Chapter XXII (2)

Their days and nights were now passing away very pleasantly, visited by and visiting so many kind friends, doing all they could to make them happy--giving their nightly amusements at the Shakspearian Rooms, and enjoying the society and western jokes of their old friend _Bobasheela_, and, after their dinners and suppers, their other old friend, _chickabobboo_.

About this time some very kindly-disposed friends proposed that a couple of nights of their exhibitions should be given in the immense room of the Town-hall, and one half of the receipts be presented to the two hospitals, representing that upon such conditions they thought the use of the hall would be granted free of expense, and believing that the results would be beneficial to both parties. Mr. Melody and I at once consented, and, the entertainments on those two nights being for a charitable purpose, the crowds that came in were very great, and the receipts beyond what we expected, the profits being 145_l._ 12_s._, the half of which, 72_l._ 16_s._, the Ioways presented to the two hospitals, and on the following day were invited to attend at the Town-hall at eleven o'clock in the morning, to receive an acknowledgment of it from the venerable Presidents of the two institutions, and to hear an address which was prepared to be read and given to them. The Indians met the two kind and excellent gentlemen (both of whom were Friends), and many others, both ladies and gentlemen, of their society; and seeing the results of this meeting likely to be of a very interesting nature, I took pains to make notes of all that was said on the occasion. The venerable Mr. R. T. Cadbury, from the General Hospital, in a very impressive manner, and suited to their understandings, explained to the Indians, through their interpreter, the purpose for which the hospital was built and carried on, after which he read the following resolution, which had been passed at the weekly meeting of the Board of Governors on the preceding day:--

"Resolved,--That the Chairman be requested to present the thanks of
this Board to Mr. Catlin, Mr. Melody, and the Ioway Indians, for
the donation of 36_l._ 8_s._, being a moiety of the net proceeds of
two exhibitions made for the benefit of the two hospitals at the
Town-hall; and to assure them their generous gift shall be faithfully
applied to the relief of the sick and maimed, for whose benefit the
said hospital was instituted, and for sixty-five years has been
supported by voluntary donations and subscriptions."

After reading this, Mr. Cadbury presented to each of them a copy of the annual report and rules of the institution, and expressed a hope that all of them would reach their distant homes in safety, and that their visit to this country would be beneficial to them.

The chief, _White Cloud_, shook hands with Mr. Cadbury, and replied as follows:--

"My Friend,--I have very few remarks to make to you. We are all very
thankful to you for the speech you have made to us, and for the
prayer you have made that we may all reach home safe. Those words
pleased all my people here very much, and we thank you for them.

"My Friend,--We have now been some time in England, and, amongst all
the words of friendship we have heard, nothing has been more pleasing
to us than the words we have heard from your lips. We have seen some
of the greatest men in this country, and none have delighted us so
much as you have by the way in which you have spoken; and we believe
that the service we have rendered to the hospital will be looked on
with mutual satisfaction.

"My Friend,--The Americans have been long trying to civilize us, and
we now begin to see the advantages of it, and hope the Government of
the United States will do us some good. I hope some of the people of
my nation will place their children with white people, that they may
see how the white children live.

"My Friend,--I have nothing more to say, but to thank you."

After the speech of White Cloud, Mr. J. Cadbury, at the head of a deputation from the "_Temperance Society_" (to which the Indians had sent also the sum of 36_l._ 8_s._), presented himself, and read an address from that association, thanking them for the amount received, and advising the Indians to abstain from the use of "_fire-water_" and to practise _charity_, which was one of the greatest of virtues.

Mr. Cadbury then addressed the Indians, in all the fervency and earnestness of prayer, on the all-important subject of temperance. His words and sentences, selected for their simple understandings, were in the simplicity, and consequently the eloquence of nature, and seemed to win their highest admiration and attention. He painted to them in vivid colours the horrors and vice of intemperance, and its consequences; and also the beauty and loveliness of sobriety, and truth, and charity, which he hoped and should pray that they might practise in the wilderness, with constant prayers to the Great Spirit in the heavens, when they returned to their own country.

