of granite, in noble style and fine proportions. Even in the roof and stairs there is no combustible material whatever.

The Market House in Boston is spacious and cleanly. No American city is without such a building, which is equally agreeable and useful for protecting the buyers, sellers, and articles brought for sale from the weather; whereas in the capital city of Prussia, which is moreover the residence of a court, every body and every thing is exposed to the snow, the rain, the wind, and the dust.

It appears as if many of the citizens of Boston (perhaps from their education and their close relations to England) were impelled if not to an aristocratic tendency, at least to an aversion to locofocoism. And yet they tell me, the difference between the higher and lower classes is not so great as in New York. Moreover, no where in the world does there exist such a universal, finished, and withal quiet democracy, as in New England. The use of compulsory influence, or of secret corruption in elections, is a thing unheard of. An attempt, for instance, to deprive of custom such mechanics and shopmen as would not vote in obedience to the dictates of their employers and patrons, would be immediately detected, and bring the offender to the pillory. During a doubtful election, one of the most respectable men in Boston told his coachman to go to the poll and vote; supposing that he would follow his master's example. The coachman replied, that he was quite. indifferent as to this election, and had not intended to go at all; but if he went, he should vote against his master's candidate, as he had always been in the habit of doing. In another very dubious election, it is said, the wealthiest man in the country was afraid that his free negro servant, who enjoyed the right of suffrage, would vote contrary to his wishes. His wife undertook to prevent it. She ordered him to bottle off without stopping a large cask of wine; and when her husband returned, told him with great glee of the manœuvre by which she had imprisoned the negro in the cellar. "But," replied her husband, "he was there and voted."-" Scipio," said the lady to her servant, "did I not tell you to bottle off that wine?" "Yes, ma'am, and so I did; but you see the corks did not hold out; so I had to get some more; and while the shopman was counting them out, why I had time to go and vote!"

BOSTON, September 19th.

After dinner we visited Mount Auburn cemetery; which may rank with those near New York and Philadelphia, though

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it does not surpass them. Thence we went to a lake, on the shore of which stand large buildings for keeping the ice, which is sent from Boston to all parts of America, and even to China. simple machine, a kind of harrow, is drawn by horses lengthwise and crosswise over the ice. The ice divided by these cracks, breaks into large regular blocks; which are easily taken out, packed in masses as high as a house with layers of shavings and sawdust between, and afterwards sent thousands of miles away, without melting.

On the 17th I turned over, in the well provided and well arranged Athenæum, the latest volumes of some journals, particularly the notices of different works on America. A piquant attack in the Foreign Quarterly of London, drew forth an equally sharp retort in the North American. It attacks the prerogatives of birth, the morals and manners of the royal family (George IV. and his wife, the Duke of Cumberland, &c.), the nobility and clergy, the severity of the laws, the barbarity of English amusements (such as boxing), the abuses of the factory system, the treatment of Ireland, the language, the pretended originality of the English, &c. I will give a short passage or two by way of specimens of this parody upon the English reviewer's attack: "The great mass of the English nation gibber their scanty thoughts in a complication of hideous sounds, which neither gods nor men can comprehend." "Every thing with them is transplanted from other nations; the waltz and transcendental philosophy were borrowed from Germany. And surely, in the whole range of modern spectacles, there is not one so well suited to inspire serious reflections upon the uncertainty of human affairs, as an Englishman of the present day attempting to wind through the mazes of a waltz, or to thread a dark problem of Teutonic metaphysics."

There is much dispute about the mode and formation of English English and American English. At any rate the Americans have the right and the need to make further improvements on their language; and in this respect they are as little subject to the pleasure of the English, as the latter are to the caprice of the Americans. And yet their innovations and alterations are in fact but few, if we consider how much and in how many things their circumstances differ. Many of the English themselves own that in the United States the language is spoken generally with greater purity and uniformity, and with fewer differences of dialect, than in England. Hence too it is universally intelligible; although delicate English ears may detect the want of a certain elegance of expression, and of a favorite modulation of the voice. It is certainly in general more easy for a German, who can make no pretensions to such connoisseurship, to understand the Americans and the Scotch, than the English.-On occasion of

