that in an American inn one can never do as one pleases.
In what I have here said I do not intend to speak of hotels in the
largest cities, such as Boston or New York. At them meals are
served in the public room separately, and pretty nearly at any or
at all hours of the day; but at them also the attendant stands over
the unfortunate eater and drives him. The guest feels that he is
controlled by laws adapted to the usages of the Medes and Persians.
He is not the master on the occasion, but the slave--a slave well
treated, and fattened up to the full endurance of humanity, but yet
a slave.
From Gorham we went on to Island Pond, a station on the same Canada
Trunk Railway, on a Saturday evening, and were forced by the
circumstances of the line to pass a melancholy Sunday at the place.
The cars do not run on Sundays, and run but once a day on other
days over the whole line, so that, in fact, the impediment to
traveling spreads over two days. Island Pond is a lake with an
island in it; and the place which has taken the name is a small
village, about ten years old, standing in the midst of uncut
forests, and has been created by the railway. In ten years more
there will no doubt be a spreading town at Island Pond; the forests
will recede; and men, rushing out from the crowded cities, will
find here food, and space, and wealth. For myself, I never remain
long in such a spot without feeling thankful that it has not been
my mission to be a pioneer of civilization.
The farther that I got away from Boston the less strong did I find
the feeling of anger against England. There, as I have said
before, there was a bitter animosity against the mother country in
that she had shown no open sympathy with the North. In Maine and
New Hampshire I did not find this to be the case to any violent
degree. Men spoke of the war as openly as they did at Boston, and,
in speaking to me, generally connected England with the subject.
But they did so simply to ask questions as to England's policy.
What will she do for cotton when her operatives are really pressed?
Will she break the blockade? Will she insist on a right to trade
with Charleston and new Orleans? I always answered that she would
insist on no such right, if that right were denied to others and
the denial enforced. England, I took upon myself to say, would not
break a veritable blockade, let her be driven to what shifts she
might in providing for her operatives. "Ah! that's what we fear,"
a very stanch patriot said to me, if words may be taken as a proof
of stauchness. "If England allies herself with the Southerners,
all our trouble is for nothing." It was impossible not to feel
that all that was said was complimentary to England. It is her
sympathy that the Northern men desire, to her co-operation that
they would willingly trust, on her honesty that they would choose
to depend. It is the same feeling whether it shows itself in anger
or in curiosity. An American, whether he be embarked in politics,
in literature, or in commerce, desires English admiration, English
appreciation of his energy, and English encouragement. The anger
of Boston is but a sign of its affectionate friendliness. What
feeling is so hot as that of a friend when his dearest friend
refuses to share his quarrel or to sympathize in his wrongs! To my
thinking, the men of Boston are wrong and unreasonable in their
anger; but were I a man of Boston, I should be as wrong and as
unreasonable as any of them. All that, however, will come right.
I will not believe it possible that there should in very truth be a
quarrel between England and the Northern States.
In the guidance of those who are not quite au fait at the details
of American government, I will here in a few words describe the
outlines of State government as it is arranged in New Hampshire.
The States, in this respect, are not all alike, the modes of
election of their officers, and periods of service, being
different. Even the franchise is different in different States.
Universal suffrage is not the rule throughout the United States,
though it is, I believe, very generally thought in England that
such is the fact. I need hardly say that the laws in the different
States may be as various as the different legislatures may choose
to make them.
In New Hampshire universal suffrage does prevail, which means that
any man may vote who lives in the State, supports himself, and
assists to support the poor by means of poor rates. A governor of
the State is elected for one year only; but it is customary, or at
any rate not uncustomary, to re-elect him for a second year. His
salary is a thousand dollars a year, or two hundred pounds. It
must be presumed, therefore, that glory, and not money, is his
object. To him is appended a Council, by whose opinions he must in
a great degree be guided. His functions are to the State what
those of the President are to the country; and, for the short
period of his reign, he is as it were a Prime Minister of the
State, with certain very limited regal attributes. He, however, by
no means enjoys the regal attribute of doing no wrong. In every
State there is an Assembly, consisting of two houses of elected
representatives--the Senate, or upper house, and the House of
Representatives so called. In New Hampshire, this Assembly or
Parliament is styled The General Court of New Hampshire. It sits
annually, whereas the legislature in many States sits only every
other year. Both houses are re-elected every year. This Assembly
passes laws with all the power vested in our Parliament, but such
laws apply of course only to the State in question. The Governor
of the State has a veto on all bills passed by the two houses.
But, after receipt of his veto, any bill so stopped by the Governor
can be passed by a majority of two-thirds in each house. The
General Court usually sits for about ten weeks. There are in the
State eight judges--three supreme, who sit at Concord, the capital,
as a court of appeal both in civil and criminal matters, and then
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