When this venerable gentleman's remarks were finished, the old Doctor (or Medicine-man) arose from his seat upon the floor, with his pipe in his lips, and, advancing, shook hands with the two Messrs. Cadbury, and, handing his pipe to the chief, spoke as follows:--

"My Friends,--I rise to thank you for the words you have spoken to
us: they have been kind, and we are thankful for them.

"My Friends,--When I am at home in the wilderness, as well as when I
am amongst you, I always pray to the Great Spirit; and I believe the
chiefs and the warriors of my tribe, and even the women also, pray
every day to the Great Spirit, and He has therefore been very kind to
us.

"My Friends,--We have been this day taken by the hand in friendship,
and this gives us great consolation. Your friendly words have opened
our ears, and your words of advice will not be forgotten.

"My Friends,--You have advised us to be charitable to the poor, and
we have this day handed you 360 dollars to help the poor in your
hospitals. We have not time to see those poor people, but we know you
will make good use of the money for them; and we shall be happy if,
by our coming this way, we shall have made the poor comfortable.

"My Friends,--We Indians are poor, and we cannot do much charity.
The Great Spirit has been kind to us though since we came to this
country, and we have given altogether more than 200 dollars to the
poor people in the streets of London before we came here; and I need
not tell you that this is not the first day that we have given to the
poor in this city.

"My Friends,--If we were rich, like many white men in this country,
the poor people we see around the streets in this cold weather, with
their little children barefooted and begging, would soon get enough
to eat, and clothes to keep them warm.

"My Friends,--It has made us unhappy to see the poor people begging
for something to eat since we came to this country. In our country
we are all poor, but the poor all have enough to eat, and clothes to
keep them warm. We have seen your poorhouses, and been in them, and
we think them very good; but we think there should be more of them,
and that the rich men should pay for them.

"My Friends,--We admit that before we left home we all were fond of
'_fire-water_,' but in this country we have not drunk it. Your words
are good, and we know it is a great sin to drink it. Your words to us
on that subject, can do but little good, for we are but a few; but if
you can tell them to the white people, who make the '_fire-water_,'
and bring it into our country to sell, and can tell them also to the
thousands whom we see drunk with it in this country, then we think
you may do a great deal of good; and we believe the Great Spirit will
reward you for it.

"My Friends,--It makes us unhappy, in a country where there is so
much wealth, to see so many poor and hungry, and so many as we see
drunk. We know you are good people, and kind to the poor, and we give
you our hands at parting; praying that the Great Spirit will assist
you in taking care of the poor, and making people sober.

"My Friends,--I have no more to say." #/

Temperance medals were then given to each of the Indians, and the deputation took leave.

A council was held that evening in the Indians' apartments, and several pipes smoked, during which time the conversation ran upon numerous topics, the first of which was the interesting meeting they had held that day, and on several former occasions, with the Friends, and which good people they were about to leave, and they seemed fearful they should meet none others in their travels. They were passing their comments upon the vast numbers which Daniel and _Bobasheela_ had told them there actually were of poor people shut up in the poorhouses, besides those in the streets, and underground in the coal-pits; and concluded that the numerous clergymen they had to preach to them, and to keep them honest and sober, were not too many, but they thought they even ought to have more, and should at least keep all they had at home, instead of sending them to preach to the Indians. _Jim_ was busy poring over his note-book, and getting Daniel to put down in round numbers the amount of poor in the poorhouses and in the streets, which they had found in some newspaper. And he was anxious to have down without any mistake the large sum of money they had presented to the hospitals, so that when they got home they could tell of the charity they had done in England; and if ever they got so poor as to have to beg, they would have a good paper to beg with. The sum, in American currency (as they know less of pounds, shillings, and pence), amounted to the respectable one of 370 dollars.