some investigations into the uncommon difficulty of spelling and reading English, Horace Mann remarks upon the almost incredible difference between the written and spoken language; and calls the five English vowels, on account of their various pronunciation, the five harlequins. But how frequently are the consonants too either changed in sound or passed over in silence! On the 18th we went on the railroad to the first manufacturing town in the United States,-Lowell. It is one of the wonders of America, produced by intellect, industry, perseverance, and virtue, all in such measure and combination as are very rarely to be found. It is astonishing that such a town, with so many handsome houses, such immense factory buildings, and so many thousand inhabitants (it had already 21,000 in 1840) should have grown out of nothing in the course of twenty-two years. I cannot forbear subjoining a few figures by way of illustration.* The capital of the manufacturing companies amounts to 11 millions of dollars; there are 6,144 looms and 201,076 spindles. There are employed in the factories 2,345 men and 6,295 girls; they make every week 1,425,000 yards of cotton stuff; and use in the year 23 million pounds of cotton and 600,000 bushels of coals. The money paid in wages averages $150,000 a month, &c. Great as these quantities may seem, they are also to be found elsewhere; but the most admirable peculiarities of Lowell are altogether unique. The philanthropist who views the enormous strides of the factory system, and reflects on all the well known and oft repeated evils with which it is accompanied, cannot hear without anxiety and sadness of the progress which Lowell is making in this direction; but he must see it, in order to become convinced that here, Heaven be praised, the state of things is different, and, with the blessing of God, it is to be hoped will continue so. Together with the houses and factory buildings, there have arisen schools and churches. And, what is still more important, all, without exception, employers and employed, have been and are possessed with the firm conviction, that their temporal welfare depends on that of each other; and that this can be permanently founded upon and secured by morality and virtue alone. I mention a few facts; but a great many would be required to give an adequate idea of the whole. Only a very small number of the female operatives belong to the town itself; almost all the rest are daughters of farmers in New England. They are sent willingly by their parents to Lowell, and go themselves without reluctance; for instruction keeps pace with work, due precautions are taken to guard their morals, and they are furnished with proper facilities

*For further particulars, see Appendix II.

for laying up small sums of money. How altogether different is it in Europe, where the highest wages which the employer gives and can give, scarcely suffices to appease their hunger, and to cover their nakedness! For one dollar and a quarter a week, the girls can obtain in the boarding-houses food, lodging, and washing. Their weekly wages amount, in proportion to their skill and industry, to from one dollar and a quarter to three dollars. The girls generally visit their parents once in the course of the year; and after remaining here from one to four years, return to the circle of their homes. Here, being well trained and well educated girls, and not without means of their own, they are rather sought after than avoided, by young men desirous to marry. None are admitted into the factories under fifteen; and any one guilty of a serious offence is immediately dismissed, and will not be received into any other factory. This strictness enforces circumspection and good behavior. The boardinghouses before mentioned are under the management of steady, respectable women; and the furniture and chambers, several of which I saw, are neat and even elegant, to a degree beyond what citizens' daughters in Europe usually enjoy. There is no opportunity, and hardly any possibility of going astray; and it may be, that the women and girls here are less impelled by nature to evil courses. At any rate, want never drives them to extremes. Some of the factory girls have been teachers in schools; and some, after the accumulation of a little money, return to that occupation. It is commonly found, that those girls who diligently attended school make more rapid progress in the factories, and earn more than the uneducated. The printed productions of some of the workwomen (the Lowell Offering) show a degree of cultivation, of which one has no idea in the European factories. And even if but few attain to such advancement, the rest follow in their track, and make use of the collections of books. Even the mechanics here have built themselves a house, and have established a circulating library and reading-room; which is more than has yet been accomplished in Berlin, even by authors and educated men.

Now and then the natural fondness of girls for finery may lead to individual instances of extravagance; but on the whole, it is pleasing to observe that there is no appearance of poverty or want of neatness, and to see the natural form undisfigured by the grotesque devices of Parisian fashions. I saw in a single factory (and it is so in all of them) more healthy, blooming, and handsome girls, than I had before in all America. They do not vibrate between the Scylla and Charybdis of dyspepsia and calomel; but move in regular measure between work and recreation. If you ask,-Is there no essential defect to counterbalance all

these advantages? I answer, I have perceived none; but my heartfelt sympathy impels me to anxious wishes for the future. May the friendly harmony betwixt employers and employed never be disturbed by selfishness or presumption! may there never grow up in Lowell itself a generation of mere factory children; may the erroneous idea of the necessity and utility of protective duties never lead to the adoption of artificial and imminently dangerous courses; and may it never be forgotten, that those riches only are lawful and honorable, which are not gained at the expense of our fellow-citizens!

BOSTON, 20th September.

Yesterday we passed a day peculiarly American; there being here a "mass-meeting" of the whigs. The time from nine till one was spent by the companies in putting themselves in order, and marching in procession through many parts of the city; after which they assembled on the Common, where a stage had been erected for the orator of the day. The streets were ornamented with numerous banners, pieces of tapestry, and emblematic devices; and the windows were filled with ladies, who testified their approbation by waving their handkerchiefs. Hurrahs resounded in every direction; but they were briefer and more moderate than those of the South. A large number of well mounted horsemen were followed by the procession on foot, in regular divisions, consisting of citizens of Boston and strangers present on the occasion. Many of the banners and legends were not wanting in wit and significance; although the opposite party could easily attach to some of them a contrary meaning. The standard of Maine, for instance, where the locofocos are in the majority, bore the inscription, "Wait till November!" For Tennessee there was only one man present; and the motto was, "Tennessee is doing her duty at home." A large strong carriage contained a number of young girls dressed in blue and white, and waving flags which bore the names of the different states. Two carriages succeeded each other filled with mechanics; one of which bore the inscription, "Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen; protective duties for American industry;" and the other, "Polk and Dallas; Free Trade." The former carriage was a handsome one, the driver and workingmen well dressed, the horses in excellent condition, &c.; the latter was the reverse in every particular. The last in the procession carried a banner inscribed, " Millions are behind us!" I heard nothing of the speech; the crowd and the heat were absolutely intolerable. To-day I can read the whole in print.