Part 7 (2/2)

There was nothing particularly pretty on the road, as the trees are, I grieve to say, losing their leaves in this neighbourhood; but on approaching this great city, ”the Queen of the West,” we came again on the Ohio. The water is now very low, but the bed of the river shows how great its width is when full; and even now there is a perfect navy of splendid steamers floating on its waters, many of which we saw as our train drove through the suburban streets of the city. Unhappily the rain poured down upon us as we got into the omnibus, but we were soon consoled by finding ourselves in this most magnificent hotel, the finest I have yet seen. The drawing room, is I should think, unsurpa.s.sed in beauty by any hotel anywhere, and I shall endeavour to make a drawing of it before I leave. The hotel at Columbus was tolerably large, as you may suppose, when I tell you that our dining room there was about ninety feet by thirty. This one, however, has two dining rooms of at least equal dimensions, which together can dine 1000 persons, and it makes up 600 beds. We sat in the drawing room yesterday evening, for we could not reconcile ourselves to leave it, even to write this journal. There were various ladies and gentlemen laughing and talking together, but no evening dresses, and nothing of any importance to remark about them. One young lady only was rather grandly dressed in a drab silk; she afterwards sat down to the piano, and began the usual American jingle, for I cannot call it music; and I have since been told she was the daughter of the master of the house. ”Egalite” is certainly the order of the day here, and this young lady was treated quite on an equality with the other ladies in the room. The food is excellent, and we are very thankful to have so luxurious a resting place if we are at all detained here. We have several friends in the hotel, who are here to meet papa on business.

This morning we have had a visit from Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, the astronomer, and author of the work on Astronomy, which I remember reading with pleasure just before I left England. His daughter is to call on me and drive us out, and we are to pay a visit to his observatory. We went this afternoon to leave some letters, which Mr. Dennison had given us for Mr.

Rufus King and Mr. Lars Anderson. We found Mrs. King at home; her husband is much devoted to educational subjects and to the fine arts.

There were some very good pictures and engravings in the drawing room, and amongst the latter two of Sir Robert Strange's performances. We found both Mr. and Mrs. Anderson at home; they live in a splendid house, but as it was getting dark we could not see the details. We sent in our cards with our letter, and the room being full of people, Mr. Anderson introduced papa to each one separately, and me as Mrs. S----. As these guests went out others came in, and fresh introductions took place, but still always Mr. T---- and Mrs. S----, and he so addressed me during the visit. As we were going away papa said that he was making some strange mistake about my name, but he insisted upon it that we had so announced it; and on looking at our cards I found the card of a very vulgar lady at New York, which I had given by mistake as my own.

As we were leaving the room, a very amiable and pleasing person asked me if I would not call upon Mr. Longworth, the most celebrated character in this country, who she said was her father and the father of Mrs.

Anderson. I said that we had letters to him from Mr. Jared Sparks, and that we had meant to call on him the next day, but she said we had better return with her then. We accordingly accompanied her through Mr.

Anderson's garden, and through an adjoining one which led to her father's house, likewise a very large one, though not presenting such an architectural appearance as Mr. Anderson's. The old gentleman soon made his appearance, and afterwards Mrs. Longworth. They were a most venerable couple, who had a twelve-month ago celebrated their golden marriage, or fiftieth anniversary of their wedding day. We were invited to stay and drink tea, which we did, and met a large a.s.semblage of children and grand-children; a great-grand-child who had been present at the golden wedding, was in its nursery.

Mr. Longworth, among other things remarkable about him, is the proprietor of the vineyards from which the sparkling champagne is produced, known, from the name of the grape, as the sparkling Catawba; but he seems no less remarkable from the immense extent of his strawberry beds, which cover, I think he said, 60 acres of ground. He told us the number of bushels of fruit they daily produce in the season; but the number is legion, and I dare not set it down from memory. He showed papa a book he had written about his grapes and strawberries, and is very incredulous as to any in the world being better than his. This led to a discussion upon the relative size of trees and plants on the two sides of the Atlantic; and in speaking of the Indian corn, he tells us he has seen it standing, in Ohio, eighteen feet high, and he says it has been known, in Kentucky, to reach as high as twenty-five feet, and the ear eighteen inches long.

The old gentleman is a diminutive-looking person, with a coat so shabby that one would be tempted to offer him a sixpence if we met him in the streets; indeed a story is told of a stranger, who, going into his garden, and being shown round it by Mr. Longworth, gave him a dollar, which the latter good-humouredly put into his pocket, and it was not till he was asked to go into the house that the stranger discovered him to be the owner.[10] He is, however, delightfully vivacious, and full of agricultural hobbies. His wife is a very pleasing, primitive-looking person. We tasted at their house some of the ham for which this city, called by the wits Porkopolis, is so remarkable. The maple sugar is used in curing it, and improves the flavour very much.