This last night's talk in Birmingham was rather a gloomy one, for it was after leave had been taken of all friends. _Bobasheela_ was to start in the morning for Liverpool, and I for London, where I had been summoned to attend as a witness in court, and Mr. Melody and the Indians were to leave for Nottingham and other towns in the north. So at a late hour we parted, and early in the morning set out for our different destinations, bearing with us many warm attachments formed during our short stay in the beautiful town of Birmingham.

For what befel these good fellows in Nottingham and Leeds there will probably be no historian, as I was not with them. I commenced with them in York, where I became again the expounder of their habits and mysteries, and was delighted to meet them on classic ground, where there is so much to engage the attention and admiration of civilized or savage. I had visited York on a former occasion, and had the most ardent wish to be present at this time, and to conduct these rude people into the noble cathedral, and on to its grand tower. I had this pleasure; and in it accomplished one of my favourite designs in accompanying them on their northern tour.

On my return from London I had joined the Indians at Leeds, where they had been exhibiting for some days, and found them just ready to start for York. I was their companion by the railway, therefore, to that ancient and venerable city; and made a note or two on an occurrence of an amusing nature which happened on the way. When we were within a few miles of the town the Indians were suddenly excited and startled by the appearance of a party of fox-hunters, forty or fifty in number, following their pack in full cry, having just crossed the track ahead of the train.

This was a subject entirely new to them and unthought of by the Indians; and, knowing that English soldiers all wore red coats, they were alarmed, their first impression being that we had brought them on to hostile ground, and that this was a "war-party" in pursuit of their enemy. They were relieved and excessively amused when I told them it was merely a fox-hunt, and that the gentlemen they saw riding were mostly noblemen and men of great influence and wealth. They watched them intensely until they were out of sight, and made many amusing remarks about them after we had arrived at York. I told them they rode without guns, and the first one in at the death pulled off the tail of the fox and rode into town with it under his hatband. Their laughter was excessive at the idea of "such gentlemen hunting in open fields, and with a whip instead of a gun; and that great chiefs, as I had pronounced them, should be risking their lives, and the limbs of their fine horses, for a poor fox, the flesh of which, even if it were good to eat, was not wanted by such rich people, who had meat enough at home; and the skin of which could not be worth so much trouble, especially when, as everybody knows, it is good for nothing when the tail is pulled off."

On our arrival in York one of the first and most often repeated questions which they put was, whether there were any of the "good people," as they now called them, the Friends, living there. I told them it was a place where a great many of them lived, and no doubt many would come to see them, which seemed to please and encourage them very much. Mr. Melody having taken rooms for them near to the York Minster, of which they had a partial view from their windows, their impatience became so great that we sallied out the morning after our arrival to pay the first visit to that grand and venerable pile. The reader has doubtless seen or read of this sublime edifice, and I need not attempt to describe it here. Were it in my power to portray the feelings which agitated the breasts of these rude people when they stood before this stupendous fabric of human hands, and as they passed through its aisles, amid its huge columns, and under its grand arches, I should be glad to do it; but those feelings which they enjoyed in the awful silence, were for none but themselves to know. We all followed the guide, who showed and explained to us all that was worth seeing below, and then showed us the way by which we were to reach the summit of the grand or middle tower, where the whole party arrived after a laborious ascent of 273 steps. We had luckily selected a clear day; and the giddy height from which we gazed upon the town under our feet, and the lovely landscape in the distance all around us, afforded to the Indians a view far more wonderful than their eyes had previously beheld. Whilst we were all engaged in looking upon the various scenes that lay like the lines upon a map beneath us, the old Doctor, with his _propensity_ which has been spoken of before, had succeeded in getting a little higher than any of the rest of the party, by climbing on to the little house erected over the gangway through which we entered upon the roof; and, upon the pinnacle of this, for a while stood smiling down upon the thousands of people who were gathering in the streets. He was at length, however, seen to assume a more conspicuous attitude by raising his head and his eyes towards the sky, and for some moments he devoutly addressed himself to the Great Spirit, whom the Indians always contemplate as "in the heavens, above the clouds." When he had finished this invocation, he slowly and carefully "descended on to the roof, and as he joined his friends he observed that when he was up there "he was nearer to the Great Spirit than he had ever been before." The War-chief excited much merriment by his sarcastic reply, that "it was a pity he did not stay there, for he would never be so near the Great Spirit again." The Doctor had no way of answering this severe retort, except by a silent smile, as, with his head turned away, he gazed on the beautiful landscape beneath him. When we descended from the tower, the Indians desired to advance again to the centre of this grand edifice, where they stood for a few minutes with their hands covering their mouths, as they gazed upon the huge columns around them and the stupendous arches over their heads, and at last came silently away, and I believe inspired with greater awe and respect for the religion of white men than they had ever felt before.

