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 5l. or
10l. has every hope of securing a competence. He may buy land in newly-
settled districts, which sometimes can be obtained at 7s. 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.
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