AMERICAN NOTES.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 62, 13 May 1843, Page 248

AMERICAN NOTES.

DICKENs's SKETCH OF AMERICAN TOWNS. The beautiful metropolis of America (New York) is by no means so clean a city as Boston, butl many of its streets 1 have the same characteristics; except that the housek are not quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so golden, the bricks not quite so red, the stones not quite so white, the blinds and area railings not quite so green, the knobs and plates upon the street doors not quite so bright and twinkling. There are many by-streets almost as neutral in clean colours, and positive in dirty ones, as by-streets in London ; and there is one quarter commonly called the Five Points, which, in respect of filth and wretchedness', may be safely backed against Seven Dials, or any other part of fkmed St. Giles's. The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is 1 Broadway — a-wide and bustling-street, which, from the Batterygardens to its opposite termination, is a country road may be four miles long. Shall we sit down in an upper floor of the Carlton House Hotel (situate in the best part of this main artery of New York), and when we are tired of looking down upon the life below, sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream ? Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, as though its rays were concentrated through a burning glass. But the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one. Was there ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The pavement stones are polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the' red bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry hot kilns, and the roofs of the" omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on them, they would hiss and smoke and smell like half-quenched fires. No stint of omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by within as many minutes. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches ttioi gigs, phrttons, large-wheeled tilburies> titod private Carriages, rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement. Negro coachmen and white, in straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean, and linen; and there, in that one instance (look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery. Some southern Republican, that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells with sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with the well-clipped pair of greys has stopped, standing at their heads now, is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in these parts, and looks sorrowfully round_/or a companion pair of top boots, which he may traverse half the city without meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We have seen more colours in these ten minutes than we should have seen elsewhere in as many days. What various parasols! What rainbow silks and satins 1 What pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribands and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings! The young gentlemen are fond, you s\se, gf. turning down their shirt collars and cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin; but they" cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to say the truth, humanity ot quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind ye —those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in his hand a crumpled scrap of paper, from which he tries to spell out a hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors and windows. Irishmen both! You might know them if they were masked,, by their long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, aud their drab trousers, which they wear like men used to working dresses, who are used to no others. It would be hard to keep your model republics going without the countrymen and countrywomen of these two labourers. For who else would dig and delve and drudge and do domestic work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of internal improvement ? Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too to find out what they seek. Let us go down and help them for the love of home and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no matter what it be. That's well! We have got at the right address at last, though it is written in strange characters truly, and might have been scrawled with the blunt handle of the spade the writer better knows the use of than a pen Their way lies yonder, but what business takes them there ? They carry savings. To hoard up ? No. They are brothers, those men. One crossed the sea alone, 'and, working very hard for one half year, and living harder, saved funds enough to bring the other out. That done, they worked together, side by.side, contentedly sharing hard labour and hard living for another term; and then their sisters came, and then another brother? a>d, lastly, their old mother. And what now? Why?" the poor old crone is restless in a strange land, and ;yearns to lay her bones, she says, among her own-people, in the old graveyard at home; and so they -go tolpay her passage back; and God help her and them, and -every simple Tieart, and ajlwho turn to the Jerusalem of their younger days, and have an altar fire upon the cold earth of their fathers. ******** We reached Philadelphia late at night. Looking out of "my chamber window, before going tq^ bed, I saw, ou the opposite side of the way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a ' mournful, ;ghbst-llke' aspect,' dreary to behold. I ififltrenee-Of thenigUt, •&na >on<risingin'<the morning -'looted ■ out again, expecting to 'see 'its *tess and portico thronged with, groups of people passing 'in wnd' out. The -door was still-tight shut, Cbe"satate' cofcl, cheerless air and-the building* looked <es if the marble 'statue of &on-Gt£anan i could* aloae have any business to transact within its-gi«oray walls. I hastened to inquire its name-and purpote t and then my surprise vanished. It was the tomb-of many fortunes, the_great catacomb of investment, the memorable United Slates Barfk. The stoppage of this batik, with ill its ruifibus consequences, had cast (aVI was told tin every side) a glOOtn on Philadelphia, -tinder the depressing-effect of which ■it yet laboured. It certainly- did- seem ratHer dull • and' OOt of spirits. It is a haridsorae city, tfet !diitraetingly regular. After walking-about it for-an hour *er two, I felt'that I would btfre • given the 'world for a crooked 1 street. The cottar of my coat