Our stay of three days in York was too short for the Indians to make many acquaintances; but at their exhibitions they saw many of the Society of Friends, and these, as in other places, came forward to offer them their hands and invite them to their houses.

Amongst the invitations they received was one from the governor of the Castle, who with great kindness conducted us through the various apartments of the prison, explaining the whole of its system and discipline to us. We were shown the various cells for different malefactors, with their inmates in them, which no doubt conveyed to the minds of the Indians new ideas of white men's iniquities, and the justice of civilized laws.

When we were withdrawing we were invited to examine a little museum of weapons which had been used by various convicts to commit the horrid deeds for which they had suffered death or transportation. A small room, surrounded by a wire screen, was devoted to these, and as it was unlocked we were invited in, and found one wall of the room completely covered with these shocking records of crime.

The turnkey to this room stepped in, and in a spirit of the greatest kindness, with a rod in his hand to point with, commenced to explain them, and of course add to their interest, in the following manner:--

"You see here, gentlemen, the weapons that have been used in the
commission of murders by persons who have been tried and hung in this
place, or transported for life. That long gun which you see there is
the identical gun that Dyon shot his father with. _He was hung._

"That club and iron coulter you see there, gentlemen, were used
by two highwaymen, who killed the gatekeeper, near Sheffield, by
knocking out his brains, and afterwards robbed him. _They were both
hung._

"This club and razor here, gentlemen (you see the blood on the razor
now), were used by Thompson, who killed his wife. He knocked her down
with this club, and cut her throat with this identical razor.

"This leather strap--gentlemen, do you see it? Well, this strap was
taken from a calf's neck by Benjamin Holrough, and he hung his father
with it. _He was hung here._

"That hedging-bill, razor, and tongs, gentlemen, were the things used
by Healy and Terry, who knocked an old woman down, cut her throat,
and buried her. _They were hung in this prison._

"Now, gentlemen, we come to that hammer and razor you see there. With
that same hammer Mary Crowther knocked her husband down, and then
with that razor cut his throat. _She was hung._

"Do you see that club, gentlemen? That is the club with which Turner
and Swihill, only nineteen years of age, murdered the bookkeeper near
Sheffield. _Both were hung._

"Do you see this short gun, gentlemen? This is the very gun with
which Dobson shot his father. _He was hung._

"This hat, gentlemen, with a hole in it, was the hat of Johnson, who
was murdered near Sheffield. The hole you see is where the blow was
struck that killed him."

The Indians, who had looked on these things and listened to these recitals with a curious interest at first, were now becoming a little uneasy, and the old Doctor, who smiled upon several of the first descriptions, now showed symptoms of evident disquiet, retreating behind the party, and towards the door.

"Do you see this knife and bloody cravat, gentlemen? With that same
knife John James stuck the bailiff through the cravat, and killed
him. _He was executed here._

"A fire-poker, gentlemen, with which King murdered his wife near
Sheffield. _He was hung here._

"These things, gentlemen--this fork, poker, and bloody shoes--with
this poker Hallet knocked his wife down, and stabbed her with the
fork; and the shoes have got the blood on them yet. _Hallet was hung._

"That rope there is the one in which Bardsley was hung, who killed
his own father.

