Diary in America, Series One

Volume Three—Chapter Eleven

I wish the remarks in this chapter to receive peculiar attention, as in commenting upon the character of the Americans, it is but justice to them to point out that many of what may be considered their errors, arise from circumstances over which they have no control; and one which has no small weight in this scale is the peculiar climate of the country; for various as is the climate, in such an extensive region, certain it is, that in one point, that of excitement, it has, in every portion of it, a very pernicious effect.

When I first arrived at New York, the effect of the climate upon me was immediate. On the 5th of May, the heat and closeness were oppressive. There was a sultriness in the air, even at that early period of the year, which to me seemed equal to that of Madras. Almost every day there were, instead of our mild refreshing showers, sharp storms of thunder and lightning; but the air did not appear to me to be cooled by them. And yet, strange to say, there were no incipient signs of vegetation: the trees waved their bare arms, and while I was throwing off every garment which I well could, the females were walking up and down Broadway wrapped up in warm shawls. It appeared as if it required twice the heat we have in our own country, either to create a free circulation in the blood of the people, or to stimulate nature to rouse after the torpor of a protracted and severe winter. In a week from the period I have mentioned, the trees were in full foliage, the belles of Broadway walking about in summer dresses and thin satin shoes; the men calling for ice, and rejoicing in the beauty of the weather, the heat of which to me was most oppressive. In one respect there appears to be very little difference throughout all the States of the Union; which is, in the extreme heat of the summer months, and the rapid changes of temperature which take place in the twenty-four hours. When I was on Lake Superior the thermometer stood between 90 degrees and 100 degrees during the day, and at night was nearly down to the freezing point. When at St. Peter’s, which is nearly as far north, and farther west, the thermometer stood generally at 100 degrees to 106 degrees during the day, and I found it to be the case in all the northern States when the winter is most severe, as well as in the more southern. When on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, where the heat was most insufferable during the day, our navigation was almost every night suspended by the thick dank fogs, which covered not only the waters but the inland country, and which must be anything but healthy. In fact, in every portion of the States which I visited, and in those portions also which I did not visit, the extreme heat and rapid changes in the weather were (according to the information received front other persons) the same.

But I must proceed to particulars. I consider the climate on the sea coasts of the eastern States, from Maine to Baltimore, as the most unhealthy of all parts of America; as, added to the sudden changes, they have cold and damp easterly winds, which occasion a great deal of consumption. The inhabitants, more especially the women, shew this in their appearance, and it is by the inhabitants that the climate must be tested. The women are very delicate, and very pretty; but they remind you of roses which have budded fairly, but which a check in the season has not permitted to blow. Up to sixteen or seventeen, they promise perfection; at that age their advance appears to be checked. Mr Sanderson, in a very clever and amusing work, which I recommend to every one, called “Sketches of Paris,” says: “Our climate is noted for three eminent qualities—extreme heat and cold, and extreme suddenness of change. If a lady has bad teeth, or a bad complexion, she lays them conveniently to the climate; if her beauty, like a tender flower, fades before noon, it is the climate; if she has a bad temper, or a snub nose; still it is the climate. But our climate is active and intellectual, especially in winter, and in all seasons more pure and transparent than the inking skies of Europe. It sustains the infancy of beauty—why not its maturity? It spares the bud—why not the opened blossom, or the ripened fruit? Our negroes are perfect in their teeth—why not the whites? The chief preservation of beauty in any country is health, and there is no place in which this great interest is so little attended to as in America. To be sensible of this, you must visit Europe—you must see the deep bosomed maids of England upon the Place Vendome and the Rue Castiglione.”

