Colonel Mildred Duff - "Catherine Booth"

E.V. Lucas - "Highways & Byways in Sussex"

Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I"

Mary Robinson - "Beaux and Belles of England"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Englishwoman in America

I >> Isabella Lucy Bird >> The Englishwoman in America




The facilities for telegraphic communication in the States are a further
evidence of the enterprise of this remarkable people. They have now 22,000
miles of telegraph in operation, and the cost of transmitting messages is
less than a halfpenny a word for any distance under 200 miles. The cost of
construction, including every outlay, is about 30_l._ per mile. The wires
are carried along the rail ways, through forests, and across cities,
rivers, and prairies. Messages passing from one very distant point to
another have usually to be re-written at an intermediate station; though
by an improved plan they have been transmitted direct from New York to
Mobile, a distance of 1800 miles. By the Cincinnati telegraphic route to
New Orleans, a distance from New York of 2000 miles, the news brought by
the British steamer to Sandy Hook at 8 in the morning has been telegraphed
to New Orleans, and before 11 o'clock the effects produced by it upon
speculations there have been returned to New York--the message
accomplishing a distance of 4000 miles in three hours. The receipts are
enormous, for, in consequence of the very small sum charged for
transmitting messages, as many as 600 are occasionally sent along the
principal lines in one day. The seven principal morning papers in New York
paid in one year 50,000 dollars for despatches, and 14,000 for special
messages. Messages connected with markets, public news, the weather, and
the rise and fall of stocks, are incessantly passing between the great
cities. Any change in the weather likely to affect the cotton-crop is
known immediately in the northern cities. While in the Exchange at Boston,
I witnessed the receipt of a telegraphic despatch announcing that a heavy
shower was falling at New Orleans!

It must not be supposed that there is no poverty in the New World. During
one year 134,972 paupers were in the receipt of relief, of whom 59,000
were in the State of New York; but to show the evil influence of the
foreign, more especially the Irish, element in America, it is stated that
75 per cent. of the criminals and paupers are foreigners.

The larger portion of the crime committed is done under the influence of
spirits; and to impose a check upon their sale, that celebrated enactment,
known under the name of the "_Maine Law_" has been placed upon the
statute-books of several of the States, including the important ones of
New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Nebraska. This law
prohibits, under heavy penalties, the manufacture or sale of alcoholic
liquors. It has been passed in obedience to the will of the people, as
declared at the elections; and though to us its provisions seem somewhat
arbitrary, its working has produced very salutary effects.

When so much importance is attached to education, and such a liberal
provision is made for it, it is to be expected that a taste for reading
would be universally diffused. And such is the case: America teems with
books. Every English work worth reading is reprinted in a cheap form in
the States as soon as the first copy crosses the Atlantic. Our reviews and
magazines appear regularly at half price, and Dickens' 'Household Words'
and 'Chambers' Journal' enjoy an enormous circulation without any
pecuniary benefit being obtained by the authors. Every one reads the
newspapers and 'Harper's Magazine,' and every one buys bad novels, on
worse paper, in the cars and steamboats. The States, although amply
supplied with English literature, have many popular authors of their own,
among whom may be named Prescott, Bancroft, Washington Irving, Stowe,
Stephens, Wetherall, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, and Bryant. Books are
very cheap wherever the editions of English works are concerned, and a
library is considered an essential part of the fitting up of a house. In
many of the States there are public libraries supported by a rate. In the
State of New York, in the year ending 1854, the Commissioners of Education
received 90,579 dollars for libraries.

Perhaps the greatest advantage offered to emigrants is the opportunity
everywhere afforded of investing small sums of money advantageously. In
England, in most branches of trade, the low rate of wages renders it
impossible for the operative to save any portion of his earnings; and even
when he is able to do so, he can rarely obtain a higher rate of interest
for his money than that which the savings-banks offer. Economise as he
may, his hard-won savings seldom are sufficient to afford him a provision
in old age. In America, on the contrary, the man who possesses 5_l._ or
10_l._ has every hope of securing a competence. He may buy land in newly-
settled districts, which sometimes can be obtained at 7_s._ an acre, and
hold it till it becomes valuable, or he may obtain a few shares in any
thriving corporate concern. A hundred ways present themselves to the man
of intelligence and industry by which he may improve and increase his
little fortune. The necessaries of life are abundant and cheap, and, aided
by a free education, he has the satisfaction of a well-grounded hope that
his children will rise to positions of respectability and affluence, while
his old age will be far removed from the pressure of want. The knowledge
that each shilling saved may produce ten or twenty by judicious investment
is a constant stimulus to his industry.