"A bloody axe and poker, gentlemen. With that axe and poker an old
woman killed a little boy. She then drowned herself. _She was not
executed._

"This shoe-knife, gentlemen, is one that Robert Noll killed his wife
with in Sheffield. _He was executed._

"Another knife, with which Rogers killed a man in Sheffield. He
ripped his bowels out with it. _He was hung._

"A club, and stone, and hat, gentlemen. With this club and stone
Blackburn was murdered, and that was his hat: you see how it is all
broken and bloody. This was done by four men. _All hung._

"The hat and hammer here, gentlemen--these belonged to two robbers.
One met the other in a wood, and killed him with the hammer. _He was
hung._

"That scythe and pitchfork, you see, gentlemen"----

When our guide had thus far explained, and Jeffrey had translated to the Indians, I observed the old Doctor quite outside of the museum-room, and with his robe wrapped close around him, casting his eyes around in all directions, and evidently in great uneasiness. He called for the party to come out, for, said he, "I do not think this is a good place for us to stay in any longer." We all thought it was as well, for the turnkey had as yet not described one-third of his curiosities; so we thanked him for his kindness, and took leave of him and his interesting museum.

We were then conducted by the governor's request to the apartments of his family, where he and his kind lady and daughters received the Indians and ourselves with much kindness, having his table prepared with refreshments, and, much to the satisfaction of the Indians (after their fatigue of body as well as of mind), with plenty of the _Queen's chickabobboo_.

The sight-seeing of this day and the exhibition at night finished our labours in the interesting town of York, where I have often regretted we did not remain a little longer to avail ourselves of the numerous and kind invitations which were extended to us before we left. After our labours were all done, and the Indians had enjoyed their suppers and their _chickabobboo_, we had a pipe together, and a sort of recapitulation of what we had seen and heard since we arrived. The two most striking subjects of the gossip of this evening were the cathedral and the prison; the one seemed to have filled their minds with astonishment and admiration at the ingenuity and power of civilized man, and the other with surprise and horror at his degradation and wickedness; and evidently with some alarm for the safety of their persons in such a vicinity of vice as they had reason to believe they were in from the evidences they had seen during the day. The poor old Doctor was so anxious for the next morning to dawn, that we might be on our way, that he had become quite nervous and entirely contemplative and unsociable. They had heard such a catalogue of murders and executions explained, though they knew that we had but begun with the list, and saw so many incarcerated in the prison, some awaiting their trial, others who had been convicted and were under sentence of death or transportation, and others again pining in their cells, and weeping for their wives and children (merely because they could not pay the money that they owed), that they became horrified and alarmed; and as it was the first place where they had seen an exhibition of this kind, there was some reason for the poor fellows' opinions that they were in the midst of the wickedest place in the world.

They said that, from the grandeur and great number of their churches, they thought they ought to be one of the most honest and harmless people they had been amongst, but instead of that they were now convinced they must be the very worst, and the quicker Mr. Melody made arrangements to be off the better. The Indians had been objects of great interest, and for the three nights of their amusements their room was well filled and nightly increasing; but all arguments were in vain, and we must needs be on the move. I relieved their minds in a measure relative to the instruments of death they had seen and the executions of which they had heard an account, by informing them of a fact that had not occurred to them--that the number of executions mentioned had been spread over a great number of years, and were for crimes committed amongst some hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, occupying a tract of country a great many miles in every direction from York; and also that the poor men imprisoned for debt were from various parts of the country for a great distance around. This seemed to abate their surprise to a considerable degree; still, the first impression was here made, and made by means of their eyes (which they say they never disbelieve, and I am quite sure they will never get rid of it), that York was the "wicked town," as they continued to call it during the remainder of their European travels. I explained to them that other towns had their jails and their gallows--that in London they daily rode in their buss past prison walls, and where the numbers imprisoned were greater than those in York, in proportion to the greater size of the city.