_October 28th._--I must bring this letter to a rapid close, for it must be posted a day earlier than we expected. We intend to start in two days for St. Louis, and there I will finish my account of Cincinnati. To-day we have seen a great many schools, which have given us considerable insight into the state of education in America. My next letter will probably bring us to our most western point, though we have not yet quite settled whether we shall go to the Falls of St. Anthony, or to Chicago. Papa says I must close, and I must obey.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Though this description of the Senate was meant as a good-humoured satire on the absence of etiquette in their a.s.semblies, it is probably no very exaggerated account of what is sometimes seen there; but it would be most unfair to draw any conclusion from this as to the behaviour in general society of well-educated gentlemen in America, there being as much real courtesy among these as is found in any other country, though certainly not always accompanied by the refinements of polished society in Europe.

[9] It is not meant here to obtrude special views of politics, or to maintain that democratic principles have naturally this tendency; but it may help to explain why so little is heard or known in England of the better cla.s.s of Americans. Their un.o.btrusive mode of life entirely accounts for this, and it is to be regretted that it is the noisy demagogue who forms the type of the American as known to the generality of the European public.

[10] I should not have taken the liberty of printing this account of Mr.

Longworth were he not, in a manner, a public character, well known throughout the length and breadth of the land, and his eccentricities are as familiar to every one at Cincinnati as his goodness of heart. In speaking, too, of his family, it is most gratifying to be able to record the patriarchal way in which we found him and Mrs. Longworth, surrounded by their descendants to the third generation.

If any apology is required, the same excuse--of his being a well-known public character--may be made for saying so much of Governor Chase and of his family.

LETTER X.

CINCINNATI.--MR. LONGWORTH.--GERMAN POPULATION---”OVER THE RHINE.”--ENVIRONS OF CINCINNATI.--GARDENS.--FRUITS.--COMMON SCHOOLS.--JOURNEY TO ST. LOUIS.

Vincennes, Indiana, Nov. 1st, 1858.

My last letter brought us up to our arrival at Cincinnati, and our pa.s.sing the evening at Mr. Longworth's on the following day. Next day, Wednesday the 27th, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Longworth's daughter, called and asked us to spend that evening also at her mother's house. She took me out in her carriage in the morning to see some of the best shops, which were equal to some of our best London ones in extent and in the value of the goods; and in the course of the day we called at Monsieur Raschig's; he not being at home, we made an appointment to call there late in the evening.

The party at the Longworths was confined to the members of their large family, all of whom are very agreeable. There were two married daughters, Mrs. Flagg and Mrs. Anderson, and the grandson and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Stettinius; and we also saw the little great-grand-daughter, who is a pretty child of eighteen months. The dining-room not being long enough to accommodate us all at tea, the table was placed diagonally across the room, and it was surprising to see Mrs. Longworth pouring out tea and coffee for the whole party as vigorously as if she were eighteen years old, her age being seventy-two.

She is remarkably pretty, with a fair complexion, and a very attractive and gentle manner and face.

We had quails and Cincinnati hams, also oysters served in three different ways--stewed, fried in b.u.t.ter, and in their natural state, but taken out of their sh.e.l.ls and served _en ma.s.se_ in a large dish. Our friends were astonished that we did not like these famous oysters of theirs in any form, which we did not, they being very huge in size and strong in flavour. We said, too, we did not like making two bites of an oyster; they pitied our want of taste, and lamented over our miserably small ones in England. After tea we saw some sea-weed and autumnal leaves beautifully dried and preserved by Mrs. Flagg, and we also looked over an ill.u.s.trated poem on the subject of Mr. and Mrs.

Longworth's golden wedding, the poem being the composition of Mr. Flagg.

Towards ten o'clock a table was laid out in the drawing-room with their Catawba champagne, which was handed round in tumblers, followed by piles of Vanilla ice a foot and a half high. There were two of these towers of Babel on the table, and each person was given a supply that would have served for half a dozen in England; the cream however is so light in this country that a great deal more can be taken of it than in England; ices are extremely good and cheap all over America; even in very small towns they are to be had as good as in the large ones. Water ices or fruit ices are rare; they are almost always of Vanilla cream. In summer a stewed peach is sometimes added.

We left the Longworths that evening in a down pour of rain, so that papa only got out for a minute at the door of Miss Raschig's uncle, and asked him to breakfast with us next morning. He accordingly came; we found him a most quick, lively, and excellent man, full of intelligence, and he received us with the warmth and ardour of an old friend, having during the twenty-five years he has been in America scarcely ever seen any one who knew any of his relatives. He is a Lutheran minister, and has a large congregation of Germans. He said a good deal had been going on during the revivals at Cincinnati, and he thought the feeling shown was of a satisfactory kind; there had been preaching in tents opposite his church.

The part of the town where he resides beyond the Miami Ca.n.a.l, which divides it into two portions, is known by the name of ”Over the Rhine,”

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