Yet, from all that I have seen and heard, I should think that Canada West
offers a more advantageous field for emigrants. Equally free and
unburdened by taxation, with the same social and educational advantages,
with an increasing demand for labour of every kind, with a rich soil,
extraordinary facilities of communication, and a healthy climate,
pauperism is unknown; fluctuations in commercial affairs are comparatively
small, and, above all, the emigrant is not exposed to the loss of
everything which he possesses as soon as he lands.

An infamous class of swindlers, called "emigrant-runners," meet the poor
adventurer on his arrival at New York. They sell him second-class tickets
at the price of first-class, forged passes, and tickets to take him 1000
miles, which are only available at the outside for 200 or 300. If he holds
out against their extortions, he is beaten, abused, loses his luggage for
a time, or is transferred to the tender mercies of the boarding-house
keeper, who speedily deprives him of his hard-earned savings. These
runners retard the westward progress of the emigrant in every way; they
charge enormous rates for the removal of his luggage from the wharf; they
plunder him in railway-cars, in steamboats, in lodging-houses; and if
Providence saves him from sinking into drunkenness and despair, and he can
be no longer detained, they sell him a lot in some non-existent locality,
or send him off to the west in search of some pretended employment. Too
frequently, after the emigrant has lost his money and property, sickened
by disappointment and deserted by hope, he is content to remain at New
York, where he contributes to increase that "dangerous class" already so
much feared in the Empire City.

One point remains to be noticed, and that is, the feeling which exists in
America towards England. Much has been done to inflame animosity on each
side; national rivalries have been encouraged, and national jealousies
fomented. In travelling through the United States I expected to find a
very strong anti-English feeling. In this I was disappointed. It is true
that I scarcely ever entered a car, steamboat, or hotel, without hearing
England made a topic of discussion in connexion with the war; but, except
on a few occasions in the West, I never heard any other than kindly
feelings expressed towards our country. A few individuals would
prognosticate failure and disaster, and glory in the anticipation of a
"busting-up;" but these were generally "Kurnels" of militia, or newly-
arrived Irish emigrants. These last certainly are very noisy enemies, and
are quite ready to subscribe to the maxim, "That wherever England
possesses an interest, there an American wrong exists." Some of the papers
likewise write against England in no very measured terms; but it must be
borne in mind that declamatory speaking and writing are the safety-valves
of a free community, and the papers from which our opinion of American
feeling is generally taken do not represent even a respectable minority in
the nation. American commercial interests are closely interwoven with-
ours, and "Brother Jonathan" would not lightly go against his own
interests by rushing into war on slight pretences.

While I was dining at an hotel in one of the great American cities a
gentleman proposed to an English friend of his to drink "Success to Old
England." Nearly two hundred students of a well-known college were
present, and one of them begged to join in drinking the toast on behalf of
his fellow-students. "For," he added, "we, in common with the educated
youth of America, look upon England as upon a venerated mother." I have
frequently heard this sentiment expressed in public places, and have often
heard it remarked that kindly feeling towards England is on the increase
in society.

The news of the victory of the Alma was received with rejoicing; the
heroic self-sacrifice of the cavalry at Balaklava excited enthusiastic
admiration; and the glorious stand at Inkermann taught the Americans that
their aged parent could still defend the cause of freedom with the vigour
of youth. The disasters of the winter, and the gloomy months of inaction
which succeeded it, had the effect of damping their sympathies; the
prophets of defeat were for a time triumphant, and our fading prestige,
and reputed incapacity, were made the subjects of ill-natured discussion
by the press. But when the news of the fall of Sebastopol arrived, the
tone of the papers changed, and, relying on the oblivious memories of
their readers, they declared that they had always prophesied the
demolition of Russia. The telegraphic report of the victory was received
with rejoicing, and the ship which conveyed it to Boston was saluted with
thirty-one guns by the States artillery.

