I
Was Never More In Love With Smoke And Dirt Than When I Stood Here
And Watched The Darkness Of Night Close In Upon The Floating Soot
Which Hovered Over The House-Tops Of The City.
I cannot say that I
saw the sun set, for there was no sun.
I should say that the sun
never shone at Pittsburg, as foreigners who visit London in November
declare that the sun never shines there.
Walking along the river side I counted thirty-two steamers, all
beached upon the shore, with their bows toward the land - large
boats, capable probably of carrying from one to two hundred
passengers each, and about three hundred tons of merchandise. On
inquiry I found that many of these were not now at work. They were
resting idle, the trade down the Mississippi below St. Louis having
been cut off by the war. Many of them, however, were still running,
the passage down the river being open to Wheeling in Virginia, to
Portsmouth, Cincinnati, and the whole of South Ohio, to Louisville
in Kentucky, and to Cairo in Illinois, where the Ohio joins the
Mississippi. The amount of traffic carried on by these boats while
the country was at peace within itself was very great, and
conclusive as to the increasing prosperity of the people. It seems
that everybody travels in America, and that nothing is thought of
distance. A young man will step into a car and sit beside you, with
that easy careless air which is common to a railway passenger in
England who is passing from one station to the next; and on
conversing with him you will find that he is going seven or eight
hundred miles. He is supplied with fresh newspapers three or four
times a day as he passes by the towns at which they are published;
he eats a large assortment of gum-drops and apples, and is quite as
much at home as in his own house. On board the river boats it is
the same with him, with this exception, that when there he can get
whisky when he wants it. He knows nothing of the ennui of
traveling, and never seems to long for the end of his journey, as
travelers do with us. Should his boat come to grief upon the river,
and lay by for a day or a night, it does not in the least disconcert
him. He seats himself upon three chairs, takes a bite of tobacco,
thrusts his hand into his trowsers pockets, and revels in an elysium
of his own.
I was told that the stockholders in these boats were in a bad way at
the present time. There were no dividends going. The same story
was repeated as to many and many an investment. Where the war
created business, as it had done on some of the main lines of
railroad and in some special towns, money was passing very freely;
but away from this, ruin seemed to have fallen on the enterprise of
the country.
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