Bygones Worth Remembering Volume Ii Part 9

Nearing Santa Fe in New Mexico, I pa.s.sed by the adobe temple of Montezuma. Adobe is p.r.o.nounced in three syllables--a-do-be--and is the Mexican name for a mud-built house, which is usually one story high; so that Santa Fe has been compared to a town blown down. When the Emperor Montezuma perished he told his followers to keep the fire burning in the Temple, as he would come again from the east, and they should see "his face bright and fair." In warfare and pestilence and decimation of their race, these faithful wors.h.i.+ppers kept the fire burning night and day for three centuries, and it has not long been extinguished. Europe can show no faith so patient, enduring, and pathetic as this.

The pleasantest hours of exploration I spent in Santa Fe were in the old church of San Miguel. Though the oldest church in America, there are those who would remove rather than restore it. A book lay upon an altar in which all who would subscribe to save it had inserted their names, and I added mine for five s.h.i.+llings.

When an Englishman goes abroad, he takes with him a greater load of prejudices than any man of any other nation could bear, and, as a rule, he expresses pretty freely his opinion of things which do not conform to his notions, as though the inhabitants ought to have consulted his preferences, forgetting that in his own country he seldom shows that consideration to others. On fit occasion I did not withhold my opinion of things which seemed to me capable of improvement; but before giving my impressions I thought over what equivalent absurdity existed in England, and by comparing British instances with those before me, no one took offence--some were instructed or amused at finding that hardly any nation enjoyed a monopoly of stupidity. There is all the difference in the world between saying to an international host, "How badly you do things in your country," and saying, "We are as unsuccessful as you in 'striking twelve all at once.'"

We all know the maxim: "'Before finding fault with another, think of your own." But Charles d.i.c.kens, with all his brightness, forgot this when he wrote of America. Few nations have as yet attained perfection in all things--not even England.

When in Boston, America, 1879, I went to the best Bible store I could find or be directed to, to purchase a copy of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. In a church where I had to make a discourse, I wanted to read the dialogue between the prophet Esdras and the angel Uriel.

The only copy I could obtain was on poor, thin paper; of small, almost invisible print, and meanly bound. The price was 4s. 2d. "How is it," I inquired, "that you ask so much in the Hub of the Universe for even this indifferent portion of Scripture--seeing that at the house of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, in Northumberland Avenue, London, a house ten times handsomer than yours, in a much more costly situation--I can buy the same book on good, strong paper, in large type, in a bright, substantial cover for exactly 3s. less than you ask me." "You see, sir," said the manager of the store, "we have duty to pay." "Duty!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean me to understand that in this land of Puritan Christians, you tax the means of salvation?" He did not like to admit that, and could not deny it, so after a confused moment he answered: "All books imported have to pay twenty-five per cent, duty."

All I could say was that "it seemed to me that their protective duties protected sin; and, being interested in the welfare of emigrants, I must make a note counselling all who wish to be converted, to get that done before coming out; for if they arrive in America in an unconverted state they could not afford to be converted here." Until then I was unaware that Protection protected the Devil, and that he had a personal interest in its enactment.

My article in the _Nineteenth Century_ ent.i.tled, "A Stranger in America," written in the uncarping spirit as to defects and ungrudgingly recognising the circ.u.mstances which frustrated or r.e.t.a.r.ded other excellences in their power, was acknowledged by the press of that country, and was said by G. W. Smalley--the greatest American critic in this country then--to be "one of those articles which create international goodwill." Approval worth having could no further go. It was surprising to me that mere two-sided travelling fairness should meet with such a.s.sent, whereas I expected it would be regarded as tame and uninteresting.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH AT SEA

The voyage out to America described in the last chapter included an instance of the extraordinary behaviour of the Established Church at sea, which deserves special mention as it is still repeated.

There is an offensive rule on board s.h.i.+ps that the service on Sunday shall be that of the Church of England, and that the preacher selected shall be of that persuasion.

Several of the twelve ministers of religion among the pa.s.sengers of the _Bothnia_ in 1879 were distinguished preachers, whereas the clergyman selected to preach to us was not at all distinguished, and made a sermon which I, as an Englishman, was ashamed to hear delivered before an audience of intelligent Americans. The preacher told a woful story of loss of trade and distress in England, which gave the audience the idea that John Bull was "up a tree." Were he up ever so high I would not have told it to an alien audience.

