected the prosecutors to heavy damages (in wine) as malicious defamers. The verdict was received with unanimous and hearty approval.
But I must stop and begin again. Suffice it, that, though we ought to have landed here inside of twelve days from New York, the difference in time (Liverpool using that of Greenwich for Railroad convenience) being all but five hours—yet the long prevalence of Easterly winds had so lowered the waters of the Mersey by driving those of the Channel westerly into the Atlantic, that the pilot declined the responsibility of taking our ship over the Bar till high water, which was nearly seven o'clock. We then ran up opposite the City, but there was no dock-room for the Baltic, and passengers and light baggage were ferried ashore in a "steam-tug" which we in New York should deem unworthy to convey market garbage. At last, after infinite delay and vexation, caused in good part by the necessity of a custom-house scrutiny even of carpet-bags, because men will smuggle cigars ashore here, even in their pockets, we were landed about 9 o'clock, and to-morrow I set my watch by an English sun. There is promise of brighter skies. I shall hasten up to London to witness the opening of the World's Fair; and so, "My Native Land, Good Night!"
II.
OPENING OF THE FAIR.
London, Thursday, May 1, 1851.
Our Human Life is either comic or tragic, according to the point of view from which we regard it[1q]. The observer will be impelled to laugh or to weep over it, as he shall fix his attention on men's follies or their sufferings. So of the Great Exhibition, and more especially its Royal Inauguration, which I have just returned from witnessing. There can be no serious doubt that the Fair has good points; I think it is a good thing for London first, for England next, and will ultimately benefit mankind. And yet, it would not be difficult so to depict it (and truly), that its contrivers and managers would never think of deeming the picture complimentary.
But let us have the better side first by all means. The show is certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto seen. The Crystal Palace[3], which covers and protects all, is better than any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and varied utility. Depend on it, stone and timber will have to stand back for iron and glass hereafter, to an extent not yet conceivable. The triumph of Paxton is perfect, and heralds a revolution.
The day has been very favorable—fair, bland and dry. It is now 4 P. M. and there has been no rain since daylight, but a mere sprinkle at noon unregarded by us insiders—the longest exemption from "falling weather" I have known since I left New York, and I believe the daily showers or squalls in this city reach still further back. True, even this day would be deemed a dull one in New York, but there was a very fair imitation of sunshine this morning, and we enjoy rather more than American moonlight still, though the sky is partially clouded. [How can they have had the conscience to tax such light as they get up in this country?] Of course the turn out has been immense; I estimate the number inside of the building at thirty thousand, and I presume ten times as many went out of their way to gaze at the Procession, though that was not much. Our New York Fire Department could beat it; so could our Odd-Fellows.—Then the most perfect order was preserved throughout; everything was done in season and without botching; no accident occurred to mar the festivity, and the general feeling was one of hearty satisfaction. If it were a new thing to see a Queen, Court and aristocracy engaged in doing marked honor to Industry, they certainly performed gracefully the parts allotted them, and with none of the awkwardness or blundering which novel situations are expected to excuse. But was the play well cast?
The Sovereign in a monarchy is of course always in order: to be honored for doing his whole duty; to be honored more signally if he does more than his duty. Prince Albert's sphere as the Sovereign's consort is very limited, and he shows rare sense and prudence in never evincing a desire to overstep it. I think few men live who could hold his neutral and hampered position and retain so entirely the sincere respect and esteem of the British Nation. His labors in promoting this Exhibition began early and have been arduous, persistent and effective. Any Inauguration of the Fair in which he did not prominently figure would have done him injustice. The Queen appears to be personally popular in a more direct and positive sense. I cannot remember that any one act of her public life has ever been condemned by the public sentiment of the Country. Almost every body here appears to esteem it a condescension for her to open the Exhibition as though it were a Parliament, and with far more of personal exertion and heartiness on her part. And while I must regard her vocation as one rather behind the intelligence of this age and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day, yet I am sure that change will not come through her fault. I was glad to see her in the pageant to-day, and hope she enjoyed it while ministering to the enjoyment of others.