appeared to stiffen, and the brim of my hat to expand, beneath its quakerly influence. My hair shrunk into a sleek, short crop, my hands folded themselves upon my breast of their own calm accord, and thoughts of taking lodgings in Marklane, over against the market-place, and of making a large fortune by speculations in corn, came over me involuntarily. Here is Washington, says Mr. Dickens, fresh in my mind and under my eye. Take the worst parts of the City-road and Pentonville, preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and dwellings occupied there (but not in Washington) by furniture brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of birds. Burn the whole down, build it up again in wood and plaster, widen it a little, throw in part of St. Johns-wood, put green blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a white one in every window ; plough up all the roads ; plant a great deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought not to be ; erect three handsome buildings in stone and marble anywhere, but the more entirely out of everybody's way the better ; call one the Postoffice, one the Patent-office, and one the Treasury ; make it scorching hot in the morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado of wind and dust ; leave a brickfield without the bricks in all central places where a street may naturally be expected, : and that's Washington.

Progress of Truth. — The truth-haters of every future generation will call the truth-haters of the preceding ages by their true names : for even these the stream of time carries onward. In fine, truth, considered in itself and in the effects natural to it, may be conceived as a gentle spring or water source, warm from the genial earth, and breathing up into the snow-drift that is piled over and around its outlet. It turns the obstacle into its own form and character, and as it makes its way increases its stream. And should it be arrested in its course by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not loss, and waits only for a change in the wind to awaken, and again roll onward. —Coleridge. A Hint to the Sedentary.— Speaking, reading aloud, and singing, are useful kinds of exercise, and it is supposed that this is at least one cause of the greater longevity of clergymen, public speakers, teachers in universities, and school-masters ; and Dr. Andrew pleasantly observes, that one reason why women require less bodily exercise than men, is, that they are in general more loquacious. Hence those sedentary artificers, who, from habit, almost always sing at their work, unintentionally contribute much to the preservation of their health. — Henderson on the Preservation of Health. Chinese Customs. — The Chinese do not bury their dead till the day twelvemonths after their decease ; but keep them all this time in coffins in some part of their houses, having previously dried them by means of quicklime. . . . '. During all this time that the body is preserved in the hiuse, meat and drink are set before it every day ; and if they find these gone in the morning, they imagine** .that the dead person has consumed them. They mourn during three whole years; and whoever transgresses this law, is punished with the bamboo. .... The Emperor reserves to himself the revenues arising from the salt-mines, and those which are derived from impositions upon a certain herb called Tcha, which they drink with hot water, and of which vast quantities are sold in all the cities in China.' This is produced from a shrub more bushy than the pomegranite-tree, and of a more pleasant smell, but having a kind of bitterish ftaste. The way of using this herb is, to pour boiling water upon the leaves, and the infusion cures all diseases The islands of Sila are inhabited by white people, who send presents to the Emperor of China, and who are persuaded that if they were to neglect this, the rain of heaven would not fall upon their country. — Travels of a Mahomtnedan TYaveUer in the Ninth Century. The Spikitwith which Books should be read. — A reader should sit down to a book, especially of the miscellaneous kind, as a well-behaved visitor does to a banquet. The master of the feast exerts himself to satisfy all his guests : but if after all his care and pains there should still be something or other put on the table that does not suit this or that person's taste.Jthey politely pass it over, without noticing the circumstance, and commend other dishes, that they may not distress their kind host, or throw a damp on his spirits. For who could tolerate a guest that accepted an invitation to your table With no other purpose but that of finding fault with everything put before him, neither eating himself, nor suffering others to eat in comfort. And yet you may fall in with a worse set than even these, with churls that in all companies, and without stop or stay, will condemn and pull to pieces a work which they had never read. But this sinks below the business of an informer, yea, though he were a false witness to boot ! The man who abuses a thing of which he is utterly ignorant, unites the infamy of both ; and, in addition to this, makes himself the pander and sycophant of his own and other men's envy and malignity. — Erasmus. Ingenious Equivoque. — Boileau being asked his opinion of a few verses which Louis the Fourteenth had made, replied, " Nothing, Sire, is impossible to your Majesty ; you wished, no doubt, to make bad verses, and have succeeded to a miracle."