The preacher said that these losses were owing to our sins--that is the sins of Englishmen. The devotion of the American hearers was varied with a smile at this announcement. It was their surpa.s.sing ingenuity and rivalry in trade which had affected our exports for a time. Our chief "sins" were uninventiveness and commercial incapacity, and the greater wit and ingenuity of the audience were the actual punishment the preacher was pleading against, and praying them to be contrite on account of their own success. The minister described bad trade as a punishment from G.o.d, as though G.o.d had made the rascally merchants who took out shoddy calico and ruined the markets. It was not G.o.d that had driven the best French and German artists and workmen into America, where they have enriched its manufacturers with their skill and industry, and enabled that country to compete with ours.

The preacher's text was as wide of any mark as his sermon. It asked the question, "How can we sing in a strange land?" When we should arrive there, there would hardly be a dozen of us in the vessel who would be in a strange land; the great majority were going home--mostly commercial reapers of an English harvest who were returning home rejoicing--bearing their golden sheaves with them. Neither the sea nor the land were strange to them. Many of them were as familiar with the Atlantic as with the prairie. I sat at table by a Toronto dealer who had crossed the ocean twenty-nine times. The congregation at sea formed a very poor opinion of the discernment of the Established Church.

On the return voyage in the _Gallia_ we had another "burning" but not "a s.h.i.+ning light" of the Church of England to discourse. He was a young man, and it required some a.s.surance on his part to look into the eyes of the intelligent Christians around him, who had three times his years, experience, and knowledge, and lecture them upon matters of which he was absolutely ignorant.

This clergyman enforced the old doctrine of severity in parental discipline of the young, and on the wisdom of compelling children to unquestioning obedience, and argued that submission to a higher will was good for men during life. At least two-thirds of the congregation were American, who regard parental severity as cruelty to the young, and utterly uninstructive; and unquestioning obedience they hold to be calamitous and demoralising education. They expect reasonable obedience, and seek to obtain it by reason. Submission to a "higher will" as applied to man, is submission to arbitrary authority against which the whole polity of American life is a magnificent protest. The only higher will they recognise in worldly affairs is the will of the people, intelligently formed, impartially gathered, and const.i.tutionally recorded--facts of which the speaker had not the remotest idea.

Who can read this narrative of the ignorance and effrontery, nurtured by the Established Church and obtruded on pa.s.sengers at sea, without a sense of patriotic humiliation that it is continued every Sunday in every s.h.i.+p? It is thought dangerous to be wrecked and not to have taken part in this pitiable exhibition.

CHAPTER x.x.xV. ADVENTURES IN THE STREETS

Were I persuaded, as many are, that each person is a subject of Providential care, I might count myself as one of the well-favoured. I should do so, did it not demand unseemly egotism to believe the Supreme Master of all the worlds of the Universe gave a portion of His eternal time to personally guide my unimportant footsteps, or s.n.a.t.c.h me from harm, which might befall me on doing my duty, or when I inadvertently, negligently, or ignorantly put myself in the way of disaster. Whatever may be the explanation, I have oft been saved in jeopardy.

The first specific deliverance occurred when I was a young man, in the Baskeville Mill, Birmingham. Working at a b.u.t.ton lathe, the kerchief round my neck was caught by the "chock," and I saw myself drawn swiftly to it. To avert being strangled, I held back my neck with what force I could. All would have been in vain had not a friendly Irishman, who was grinding spectacle gla.s.ses in an adjoining room, come to my a.s.sistance, by which I escaped decapitation without benefit of the clergy, or the merciful swiftness of the guillotine.

In days when the cheap train ran very early in the morning, I set out before daylight from Exeter, where I had been lecturing. At the station at which the train stopped for an hour or two, as was the custom in days before the repeal of the tax on third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, we were in what Omar Khayyam called the "false dawn of morning." The train did not properly draw up to the platform, and when I stepped out I had a considerable fall, which sprained my ankle and went near breaking my neck.

On my arrival in Boston, 1879, I was invited by a newspaper friend, whom I had brought with me into the city, to join a party of pressmen who were to a.s.semble next morning at Parker House, to report upon the test ascent of a new elevator. It happened that Mr. Wendell Phillips visited me early at Adam's House, before I was up. He sat familiarly on the bedrail, and proposed to drive me round the city and show me the historic glories of Boston, which being proud to accept, I sent an apology for my absence to the elevator party at Parker House. That morning the elevator broke down, and out of five pressmen who went into it only four were rescued--more or less in a state of pulp. One was killed. But for Mr. Phillips's fortunate visit I should have been among them.

