One Would Suppose That
The Most Intricate Machinery Would Have Been Necessary For Such An
Arrangement; But It Was All Rough And Simple, And Apparently
Managed By Two Negroes.
We would employ a small corps of engineers
to conduct such an operation, and men and women would be detained
in their carriages under all manner of threats as to the peril of
life and limb; but here everybody was expected to look out for
himself.
The cars were dragged up the inclined plane by a hawser
attached to an engine, which hawser, had the stress broken it, as I
could not but fancy probable, would have flown back and cut to
pieces a lot of us who were standing in front of the car. But I do
not think that any such accident would have caused very much
attention. Life and limbs are not held to be so precious here as
they are in England. It may be a question whether with us they are
not almost too precious. Regarding railways in America generally,
as to the relative safety of which, when compared with our own, we
have not in England a high opinion, I must say that I never saw any
accident or in any way became conversant with one. It is said that
large numbers of men and women are slaughtered from time to time on
different lines; but if it be so, the newspapers make very light of
such cases. I myself have seen no such slaughter, nor have I even
found myself in the vicinity of a broken bone. Beyond the
Susquehanna we passed over a creek of Chesapeake Bay on a long
bridge. The whole scenery here is very pretty, and the view up the
Susquehanna is fine. This is the bay which divides the State of
Maryland into two parts, and which is blessed beyond all other bays
by the possession of canvas-back ducks. Nature has done a great
deal for the State of Maryland, but in nothing more than in sending
thither these webfooted birds of Paradise.
Nature has done a great deal for Maryland; and Fortune also has
done much for it in these latter days in directing the war from its
territory. But for the peculiar position of Washington as the
capital, all that is now being done in Virginia would have been
done in Maryland, and I must say that the Marylanders did their
best to bring about such a result. Had the presence of the war
been regarded by the men of Baltimore as an unalloyed benefit, they
could not have made a greater struggle to bring it close to them.
Nevertheless fate has so far spared them.
As the position of Maryland and the course of events as they took
place in Baltimore on the commencement of secession had
considerable influence both in the North and in the South, I will
endeavor to explain how that State was affected, and how the
question was affected by that State.
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