The glory of the republic is based upon its advanced social principles and
its successful prosecution of the arts of peace. As the old military
despotisms cannot compete with it in wealth and enlightenment, so it
attempts no competition with them in standing armies and the arts of war.
National vanity is a failing of the Americans, and, if their military
prowess had never been proved before, they might seek to display it on
European soil; but their successful struggle with England in the War of
Independence renders any such display unnecessary. The institutions of the
States do not date from the military ages of the world, and the Federal
Constitution has made no provision for offensive war. The feeling of the
educated classes, and of an immense majority in the Free States, is
believed to be essentially English. Despotism and freedom can never unite;
and whatever may be the declamations of the democratic party, the opinion
of those who are acquainted with the state of popular feeling is that, if
the question were seriously mooted, a war with England or a Russian
alliance would secure to the promoters of either the indignation and
contempt which they would deserve. It is earnestly to be hoped, and I
trust that it may be believed, that none of us will live to see the day
when two nations, so closely allied by blood, religion, and the love of
freedom, shall engage in a horrible and fratricidal war.

Such of the foregoing remarks as apply to the results of the vitiation of
the pure form of republican government delivered to America by Washington,
I have hazarded with very great diffidence. In England we know very little
of the United States, and, however candid the intentions of a tourist may
be, it is difficult in a short residence in the country so completely to
throw off certain prejudices and misapprehensions as to proceed to the
delineation of its social characteristics with any degree of fairness and
accuracy. The similarity of language, and to a great extent of customs and
manners, renders one prone rather to enter into continual comparisons of
America with England than to look at her from the point from which she
really ought to be viewed--namely, _herself_. There are, however, certain
salient points which present themselves to the interested observer, and I
have endeavoured to approach these in as candid a spirit as possible, not
exaggerating obvious faults, where there is so much to commend and admire.

The following remarks were lately made to me by a liberal and enlightened
American on the misapprehensions of British observers:--"The great fault
of English travellers in this land very often is that they see all things
through spectacles which have been graduated to the age and narrow local
dimensions of things in England; and because things here are new, and all
that is good, instead of being concentrated into a narrow space so as to
be seen at one glance, is widely diffused so as not to be easily gauged--
because, in other words, it is the spring here and not the autumn, and our
advance has the step of youth instead of the measured walk of age; and
because our refinements have not the precise customs to which they have
been accustomed at home, they turn away in mighty dissatisfaction. There
are excellences in varieties, and things which differ may both be good."




CHAPTER XX.

The _America_--A gloomy departure--An ugly night--Morning at Halifax--Our
new passengers--Babies--Captain Leitch--A day at sea--Clippers and
steamers--A storm--An Atlantic moonlight--Unpleasant sensations--A gale--
Inkermann--Conclusion.


On reaching Boston I found that my passage had been taken in the Cunard
steamer _America_, reputed to be the slowest and wettest of the whole
line. Some of my kind American friends, anxious to induce me to remain for
the winter with them, had exaggerated the dangers and discomforts of a
winter-passage; the December storms, the three days spent in crossing the
Newfoundland Banks, steaming at half-speed with fog-bells ringing and
foghorns blowing, the impossibility of going on deck, and the
disagreeableness of being shut up in a close heated saloon. It was with
all these slanders against the ship fresh in my recollection that I saw
her in dock on the morning of my leaving America, her large, shapeless,
wall-sided hull looming darkly through a shower of rain. The friends who
had first welcomed me to the States accompanied me to the vessel,
rendering my departure from them the more regretful, and scarcely had I
taken leave of them when a gun was fired, the lashings were cast off, and
our huge wheels began their ceaseless revolutions.

It was in some respects a cheerless embarkation. The Indian summer had
passed away; the ground was bound by frost; driving showers of sleet were
descending; and a cold, howling, wintry wind was sweeping over the waters
of Massachusetts Bay. We were considerably retarded between Boston and
Halifax by contrary winds. I had retired early to my berth to sleep away
the fatigues of several preceding months, and was awoke about midnight by
the most deafening accumulation of sounds which ever stunned my ears. I
felt that I was bruised, and that the berth was unusually hard and cold;
and, after groping about in the pitch-darkness, I found that I had been
thrown out of it upon the floor, a fact soon made self-evident by my being
rolled across the cabin, a peculiarly disagreeable course of locomotion.
It was impossible to stand or walk, and in crawling across to my berth I
was assailed by my portmanteau, which was projected violently against me.
Further sleep for some hours was impossible. Bang! bang! would come a
heavy wave against the ship's side, close to my ears, as if trying the
strength of her timbers. Crash! crash! as we occasionally shipped heavy
seas, would the waves burst over the lofty bulwarks, and with a fall of
seven feet at once come thundering down on the deck above. Then one sound
asserted its claim to be heard over all the others--a sound as if our
decks were being stove--a gun or some other heavy body had broken loose,
and could not be secured. The incessant groaning, splitting, and heaving,
and the roar of the water through the scuppers, as it found a tardy egress
from the deluged deck, was the result of merely a "head-wind" and "an ugly
night."