I have quoted this passage, because I think Mr Sanderson is not just in these slurs upon his fair countrywomen. I acknowledge that a bad temper does not directly proceed from climate, although sickness and suffering, occasioned by climate, may directly produce it. As for the snub nose, I agree with him, that climate has not so much to do with that. Mr Sanderson is right in saying, that the chief preservative of beauty is health; but may I ask him, upon what does health depend but upon exercise? and if so, how many days are there in the American summer in which the heat will admit of exercise, or in the American winter in which it is possible for women to walk out? for carriage driving is not exercise, and if it were, from the changes in the weather in America, it will always be dangerous. The fact is, that the climate will not admit of the exercise necessary for health, unless by running great risks, and very often contracting cold and chills, which end in consumption and death. To accuse his countrywomen of natural indolence, is unfair; it is an indolence forced upon them. As for the complexions of the females, I consider they are much injured by the universal use of close stoves, so necessary in the extremity of the winters. Mr S’s implication, that because negroes have perfect teeth, therefore so should the whites, is another error. The negroes were born for, and in, a torrid clime, and there is some difference between their strong ivory masticators and the transparent pearly teeth which so rapidly decay in the eastern states, from no other cause than the variability of the climate. Besides, do the teeth of the women in the western states decay so fast? Take a healthy situation, with an intermediate climate, such as Cincinnati, and you will there find not only good teeth, but as deep-bosomed maids as you will in England; so you will in Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin, which, with a portion of Ohio, are the most healthy states in the Union. There is another proof, and a positive one, that the women are affected by the climate and not through any fault of their own, which is, that if you transplant a delicate American girl to England, she will in a year or two become so robust and healthy as not to be recognised upon her return home; showing that the even temperature of our damp climate is from the capability of constant exercise, more conducive to health, than the sunny, yet variable atmosphere of America.

The Americans are fond of their climate, and consider it, as they do every thing in America, as the very best in the world. They are, as I have said before, most happy in their delusions. But if the climate be not a healthy one, it is certainly a beautiful climate to the eye; the sky is so clear, the air so dry, the tints of the foliage so inexpressibly beautiful in the autumn and early winter months: and at night, the stars are so brilliant, hundreds being visible with the naked eye which are not to be seen by us, that I am not surprised at the Americans praising the beauty of their climate. The sun is terrific in his heat, it is true, but still one cannot help feeling the want of it, when in England, he will disdain to shine for weeks. Since my return to this country, the English reader can hardly form an idea of how much I have longed for the sun. After having sojourned for nearly two years in America, the sight of it has to me almost amounted to a necessity, and I am not therefore at all astonished at an American finding fault with the climate of England; nevertheless, our climate, although unprepossessing to the eye, and depressive to the animal spirits, is much more healthy than the exciting and changeable atmosphere, although beautiful in appearance, which they breathe in the United States.

One of the first points to which I directed my attention on my arrival in America, was to the diseases most prevalent. In the eastern States, as may be supposed, they have a great deal of consumption; in the western, the complaint is hardly known: but the general nature of the American diseases are neuralgic, or those which affect the nerves, and which are common to almost all the Union. Ophthalmia, particularly the disease of the ophthalmic nerve, is very common in the eastern States. The medical men told me that there were annually more diseases of the eye in New York city alone, than perhaps all over Europe. How far this may be correct I cannot say; but this I can assert, that I never had any complaint in my eyes until I arrived in America, and during a stay of eighteen months, I was three times very severely afflicted. The oculist who attended me asserted that he had seven hundred patients.

The tic doloureux is another common complaint throughout America,—indeed so common is it, that I should say that one out of ten suffers from it, more or less; the majority, however, are women.

I saw more cases of delirium tremens in America, than I ever heard of before. In fact, the climate is one of extreme excitement. I had not been a week in the country before I discovered how impossible it was for a foreigner to drink as much wine or spirits as he could in England, and I believe that thousands of emigrants have been carried off by making no alteration in their habits upon their arrival. See Note 1.

The winters in Wisconsin, Ioway, Missouri, and Upper Canada, are dry and healthy, enabling the inhabitants to take any quantity of exercise, and I found that the people looked forward to their winters with pleasure, longing for the heat of the summer to abate.

Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and a portion of Ohio, are very unhealthy in the autumns from the want of drainage; the bilious congestive fever, ague, and dysentery, carrying off large numbers, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and the eastern portions of Tennessee, are comparatively healthy. South Carolina, and all the other southern States, are, as it is well known, visited by the yellow fever, and the people migrate every fall to the northward, not only to avoid the contagion, but to renovate their general health, which suffers from the continual demand upon their energies, the western and southern country being even more exciting than the east. There is a fiery disposition in the Southerners which is very remarkable; they are much more easily excited than even the Spaniard or Italian, and their feelings are more violent and unrestrainable, as I shall hereafter show. That this is the effect of climate I shall now attempt to prove by one or two circumstances, out of the many which fell under my observation. It is impossible to imagine a greater difference in character than exists between the hot-blooded Southerner, and the cold calculating Yankee of the eastern States. I have already said that there is a continual stream of emigration from the eastern States to the southward and westward the farmers of the eastern States leaving their comparatively barren lands to settle down upon the more grateful soils of the interior. Now, it is a singular, yet a well known fact, that in a very few years the character of the Eastern farmer is completely changed. He arrives there a hard-working, careful, and sober man; for the first two or three years his ground is well tilled, and his crops are abundant; but by degrees he becomes a different character: he neglects his farm, so that from rich soil he obtains no better crops than he formerly did upon his poor land in Massachusetts; he becomes indolent, reckless, and often intemperate. Before he has settled five years in the Western country, the climate has changed him into a Western man, with all the peculiar virtues and vices of the country.

A Boston friend of mine told me that he was once on board of a steamboat on the Mississippi, and found that an old schoolfellow was first mate of the vessel. They ran upon a snag, and were obliged to lay the vessel on shore until they could put the cargo on board of another steamboat, and repair the damage. The passengers, as usual on such occasions, instead of grumbling at what could not be helped, as people do in England, made themselves merry; and because they could not proceed on their voyage they very wisely resolved to drink champagne. They did so: a further supply being required, this first mate was sent down into the hold to procure it. My Boston friend happened to be at the hatchway when he went down with a flaring candle in his hand, and he observed the mate creep over several small barrels until he found the champagne cases, and ordered them up.

“What is in those barrels?” inquired he of the mate when he came up again.

“Oh, gunpowder!” replied the mate.

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed the Bostonian, “is it possible that you could be so careless? why I should have thought better of you; you used to be a prudent man.”

“Yes, and so I was, until I came into this part of the country,” replied the mate, “but somehow or another, I don’t care for things now, which, when I was in my own State, would have frightened me out of my wits.” Here was a good proof of the Southern recklessness having been imbibed by a cautious Yankee.

I have adduced the above instances, because I consider that the excitement so general throughout the Union, and forming so remarkable a feature in the American character, is occasioned much more by climate than by any other cause: that the peculiarity of their institutions affords constant aliment for this excitement to feed upon is true, and it is therefore seldom allowed to repose. I think, moreover, that their climate is the occasion of two bad habits to which the Americans are prone, namely, the use of tobacco and of spirituous liquors. An Englishman could not drink as the Americans do; it would destroy him here in a very short time, by the irritation it would produce upon his nerves. But the effect of tobacco is narcotic and anti-nervous; it allays that irritation, and enables the American to indulge in stimulating habits without their being attended with such immediate ill consequences.

To the rapid changes of the climate, and to the extreme heat, must be also to a great degree ascribed the excessive use of spirituous liquors; the system being depressed by the sudden changes demanding stimulus to equalise the pulse. The extraordinary heat during the summer is also another cause of it. The Rev. Mr Reid says, in his Tour through the States, “the disposition to drink now became intense; we had only to consider how we might safely gratify it; the thermometer rose to low, and the heat and perspiration were intolerable.” Now, if a Christian divine acknowledged this feeling, it is not to be supposed but that others must be equally affected. To drink pure water during this extreme heat is very dangerous: it must be qualified with some wine or spirit; and thus is an American led into a habit of drinking, from which it is not very easy, indeed hardly possible, for him to abstain, except during the winter, and the winters in America are too cold for a man to leave off any of his habits. Let it not be supposed that I wish to excuse intemperance: far from it; but I wish to be just in my remarks upon the Americans, and show, that if they are intemperate (which they certainly are), there is more excuse for them than there is for other nations, from their temptation arising out of circumstances.

There is but one other point to be considered in examining into the climate of America. It will be admitted that the American stock is the very best in the world, being originally English, with a favourable admixture of German, Irish, French, and other northern countries. It moreover has the great advantage of a continual importation of the same varieties of stock to cross and improve the breed. The question then is, have the American race improved or degenerated since the first settlement? If they have degenerated, the climate cannot be healthy.