But let us reverse the glass for a moment. The ludicrous, the dissonant, the incongruous, are not excluded from the Exhibition: they cannot be excluded from any complete picture of its Opening. The Queen, we will say, was here by Right Divine, by right of Womanhood, by Universal Suffrage—any how you please. The ceremonial could not have spared her. But in inaugurating the first grand cosmopolitan Olympiad of Industry, ought not Industry to have had some representation, some vital recognition, in her share of the pageant? If the Queen had come in state to the Horse-Guards to review the élite of her military forces, no one would doubt that "the Duke" should figure in the foreground, with a brilliant staff of Generals and Colonels surrounding him. So, if she were proceeding to open Parliament her fitting attendants would be Ministers and Councillors of State. But what have her "Gentleman Usher of Sword and State," "Lords in Waiting," "Master of the Horse," "Earl Marshal," "Groom of the Stole," "Master of the Buckhounds," and such uncouth fossils, to do with a grand Exhibition of the fruits of Industry? What, in their official capacity, have these and theirs ever had to do with Industry unless to burden it, or with its Products but to consume or destroy them? The "Mistress of the Robes" would be in place if she ever fashioned any robes, even for the Queen; so would the "Ladies of the Bedchamber" if they did anything with beds except to sleep in them. As the fact is, their presence only served to strengthen the presumption that not merely their offices but that of Royalty itself is an anachronism, and all should have deceased with the era to which they properly belonged. It was well indeed that Paxton should have a proud place in the procession; but he held it in no representative capacity; he was there not in behalf of Architecture but of the Crystal Palace. To have rendered the pageant expressive, congruous, and really a tribute to Industry, the posts of honor next the Queen's person should have been confided on this occasion to the children of Watt, of Arkwright and their compeers (Napoleon's real conquerors;) while instead of Grandees and Foreign Embassadors, the heirs of Fitch, of Fulton, of Jacquard, of Whitney, of Daguerre, &c., with the discoverers, inventors, architects and engineers to whom the world is primarily indebted for Canals, Railroads, Steamships, Electric Telegraphs, &c., &c., should have been specially invited to swell the Royal cortege. To pass over all these, and summon instead the descendants of some dozen lucky Norman robbers, none of whom ever contemplated the personal doing of any real work as even a remote possibility, and any of whom would feel insulted by a report that his father or grandfather invented the Steam Engine or Spinning Jenny, is not the fittest way to honor Industry. The Queen's Horticulturists, Gardeners, Carpenters, Upholsterers, Milliners, &c., would have been far more in place in the procession than her "gold stick," "silver stick," and kindred absurdities.
And yet, empty and blundering as the conception of this pageant may seem and is, there is nevertheless marrow and hope in it. "The world does move," O Galileo! carrying onward even those who forced you to deny the truth you had demonstrated! We may well say that these gentlemen in ribbons and stars cannot truly honor Labor while they would deem its performance by their own sons a degradation; but the grandfathers of these Dukes and Barons would have deemed themselves as much dishonored by uniting in this Royal ovation to gingham weavers and boiler-makers as these men would by being compelled to weave the cloth and forge the iron themselves. Patience, impetuous souls! the better day dawns, though the morning air is chilly. We shall be able to elect something else than Generals to the Presidency before this century is out, and the Right of every man to live by Labor—consequently, to a place where he may live, on the sole condition that he is willing to labor—stands high on the general orders, and must soon be up for National and universal discussion. The Earls and Dukes of a not distant day will train their sons in schools of Agriculture, Architecture, Chemistry, Mineralogy, &c., inspiring each to win fame and rank for himself by signal and brilliant usefulness, instead of resting upon and wearing out the fame won by some ancestor on the battle-field of the old barbarian time. Even To-Day's hollow pageant is an augury of this. It is Browning, I think, who says,
"All men become good creatures, but so slow."
Let us, taking heart from the reflection that we live in the age of the Locomotive and the Telegraph, cheerfully press onward!
We will consider the Fair opened.
I shall venture no especial criticisms as yet—first because the Exhibition is not ready for it; next because I am in the same predicament. A few general observations must close this letter.
Immense as the quantity of goods offered for exhibition is, it is not equal to the enormous capacity of the building, to which Castle Garden is but a dog-kennel. [I do hope we may have a Crystal Palace of like proportions in New-York within two years; it would be of inestimable worth as a study to our young architects, builders and artisans. If such an edifice were constructed in some fit locality to be leased out in portions, under proper regulations, for stores, I believe it would pay handsomely. Each store might be separated from those next it by partitions of iron and glass; the fronts might be made of movable plates of glass or left entirely open; the entire building being opened at eight in the morning, closed at eight at night, and carefully watched at all times.] True, many things are yet to be received, and some already in the building remain in the boxes; still, I think there will be some nakedness, even a week hence. The opportunity for seeing every thing, judging every thing, is all the better for this, and indeed is unexampled.
The display from different countries is very unequal, even in proportion: Old England is of course here in her might; France has a vast collection, especially of articles appealing to taste or fancy; but Germany and the rest of the Continent have less than I expected to see; and the show from the United States disappoints many by its alleged meagerness. I do not view it in the same light, nor regret, with a New-York merchant whom I met in the Fair to-day, that Congress did not appropriate $100,000 to secure a full and commanding exhibition of American products at this Fair. I do not see how any tangible and adequate benefit to the Nation would have resulted from such a dubious disposition of National funds. In the first place, our great Agricultural staples—at least, all such as find markets abroad—are already accessible and well known here. Bales of Cotton, casks of Hams or other Meats, barrels of Flour or Resin, hogsheads of Tobacco, &c., might have been heaped up here as high as St. Paul's steeple—to what end? Europeans already know that we produce these staples in abundance and perfection, and when they want them they buy of us. I doubt whether cumbering the Fair with them would have either promoted the National interest or exalted the National reputation. It would have served rather to deepen the impression, already too general both at home and abroad, that we are a rude, clumsy people, inhabiting a broad, fertile domain, affording great incitements to the most slovenly description of Agriculture, and that it is our policy to stick to that, and let alone the nicer processes of Art, which require dexterity and delicacy of workmanship. We must outgrow this error.