Late on the second evening of our voyage, I walked on deck. It was the
"fag-end" of a gale, and the rain was pouring down upon the slippery
planks. Brightly a skyrocket whizzed upwards from a distant ship, and
burst in a shower of flame, followed by two others, signalling our old
acquaintance the _Canada_, bound from Liverpool to Boston. We sent up some
fireworks in return, and soon lost sight of the friendly light on her
paddle-box. She was the only ship that we saw till we reached the Irish
coast.

With some of the other passengers, I was on deck at five in the morning,
to see the lights on the heads of Halifax harbour. It was dark and
intensely cold and wet. A shower of rain had frozen on deck during the
night, and as it began to melt the water ran off in little sooty rills.
Slowly, shivering figures came on deck, men in envelopes of fur, and
oilskin capes and coats, with teeth chattering with cold, with wrinkled
brows, and blue cold noses. And slowly lightened the clear eastern sky,
and the crescent moon and stars disappeared one by one, and gradually the
low pine-clad hills of Nova Scotia stood out in dark relief against the
light, when, all of a sudden, "like a glory, the broad sun" rose behind
the purple moorlands, and soon hill and town and lake-like bay were bathed
in the cold glow of a winter sunrise. It was now half-past seven--the
morning-gun had boomed from the citadel, and, in honour of such an
important event as the arrival of the European steamer, it might have been
supposed that the inhabitants of the quiet town of Halifax would have been
astir. In this idea a Scotch friend and I stepped ashore with the
intention of visiting an Indian curiosity-shop. In dismal contrast to the
early habits which prevail in the American cities, where sleep is yielded
to as a necessity, instead of being indulged in as a luxury, we found the
shops closed, and, except the people immediately connected with the
steamer, none were stirring in the streets but ragged negroes and squalid-
looking Indians. A few 'cute enterprising Yankees would soon metamorphose
the aspect of this city. As an arrogant American once observed to me, "It
would take a 'Blue Nose' (a Nova-Scotian) as long to put on his hat as for
one of our free and enlightened citizens to go from Bosting to New
_Orleens_." The appearance of the town was very repulsive. A fall of snow
had thawed, and mixing with the dust, store-sweepings, cabbage-stalks,
oyster-shells, and other rubbish, had formed a soft and peculiarly
penetrating mixture from three to seven inches deep.

Eighteen passengers joined the _America_ at Halifax, and among them I was
delighted to welcome my cousins, a party of seven, _en route_ from Prince
Edward Island to England. The two babies which accompanied them were
rather dreaded in prospect, but I believe that their behaviour gained them
general approbation. As dogs are not allowed on the poop or in the saloon,
a well-conditioned baby is rather a favourite in a ship; gentlemen of
amiable dispositions give it plenty of nursing and tossing, and stewards
regard it with benignant smiles, and occasionally offer it "titbits"
purloined from dinner.

Among the passengers who joined us at Halifax were Captain Leitch, and
three of the wrecked officers of the steamship _City of Philadelphia_,
which was lost on Cape Race three months before. Captain Leitch is a
remarkable-looking man, very like the portraits of the Count of Monte
Christo. His heroism and presence of mind on the occasion of that terrible
disaster were the means of saving the lives of six hundred people, many of
whom were women and children. When the ship struck, the panic among this
large number of persons was of course awful; but so perfect was the
discipline of the crew, and so great their attachment to their commander,
that not a cabin-boy left the ship in that season of apprehension without
his permission. Captain Leitch said that he would be the last man to quit
the ship, and he kept his word; but the excitement, anxiety, and
subsequent exposure to cold and fatigue, more especially in his search
after the survivors of the ill-fated Arctic, brought on a malady from
which he was severely suffering.