Their comments were many and curious on the cruelty of imprisoning people for debt, because they could not pay money. "Why not kill them?" they said; "it would be better, because when a man is dead he is no expense to any one, and his wife can get a husband again, and his little children a father to feed and take care of them; when he is in jail they must starve: when he is once in jail he cannot wish his face to be seen again, and they had better kill them all at once." They thought it easier to die than to live in jail, and seemed to be surprised that white men, so many hundreds and thousands, would submit to it, when they had so many means by which they could kill themselves.

They saw convicts in the cells who were to be transported from the country: they inquired the meaning of that, and, when I explained it, they seemed to think that was a good plan, for, said they, "if these people can't get money enough to pay their debts, if they go to another country they need not be ashamed there, and perhaps they will soon make money enough to come back and have their friends take them by the hand again." I told them, however, that they had not understood me exactly--that transportation was only for heinous crimes, and then a man was sent away in irons, and in the country where he went he had to labour several years, or for life, with chains upon him, as a slave. Their ideas were changed at once on this point, and they agreed that it would be better to kill them all at once, or give them weapons and let them do it themselves.

While this conversation was going on, the Recorder Jim found here very interesting statistics for his note-book, and he at once conceived the plan of getting Daniel to find out how many people there were that they had seen in the prison locked up in one town; and then, his ideas expanding, how many (if it could be done at so late an hour) there were in all the prisons in London; and then how many white people in all the kingdom were locked up for crimes, and how many because they couldn't pay money. His friend and teacher, Daniel, whose head had become a tolerable gazetteer and statistical table, told him it would be quite easy to find it all ready printed in books and newspapers, and that he would put it all down in his book in a little time. The inquisitive Jim then inquired if there were any poorhouses in York, as in other towns; to which his friend Daniel replied that there were, and also in nearly every town in the kingdom; upon which Jim started the design of adding to the statistical entries in his book the number of people in poorhouses throughout the kingdom. Daniel agreed to do this for him also, which he could easily copy out of a memorandum-book of his own, and also to give him an estimate of the number of people annually transported from the kingdom for the commission of crimes. This all pleased Jim very much, and was amusement for Daniel; but at the same time I was decidedly regretting with Mr. Melody that his good fellows the Indians, in their visit to York, should have got their eyes open to so much of the dark side of civilization, which it might have been better for them that they never had seen.

Jim's book was now becoming daily a subject of more and more excitement to him, and consequently of jealousy amongst some of the party, and particularly so with the old Doctor; as Jim was getting more rapidly educated than either of the others, and his book so far advanced as to discourage the Doctor from any essay of the kind himself. Jim that night regretted only one thing which he had neglected to do, and which it was now too late to accomplish--that was, to have measured the length of the cathedral and ascertained the number of steps required to walk around it. He had counted the number of steps to the top of the grand tower, and had intended to have measured the cathedral's length. I had procured some very beautiful engravings of it, however, one of which Daniel arranged in his book, and the length of the building and its height we easily found for him in the pocket Guide.

The Doctor, watching with a jealous eye these numerous estimates going into Jim's book, to be referred to (and of course sworn to) when he got home, and probably on various occasions long before, and having learned enough of arithmetic to understand what a wonderful effect a cipher has when placed on the right of a number of figures, he smiled from day to day with a wicked intent on Jim's records, which, if they went back to his tribe in anything like a credible form, would be a direct infringement upon his peculiar department, and materially affect his standing, inasmuch as Jim laid no claims to a knowledge of _medicine_, or to anything more than good eating and drinking, before he left home.

However, the Doctor at this time could only meditate and smile, as his stiff hand required some practice with the pen before he could make those little 0's so as to match with others in the book, which was often left carelessly lying about upon their table. This intent was entirely and originally wicked on the part of the old Doctor, because he had not yet, that any one knew of, made any reference to his measure of the giant woman, since he had carefully rolled up his cord and put it away amongst his other estimates, to be taken home to "astonish the natives" on their return.