In Kansas City, in the same year (1879), I was taken by my transatlantic friend, Mr. James Charlton, to see a sugar bakery, concerning which I was curious. The day was hot enough to singe the beard of Satan, and I was glad to retreat into the bakery, which, however, I found still hotter, and I left, intending to return at a cooler hour next morning.

At the time I was to arrive I heard that the whole building had fallen in. Some were killed and many injured. This was the City of Kansas, of which the mayor once said: "He wished the people would let some one die a natural death, that a stranger might know how healthy the city was.

Accidents, duels, and shootings prevented cases of longevity occurring."

Another occasion when misadventure took place, when we--my daughter, Mrs. Marsh, and I--were crossing the Tesuque Valley, below Santa Fe, the party occupied three carriages; road, there was none, and the horses knew it, and when they came to a difficulty--either a ravine or hill--the driver would give the horses the rein, when they spread themselves out with good sagacity, and descended or ascended with success. One pair of horses broke the spring of their carriage, making matters unpleasant to the occupants; another pair broke the shaft, which, cutting them, made them mad, and they ran away. The carriage in which I was remained sound, and I had the pleasure for once of watching the misfortunes of my friends.

The river was low, the sand was soft, and the distance through the Tesuque River was considerable, and we calculated that no horses were mad enough to continue their efforts to run through it, and we were rewarded by seeing them alter their minds in the midst of it, and continue their journey in a sensible manner.

Returning from Guelph, which lies below Hamilton, in the Niagara corner of Canada, where we had been to see the famous Agricultural College, we were one night on the railway in what the Scotch call the "gloaming." My daughter remarked that the scenery outside the carriage was more fixed than she had before observed it, and upon inquiry it appeared that we were fixed too--for the train had parted in the middle, and the movable portion had gone peacefully on its way to Hamilton. We were left forming an excellent obstruction to any other train which might come down the line. Fortunately, the guard could see the last station we had left, two miles from us, and see also the train following us arrive there. We hoped that the stationmaster would have some knowledge of our being upon the line, and stop the advancing train; but when we saw it leave the station on its way to us we were all ordered to leave the carriages, which was no easy thing, as the banks right and left of us were steep, and the ditch at the base was deep. However, our friends, Mr.

Littlehales and Mr. Smith, being strong of arm and active on a hill, very soon drew us up to a point where we could observe a collision with more satisfaction than when in the carriages. Fortunately, the man who bore the only lamp left us, and who was sent on to intercept the train, succeeded in doing it. Ultimately we arrived at Hamilton only two hours late. When we were all safely at home, one lady, who accompanied us, fainted--which showed admirable judgment to postpone that necessary operation until it was no longer an inconvenience. One lady fainted in the midst of the trouble, which only increased it. The excitement made fainting sooner or later justifiable, although an impediment, but I was glad to observe my daughter did not think it necessary to faint at any time.

As we were leaving the sleepy Falls of Montmorency in the carriage, we looked out to see whether the Frenchman had got sight of us, fully expecting he would take a chaise and come after us to collect some other impost which we had evaded paying. The sun was in great force, and I was reposing in its delicious rays, thinking how delightful it was to ride into Quebec on such a day, when in an instant of time we were all dispersed about the road. In a field hard by, where a great load of lumber as high as a house was piled, a boy who was extracting a log set the upper logs rolling. This frightened the horses. They were two black steeds of high spirit, and therefore very mad when alarmed. Had they run on in their uncontrollable state, they would, if they escaped vehicles on the way, have arrived at a narrow bridge where unknown mischief must have occurred. The driver, who was a strongly built Irishman, about sixty, with good judgment and intrepidity, instantly threw the horses on to the fence, which they broke, got into the ditch, and seriously cut their knees. I leaped out into the ditch with a view to help my daughter out of the carriage; but she, nimbler than I, intending to render me the same service, arrived at the ditch, and a.s.sisted me out, merely asking "whether four quietly disposed persons being distributed over the Dominion at a minute's notice was a mode of travelling in Canada?"

Mrs. Hall, who was riding with us, also escaped unhurt Her husband deliberately remained some time to see what the horses were going to do, but finding them frantic, he also abandoned the carriage.