We had only sixty passengers on board, and the party was a remarkably
quiet one. There was a gentleman going to Paris as American consul, a
daily, animated, and untiring advocate of slavery; a Jesuit missionary, of
agreeable manners and cultivated mind, on his way to Rome to receive an
episcopal hat; two Jesuit brethren; five lively French people; and the
usual number of commercial travellers, agents, and storekeepers,
principally from Canada. There were very few ladies, and only three
besides our own party appeared in the saloon. For a few days after leaving
Halifax we had a calm sea and fair winds, accompanied with rain; and with
the exception of six unhappy passengers who never came upstairs during the
whole voyage, all seemed well enough to make the best of things.

A brief description of the daily routine on board these ships may serve to
amuse those who have never crossed the Atlantic, and may recall agreeable
or disagreeable recollections, as the case may be, to those who have.

During the first day or two those who are sea-sick generally remain
downstairs, and those who are well look sentimentally at the receding
land, and make acquaintances with whom they walk five or six in a row,
bearing down isolated individuals of anti-social habits. After two or
three days have elapsed, people generally lose all interest in the
novelty, and settle down to such pursuits as suit them best. At eight in
the morning the dressing-bell rings, and a very few admirable people get
up, take a walk on deck, and appear at breakfast at half-past eight. But
to most this meal is rendered a superfluity by the supper of the night
before--that condemned meal, which everybody declaims against, and
everybody partakes of. However, if only two or three people appear, the
long tables are adorned profusely with cold tongue, ham, Irish stew,
mutton-chops, broiled salmon, crimped cod, eggs, tea, coffee, chocolate,
toast, hot rolls, &c. &c.! These viands remain on the table till half-past
nine. After breakfast some of the idle ones come up and take a promenade
on deck, watch the wind, suggest that it has changed a little, look at the
course, ask the captain for the fiftieth time when he expects to be in
port, and watch the heaving of the log, when the officer of the watch
invariably tells them that the ship is running a knot or two faster than
her real speed, giving a glance of intelligence at the same time to some
knowing person near. Many persons who are in the habit of crossing twice
a-year begin cards directly after breakfast, and, with only the
interruption of meals, play till eleven at night. Others are equally
devoted to chess; and the commercial travellers produce small square books
with columns for dollars and cents, cast up their accounts, and bite the
ends of their pens. A bell at twelve calls the passengers to lunch from
their various lurking-places, and, though dinner shortly succeeds this
meal, few disobey the summons. There is a large consumption of pale ale,
hotch-potch, cold beef, potatoes, and pickles. These pickles are of a
peculiarly brilliant green, but, as the forks used are of electro-plate,
the daily consumption of copper cannot be ascertained.

At four all the tables are spread; a bell rings--that "tocsin of the
soul," as Byron has sarcastically but truthfully termed the dinner-bell;
and all the passengers rush in from every quarter of the ship, and seat
themselves with an air of expectation till the covers are raised. Grievous
disappointments are often disclosed by the uplifted dish-covers, for it
must be confessed that to many people dinner is the great event of the
day, to be speculated upon before, and criticised afterwards. There is a
tureen of soup at the head of each table, and, as soon as the captain
takes his seat, twelve waiters in blue jackets, who have been previously
standing in a row, dart upon the covers, and after a few minutes of
intense clatter the serious business of eating begins. The stewards serve
with civility and alacrity, and seem to divine your wishes, their good
offices no doubt being slightly stimulated by the vision of a _douceur_ at
the end of the voyage. Long bills of fare are laid on the tables, and good
water, plentifully iced, is served with each meal. Wine, spirits,
liqueurs, and ale are consumed in large quantities, as also soups, fish,
game, venison, meat, and poultry of all kinds, with French side-dishes, a
profusion of jellies, puddings, and pastry, and a plentiful dessert of
fresh and preserved fruits. Many people complain of a want of appetite at
sea, and the number of bottles of "Perrin's Sauce" used in the Cunard
steamers must almost make the fortune of the maker. At seven o'clock the
tea-bell rings, but the tables are comparatively deserted, for from half-
past nine to half-past ten people can order whatever they please in the
way of supper.

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