Our Manufacturers are in many departments grossly deficient, in others inferior to the best rival productions of Europe. In Silks and Linens, we have nothing now to show; I trust the case will be bravely altered within a few years. In broad cloths, we are behind and going behind, but in Satinets, Flannels, (woolen) Shawls, De Laines, Ginghams, Drills and most plain Cottons, we are producing as effectively as our rivals, and in many departments gaining upon them. But few of these are goods which make much show in a Fair; three cases of Parisian gewgaws will outshine in an exhibition a million dollars' worth of admirable and cheap Muslins, Drills, Flannels, &c. And beside, our Manufacturers, who find themselves met at every turn, and often supplanted at their own doors by showy fabrics from abroad, are shy of calling attention in Europe to the few articles which, by the help of valuable American inventions, they are able to make and sell at a profit. I know this consideration has kept some goods and more machinery at home which would otherwise have been here. The manufacturers are here or are coming, to see what knowledge or skill they can pick up, but they are not so ready to tell all they know. They think the odds in favor of those who work against them backed by the cheap Labor and abundant Capital of Europe, are quite sufficient already.
Still, there are some Yankee Notions that I wish had been sent over. I think our Cut Nails, our Pins, our Wood Screws, &c. should have been represented. India Rubber is abundant here, but I have seen no Gutta Percha, and our New-York Company (Hudson Manufacturing) might have put a new wrinkle on John Bull's forehead by sending over an assorted case of their fabrics. The Brass and kindred fabrics of Waterbury (Conn.) ought not to have come up missing, and a set of samples of the "Flint Enameled Ware" of Vermont, I should have been proud of for Vermont's sake. A light Jersey wagon, a Yankee ox-cart, and two or three sets of American Farming Implements, would have been exactly in play here. Our Scythes, Cradles, Hoes, Rakes, Axes, Sowing, Reaping, Threshing and Winnowing machines, &c., &c., are a long distance ahead of the British—so the best judges say; and where their machines are good they cost too much ever to come into general use. There is a pretty good set of Yankee Ploughs here, and they are likely to do good. I believe Connecticut Clocks and Maine (North Wayne) Axes are also well represented. But either Rochester, Syracuse, or Albany could have beaten the whole show in Farming Tools generally.
Yet there are many good things in the American department. In Daguerreotypes, it seems to be conceded that we beat the world, when excellence and cheapness are both considered—at all events, England is no where in comparison—and our Daguerreotypists make a great show here.—New Jersey Zinc, Lake Superior Copper, Adirondack Iron and Steel, are well represented either by ores or fabrics, and I believe California Gold is to be.—But I am speaking on the strength of a very hasty examination. I shall continue in attendance from day to day and hope to glean from the show some ideas that may be found or made useful.
P. S.—The Official Catalogue of the Fair is just issued. It has been got up in great haste, and must necessarily be imperfect, but it extends to 320 double-column octavo pages on brevier type (not counting advertisements) and is sold for a shilling—(24 cents). Some conception of the extent of the Fair may be obtained from the following hasty summary of a portion of the contents, showing the number of Exhibitors in certain departments, as classified in the Official Catalogue, viz:
GREAT BRITAIN.
Coal, Slate, Grindstone, Limestone, Granite, &c. (outside the building),
44
Mining and Mineral Products (inside),
366
Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products,
103
Substances used as Food,
133
Vegetable and Animal Substances used in Manufactures,
94
Machines for Direct Use, including Carriages, Railway and Marine Mechanism,
339
Manufacturing Machines and Tools,
225
Civil Engineering and Building Contrivances,
177
Naval Architecture, Guns, Weapons, &c.
260
Agricultural and Horticultural Machines and Implements,
287
Philosophical, Musical, Horological and Surgical Instruments,
535
Total, so far,
2563
The foregoing occupy but 55 of the 300 pages devoted expressly to the Catalogue, so that the whole number of Exhibitors[10] cannot be less than Ten Thousand, and is probably nearer Fifteen Thousand; and as two articles from each would be a low estimate, I think the number of distinct articles already on exhibition cannot fall below Thirty Thousand, counting all of any class which may be entered by a single exhibitor as one article. Great Britain fills 136 pages of the Catalogue; her Colonies and Foreign possessions 48 more; Austria 16; Belgium 8, China 2, Denmark 1, Egypt 2½, France and Algiers 35, Prussia and the Zoll Verein States 19; Bavaria 2, Saxony 5, Wirtemburg 2, Hesse, Nassau and Luxemburg 3, Greece 1, Hamburgh 1, Holland 2, Portugal 3½; Madeira 1, Papal State[6] ½, Russia 5, Sardinia 1½, Spain 5, Sweden and Norway 1, Switzerland 5, Tunis 2½, Tuscany 2, United States 8½. So the United States stands fifth on the list of contributing Countries, ranking next after Great Britain herself, France, Austria, and Prussian Germany, and far ahead of Holland and Switzerland, which have long been held up as triumphant examples of Industrial progress and thrift under Free Trade; and these, with all the countries which show more than we do, are close at hand, while our country is on the average more than 4,000 miles off.—I am confirmed in my view that the cavils at the meagerness of our contribution are not well grounded.