I was very particular in examining into this point, and I have no hesitation in saying, that the American people are not equal in strength or in form to the English. I may displease the Americans by this assertion, and they may bring forward their backwoodsmen and their Kentuckians, who live at the spurs of the Alleghany Mountains, as evidence to the contrary; but although they are powerful and tall men they are not well made, nor so well made as the Virginians, who are the finest race in the Union. There is one peculiar defect in the American figure common to both sexes, which is, narrowness of the shoulders, and it is a very great defect; there seems to be a check to the expansion of the chest in their climate, the physiological causes of which I leave to others. On the whole, they certainly are a taller race than the natives of Europe, but not with proportionate muscular strength. Their climate, therefore, I unhesitatingly pronounce to be bad, being injurious to them in the two important points, of healthy vigour in the body, and healthy action of the mind; enervating the one, and tending to demoralise the other.

Note 1. Vermont, New Hampshire, the interior portion of the State of New York, and all the portions of the other States which abut on the great lakes, are healthy, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere being softened down by the proximity of such large bodies of water.

Volume Three—Chapter Twelve

Mr Carey, in his statistical work, falls into the great error of most American writers—that of lauding his own country and countrymen, and inducing them to believe that they are superior to all nations under heaven. This is very injudicious, and highly injurious to the national character: it upholds that self-conceit to which the Americans are already so prone, and checks that improvement so necessary to place them on a level with the English nation. The Americans have gained more by their faults having been pointed out by travellers than they will choose to allow; and, from his moral courage in fearlessly pointing out the truth, the best friend to America, among their own countrymen, has been Dr Charming. I certainly was under the impression, previous to my visit to the United States, that education was much more universal there than in England; but every step I took, and every mile I travelled, lowered my estimate on that point. To substantiate my opinion by statistical tables would be difficult; as, after much diligent search, I find that I can only obtain a correct return of a portion of our own establishments; but, even were I able to obtain a general return, it would not avail me much, as Mr Carey has no general return to oppose to it. He gives us, as useful, Massachusetts and one or two other States, but no more; and, as I have before observed, Massachusetts is not America. His remarks and quotations from English authors are not fair; they are loose and partial observations, made by those who have a case to substantiate. Not that I blame Mr Carey for making use of those authorities, such as they are; but I wish to show that they have misled him.

I must first observe that Mr Carey’s estimate of education in England is much lower than it ought to be; and I may afterwards prove that his estimate of education in the United States is equally erroneous on the other side.

To estimate the amount of education in England by the number of national schools must ever be wrong. In America, by so doing, a fair approximation may be arrived at, as the education of all classes is chiefly confined to them; but in England the case is different; not only the rich and those in the middling classes of life, but a large proportion of the poor, sending their children to private schools. Could I have obtained a return of the private seminaries in the United Kingdom, it would have astonished Mr Carey. The small parish of Kensington and its vicinity has only two national schools, but it contains 292 (I believe this estimate is below the mark) private establishments for education; and I might produce fifty others, in which the proportion would be almost as remarkable. I have said that a large portion of the poorer classes in England send their children to private teachers. This arises from a feeling of pride; they prefer paying for the tuition of their children rather than having their children educated by the parish, as they term the national schools. The consequence is, that in every town, or village, or hamlet, you will find that there are “dame schools,” as they are termed, at which about one half of the children are educated.

The subject of national education has not been warmly taken up in England until within these last twenty-five years, and has made great progress during that period. The Church of England Society for National Education was established in 1813. Two years after its formation there were only 230 schools, containing 40,484 children. By the Twenty-seventh Report of this Society, ending the year 1838, these schools had increased to 17,341, and the number of scholars to 1,003,087. But this, it must be recollected, is but a small proportion of the public education in England; the Dissenters having been equally diligent, and their schools being quite as numerous in proportion to their numbers. We have, moreover, the workhouse schools, and the dame schools before mentioned, for the poorer classes; and for the rich and middling classes, establishments for private tuition, which, could the returns of them and of the scholars be made, would, I am convinced, amount to more than five times the number of the national and public establishments. But as Mr Carey does not bring forward his statistical proof; and I cannot produce mine, all that I can do is to venture my opinion from what I learnt and saw during my sojourn in the United States, or have obtained from American and other authorities.

The State of Massachusetts is a school; it may be said that all there are educated, Mr Reid states in his work:—

“It was lately ascertained by returns from 131 towns in Massachusetts, that the number of scholars was 12,393; that the number of persons in the towns between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one who are unable to write was fifty-eight; and in one town there were only three persons who could not read or write, and those three were dumb.”