the United States, and he attempted to prove his assertion as follows:
The New York election is carried by the Irish; now the New York election has great influence upon the other elections, and often carries the State. The State of New York has great influence upon the elections of other States, and therefore the Irish of New York govern the country.—QED.
The Irish, in one point, appear to improve in the United States—they become much more provident, and many of them hoard their money. They put it into the Savings Banks, and when they have put in the sum allowed by law to one person, they deposite in other names.
A captain of one of the steam-boats told me an anecdote or two relative to the Irish emigrants, by which it would appear that they are more saving of their money than is quite consistent with honesty.
He constantly received them on board, and said that sometimes, if they were very few, they would declare at the end of the trip that they had no money, although when detained they never failed to produce it; if they were very numerous they would attempt to fight their way without paying. In one instance, an Irishman declared that he had no money, when the captain, to punish him, seized his old jacket, and insisted upon retaining it for payment. The Irishman suffered it to be taken off, expecting, it is to be presumed, that it would be returned to him as valueless, when the captain jerked it overboard. “Oh! murder!—captain, drop the boat,” cried Paddy; “pick my jacket up, or I’m a ruined man. All my money’s in it.” The jacket was fortunately picked up before it sank, and, on ripping it up, it was found to contain, sewed up in it, upwards of fifty sovereigns and gold eagles. The same captain narrated to me the particulars of one instance in which about one hundred Irish were on board, who when asked for payment, commenced an attack upon the captain and crew with their bludgeons; but, having before experienced such attempts, he was prepared for them, and receiving assistance from the shore, the Irishmen were worsted, and then every man paid his fare. The truth is that they are very turbulent, and the lower orders of the Americans are very much enraged against them. On the 4th of July there were several bodies of Americans, who were out on the look-out for the Irish, after dark, and many of the latter were severely beaten, if not murdered; the Irish, however, have to thank themselves for it.
The spirit of the institutions of the States is so opposed to servitude, that it is chiefly from the emigrants that the Americans obtain their supply of domestics; the men servants in the private houses may be said to be, with few exceptions, either emigrants or free people of colour. Amongst other points upon which the Americans are to be pitied, and for which the most perfect of theoretical governments could never compensate, is the misery and annoyance to which they are exposed from their domestics. They are absolutely slaves to them, especially in the western free States; there are no regulations to control them. At any fancied affront they leave the house without a moment’s warning, putting on their hats or bonnets, and walking out of the street-door, leaving their masters and mistresses to get on how they can. I remember when I was staying with a gentleman in the west, that, on the first day of my arrival, he apologised to me for not having a man servant, the fellow having then been drunk for a week; a woman had been hired to help for a portion of the day, but most of the labour fell upon his wife, whom I found one morning cleaning my room. The fellow remained ten days drunk, and then (all his money being spent) sent to his master to say that he would come back on condition that he would give him a little more liquor. To this proposition the gentleman was compelled to assent, and the man returned as if he had conferred a favour. The next day, at dinner, there being no porter up, the lady said to her husband, “Don’t send for it, but go yourself, my dear; he is so very cross again that I fear he will leave the house.” A lady of my acquaintance in New York told her coachman that she should give him warning; the reply from the box was—“I reckon I have been too long in the woods to be scared with an owl.” Had she noticed this insolence, he would probably have got down from the box, and have left her to drive her own cattle. The coloured servants are, generally speaking, the most civil; after them the Germans; the Irish and English are very bad. At the hotels, etcetera, you very often find Americans in subordinate situations, and it is remarkable that when they are so, they are much more civil than the imported servants. Few of the American servants, even in the large cities, understand their business, but it must be remembered that few of them have ever learnt it, and, moreover, they are expected to do three times as much as a servant would do in an English house. The American houses are much too large for the number of servants employed, which is another cause for service being so much disliked.
It is singular that I have not found in any one book, written by English, French, or German travellers, any remarks made upon a custom which the Americans have of almost entirely living, I may say, in the basement of their houses; and which is occasioned by their difficulties in housekeeping with their insufficient domestic establishments. I say custom of the Americans, as it is the case in nine houses out of ten; only the more wealthy travelled, and refined portion of the community in their cities deviating from the general practice.
I have before observed that, from the wish of display, the American houses are generally speaking, too large for the proprietors and for the domestics which are employed. Vying with each other in appearance, their receiving rooms are splendidly furnished, but they do not live in them.
The basement in the front area, which with us is usually appropriated to the housekeeper’s-room and offices, is in most of their houses fitted up as a dining-room; by no means a bad plan, as it is cool in summer, warm in winter, and saves much trouble to the servants. The dinner is served up in it, direct from the kitchen, with which it communicates. The master of the house, unless he dines late, which is seldom the case in American cities, does not often come home to dinner, and the preparations for the family are of course not very troublesome. But although they go on very well in their daily routine, to give a dinner is to the majority of the Americans really an effort, not from the disinclination to give one, but from the indifference and ignorance of the servants; and they may be excused without being taxed with want of hospitality. It is a very common custom, therefore, for the Americans to invite you to come and “take wine” with them, that is to come after dinner, when you will find cakes, ices, wine, and company, already prepared. But there is something unpleasant in this arrangement; it is too much like the bar of the tavern in the west, with—“Stranger, will you drink?” It must, however, be recollected that there are many exceptions to what I have above stated as the general practice. There are houses in the principal cities of the States where you will sit down to as well-arranged and elegant a dinner as you will find in the best circles of London and Paris; but the proprietors are men of wealth, who have in all probability been on the old continent, and have imbibed a taste for luxury and refinement generally unknown and unfelt in the new hemisphere.
I once had an instance of what has been repeatedly observed by other travellers of the dislike to be considered as servants in this land of equality.
I was on board of a steam-boat from Detroit to Buffalo, and entered into conversation with a young woman who was leaning over the taffrail. She had been in service, and was returning home.
“You say you lived with Mr. W.?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied she, rather tartly; “I said I lived with Mrs. W.”
“Oh, I understand. In what situation did you live?”
“I lived in the house.”
“Of course you did, but what as?”
“What as? As a gal should live.”
“I mean what did you do?”
“I helped Mrs. W.”
“And now you are tired of helping others?”
“Guess I am.”
“Who