Later, in England, being Ashton way, I paid a visit to my friend the Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, whose voice, in early Chartist times, was the most eloquent in the two counties of Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re.

He fought the "New Poor Law" and the "Long Timers" in the Ten Hours'

agitation. His views were changed in many respects, but that did not alter my regard for his Chartist services--and there remained his varied affluence of language, his fitly chosen terms, his humorous statement, his exactness of expression and strong coherence, in which the sequence of his reasoning never disappeared through the crevice of a sentence.

All this made his conversation always charming and instructive.

After lecturing in the Temperance Hall and the "evening was far spent,"

a cab was procured to take me to Mr. Stephens's at the "Hollins." A friend, Mr. Scott, in perfect wanton courtesy, having no presentiment in his mind, would accompany me. When we arrived at Stalybridge (where there is a real bridge), the cabman, instead of driving over it, drove against it. I thought, perhaps, this was the way with Ashton cabmen; but my friend came to a different conclusion. He said the cabman had not taken the "pledge" that afternoon. I was told Ashton cabmen needed to take it often. The driver, resenting our remonstrance, drove wildly down a narrow, ugly, deserted street, which he found at hand. It was all the same to me, who did not know one street from the other. My friend, who knew there was no outlet save into the river, called out violently to cabby to stop. The only effect was that he drove more furiously.

Mr. Scott leaped out and seized the horse, and prevented my being overthrown. Before us were the remains of an old building, with the cellars all open, in one of which we should soon have descended. Cabby would have killed his horse, and probably himself, which no doubt would have been an advantage to Ashton.

As the place was deserted I should have been found next morning curled up and inarticulate. We paid our dangerous driver his full fare to that spot, and advised him to put himself in communication with a temperance society. He abused us as "not being gentlemen" for stopping his cab in that unhandsome way.

The next morning I went to the scene of the previous night's adventure.

Had Mr. Henley, the loud, coa.r.s.e-tongued member for Oxfords.h.i.+re at that time, seen the place, he would have said we were making an "ugly rush"

for the river. Not that we should ever have reached the river, for we should certainly have broken our necks in the brick vaults our driver was whipping his horse into.

As I needed another cab on my arrival at Euston, I selected a quiet-looking white horse, and a Good Templar-looking cabman, first asking the superintendent what he thought of him. "O, he's all right,"

was the answer, and things went pleasantly until we arrived at a narrow, winding street. I was thinking of my friend, Mr. Stephens, and of the concert which at that hour he had daily in his bedroom, when I was suddenly jerked off my seat and found the white horse on the foot-pavement. I stepped out and adjured the cabman, "By the carpet-bag of St Peter" (no more suitable adjuration presented itself on the occasion), to tell me what he was at. I said,

"Are you from Ashton?" "Nothing the matter, sir. All right Jump in. Only my horse s.h.i.+ed at the costermonger's carrot-cart there. She's a capital horse, only she's apt to shy." I answered, "Yes; and unless I change my mode of travelling by cabs, I shall become shy myself."

Late one night, after the close of the Festive Co-operative Meeting in Huddersfield, a cab was fetched for me from the fair--it being fair time. The messenger knew it was a bad night for the whip, as he might be "touched in the head" by the festivities, so he said to cabby: "Now, though it is fair night, you must do the fair thing by this fare. He does not mind spreading principles, but he objects to being spread himself." Cabby came with alacrity. He thought he had to take some "boozing cuss" about the fair, with an occasional pull up at the "Spread Eagle." When he found me issuing from a temperance hotel, bound for Fernbrook, he did not conceal his disappointment by tongue or whip, and jerked his horse like a Bas.h.i.+-Bazouk when a Montenegrin is after him.

I cared nothing, as I had made up my mind not to say another word about cabs if they broke my neck. I knew we had a stout hill before us, which would bring things quiet The next day the hotel people, who saw the cabman's rage, said they thought there was mischief in store for me.

They knew nothing of Ashton ways, and their apprehensions were original.

