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- clung to his arms and legs; and, in God’s name, conjured him not to
desert them. He seemed bent upon rushing down to the water, and
drowning himself, in some despair, and craziness of wretchedness. In
these haunts, beggary went on before me wherever I walked, and dogged
me unceasingly at the heels. Poverty, poverty, poverty, in almost
endless vistas: and want and woe staggered arm in arm along these
miserable streets.
And here, I must not omit one thing, that struck me at the time. It was
the absence of negroes; who in the large towns in the “free states” of
America, almost always form a considerable portion of the destitute.
But in these streets, not a negro was to be seen. All were whites; and
with the exception of the Irish, were natives of the soil: even
Englishmen; as much Englishmen, as the dukes in the House of Lords.
This conveyed a strange feeling: and more than any thing else, reminded
me that I was not in my own land. For _there,_ such a being as a native
beggar is almost unknown; and to be a born American citizen seems a
guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue
of a vote.
Speaking of negroes, recalls the looks of interest with which
negro-sailors are regarded when they walk the Liverpool streets. In
Liverpool indeed the negro steps with a prouder pace, and lifts his
head like a man; for here, no such exaggerated feeling exists in
respect to him, as in America. Three or four times, I encountered our
black steward, dressed very handsomely, and walking arm in arm with a
good-looking English woman. In New York, such a couple would have been
mobbed in three minutes; and the steward would have been lucky to
escape with whole limbs. Owing to the friendly reception extended to
them, and the unwonted immunities they enjoy in Liverpool, the black
cooks and stewards of American ships are very much attached to the
place and like to make voyages to it.
Being so young and inexperienced then, and unconsciously swayed in some
degree by those local and social prejudices, that are the marring of
most men, and from which, for the mass, there seems no possible escape;
at first I was surprised that a colored man should be treated as he is
in this town; but a little reflection showed that, after all, it was
but recognizing his claims to humanity and normal equality; so that, in
some things, we Americans leave to other countries the carrying out of
the principle that stands at the head of our Declaration of
Independence.
During my evening strolls in the wealthier quarters, I was subject to a
continual mortification. It was the humiliating fact, wholly unforeseen
by me, that upon the whole, and barring the poverty and beggary,
Liverpool, away from the docks, was very much such a place as New York.
There were the same sort of streets pretty much; the same rows of
houses with stone steps; the same kind of side-walks and curbs; and the
same elbowing, heartless-looking crowd as ever.
I came across the Leeds Canal, one afternoon; but, upon my word, no one
could have told it from the Erie Canal at Albany. I went into St.
John’s Market on a Saturday night; and though it was strange enough to
see that great roof supported by so many pillars, yet the most
discriminating observer would not have been able to detect any
difference between the articles exposed for sale, and the articles
exhibited in Fulton Market, New York.
I walked down Lord-street, peering into the jewelers’ shops; but I
thought I was walking down a block in Broadway. I began to think that
all this talk about travel was a humbug; and that he who lives in a
nut-shell, lives in an epitome of the universe, and has but little to
see beyond him.
It is true, that I often thought of London’s being only seven or eight
hours’ travel by railroad from where I was; and that _there,_ surely,
must be a world of wonders waiting my eyes: but more of London anon.
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