After a pleasant sojourn in Brighton, where the November sun is bright, and the fogs are thin, grey and graceful, softening the glare of the white coast, tempering it to the sensitive sight, I returned to London one cold, frosty day, when snow and ice made the streets slippery. I had chosen a cabman whose solid, honest face was a.s.suring, and being lumpy and large himself I thought he would keep his "four-wheeler" steady by his own weight. Being himself lame and rheumatic, he appeared one who would prefer quiet driving for his own sake. We went on steadily until we reached Pall Mall, when he turned sharply up Suffolk Street. Looking out, I called to my friend on the box, saying, "This is not Ess.e.x Street" "Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you said Suffolk Street," and began to turn his horse round. In that street the ground rises, and the carriage-way is convex and narrow, it required skill to turn the cab, and the cabman was wanting therein. He said his rein had caught, and when he thought he was pulling the horse round, the horse had taken a different view of his intention, and imagined he was backing him, and, giving me the benefit of the doubt, did back, and overturned the cab, and me too. Not liking collisions of late, I had, on leaving Brighton, wrapped myself in a railway cloak, that it might act as a sort of buffer in case of b.u.mping--yet not expecting I should require it so soon.

Seeing what the horse was at, and taking what survey I could of the situation, I found I was being driven against the window of the house in which Cobden died. I have my own taste as to the mode in which I should like to be killed. To be run over by a butcher's cart, or smashed by a coal train or brewer's van is not my choice; but being killed in Pall Mall is more eligible, yet not satisfactory.

As I had long lived in Pall Mall, I knew the habits of the place.

There is a gradation of killing in the streets of London, well-known to West-end cabmen. As they enter Trafalgar Square, they run over the pa.s.senger without ceremony. At Waterloo Place, where gentlemen wander about, they merely knock you down, but as they enter Club-land, which begins at Pall Mall West, where Judges and Cabinet Ministers and members of Parliament abound, they merely run at you; so I knew I was on the spot where death is never inflicted. Therefore I took hold of the strap on the opposite side of the cab to that on which I saw I should fall.

For better being able to look after my portmanteau, I had it with me, and, fortunately had placed it on the side on which I fell. Placing myself against it when the crash came, and the gla.s.s broke, I was saved from my face being cut by it. My hat was crushed, and head bruised. It was impossible to open the door, which was then above me, and had the horse taken to kicking, as is the manner of these animals when in doubt, it would have fared ill with me. Possibly the horse was a member of the Peace Society, and showed no belligerent tendency; more likely he was tired, and glad of the opportunity of resting himself. The street, which seemed empty, was quickly filled, as though people sprang out of the ground. Two Micawbers who were looking out for anything which "turned up," or turned over, came and forced open the cab-door at the top, and dragged me up, somewhat dazed, my hat off, my grey hair dishevelled, my blue spectacles rather awry on my face--I was sensible of a newly-contrived, music-hall appearance as my shoulders peered above the cab. A spirit merchant near kindly invited me into his house, where some cold brandy and water given to me seemed more agreeable and refres.h.i.+ng than it ever did before or since. The cab had been pulled together somehow. My rheumatic friend on the box had been picked up not much the worse--possibly the fall had done his rheumatism good. I thought it a pity the poor fellow should lose his fare as well as his windows, and so continued my journey with him.

On one occasion, after an enchanted evening in the suburbs of Kensington, a fog came on. The driver of the voiture drove into an enclosure of stables, and went round and round. Noticing there was a recurring recess, I kept the door open until we arrived at it again, and leapt into it as we pa.s.sed again. When the driver, who was bewildered, came round a third time, I surprised him by shouts, and advised him to let his horse take us out by the way he came in. There was no house, or light, or person to be seen, and there was the prospect of a night in the cold, tempered by contingent accident.

Having engaged to be surety for the son of a Hindoo judge, who was about to enter as a student in the Inns of Court, a new adventure befel me. I had accepted from his father the appointment of guardian of his son. My ward was a young man of many virtues, save that of punctuality. As he did not appear by appointment, I set out in search of him. Crossing Trafalgar Square I found myself suddenly confronted by two horses'

heads. An omnibus had come down upon me. It flashed through my mind that, as I had often said, I was in more danger of being killed in the streets of London than in any foreign city or on the sea; and I concluded the occasion had come. I knew no more until I found myself lying on my back in the mud after rain, but, seeing an aperture between the two wheels, I made an attempt to crawl through. A crowd of spectators had gathered round and voices shouted to me to remain where I was until the wheels were drawn from me. Lying down in the mud again was new to me. There was nothing over me but the omnibus, and as I had never seen the bottom of one before, I examined it.

It happened that a surgeon of the Humane Society was among the spectators, who a.s.sisted in raising me up, and took me to the society's rooms close by, where I was bathed and vaseline applied to my bruises.