Chapter III: Part 3

AN AMERICAN CONFESSES A FAULT.

The Americans are said to be grievously addicted to ----: we would rather avoid the word. Travellers have spread the imputation; but travellers are known to speak from prejudice, and their report did not appear to be altogether trustworthy. At length, strange to say, the charge of being intolerable--must we say it?--_spitters_ is made by one of themselves, and of course there can be no more said on the subject: the fact is confessed. This marvellously candid, but painful acknowledgment, occurs in the recently-published work, _Sketches of European Capitals_, by W. Ware, M.D., the well-known author of those charming historical romances, _Letters from Palmyra_, _Aurelian_, &c. We trust that Dr Ware will not be ostracised on the score of taste or patriotism by his countrymen, for his extraordinary audacity in telling them of a fault, and, what is more, in drawing an unfavourable comparison between them and Englishmen on this most delicate subject. The following are his remarks:--

'An Englishman, I believe, rarely chews, and, compared with the American, rarely smokes; but whether he does not secretly practise both these abominations, I am not prepared to say. But with both these provocatives, if it be so, one thing he never does--is to spit. That fact draws a line of demarcation between the Englishman and the American, broader and deeper a thousandfold than any other in politics, government, laws, language, religion. _The Englishman never spits_; or, if he does, he first goes home, shuts himself up in his room, locks his door, argues the necessity of the case; if necessary, performs the disagreeable duty, and returns to society with a clear conscience. The American spits always and everywhere; sometimes when it is necessary; always, when it is not. It is his occupation, his pastime, his business. Many do nothing else all their lives, and always indulge in that singular recreation when they _have_ nothing else to do. Sometimes, in a state of momentary forgetfulness, he intermits; but then, as if he had neglected a sworn duty, returns to it again with conscience-smitten vigour. He spits at home and abroad, by night and by day, awake and asleep, in company and in solitude, for his own amusement and the edification of a spitting community; on the freshly-painted or scoured floor, on the clean deck of a ship or steam-boat, on parlour floors--covered whether with ingrained Brussels, Wilton, or Turkey--even there he voids his rheum; upon the unabsorbent canvas, so that one may see, where numbers congregate, the railway cars to run in more ways than one; the pulpits and pews of churches are not safe; the foot-pavement of the streets, the floors of all public places--of exchanges, hotels, of Congress halls--are foul with it; and in railway cars it must always be necessary for a lady to shorten her garments, as if about to walk in the deep mud of the street, or the snow and water of spring, if she would escape defilement to either her dress or her slippers. As the power of direction of these human missiles is by no means unerring, notwithstanding so much practice, one's own person, and all parts of his person, are exposed to the random shots of this universal foe of American civilised life; and often he finds, on different parts of his dress, proofs abundant of the company he has kept. The only single spot absolutely secure is a man's face--and that would not be, were it not for the fear of a duel. That there is not the shadow of exaggeration in this description, coarse as it is, and coarse as it has been my intention to make it, all Americans, and all travellers who have ever been within an American hotel, steam-boat, or rail-car--all will testify. And the result of it all is, I suppose, that we are the freest and most enlightened people on the face of the earth! But for one, republican as I am in principle, I think, on the whole, I would prefer the despotism of Austria, Russia, or Rome, to the freedom, if I must take with it the spit, of America. It is vice enough to tempt one to forswear home, country, kindred, friends, religion; it is ample cause for breaking acquaintance, friendship, for a divorce; in a word, it is our grand national distinction, if we did but know it. There are certainly parts of the country comparatively, but only comparatively, free from this vice. Here at the north, there is much less than at the west and the south, though here enough of it to disgust one with his race. In proportion as general refinement prevails, the custom abates. At the south, no carpets, no rooms, no presence, affords protection.[6] Here, in the best rooms, the best society, there is partial exemption, though not often enough from the presence of that ingenious, fearful patent--the brazen, china, or earthen _box_. Would that my country could be induced to pause in this its wonderful career! Pity some public effort could not be made by way of general convention, or otherwise, for the abatement of this national mischief--certainly as worthy of attention as very many of our political and moral reforms. The advice of the London surgeon, Abernethy, to an American sea-captain, was at anyrate useful to us all, and pregnant with good medical philosophy. "Keep your saliva in your mouth to help to digest your food with," said he, "and do not spit it all over my carpet." Very wholesome counsel. And, seriously, who can say how much the pallid face, the proverbial indigestion of our country, even consumption itself, may not be owing to this constant drain, which deprives the stomach of a secretion which nature provided for the most important purposes in the manufacture of the blood, and which she certainly did not provide to be wasted and thrown about in the manner of the Anglo-American?'

There is so much frankness and sorrow in this confession of a national sin against good manners, that the least thing we can do is to assure Dr Ware, that he takes much too favourable a view of the habits of the English in the matter in question. That among the highly-educated, the refined, and in what is called 'good society' generally, no one is guilty of the crime he speaks of, is quite true; but we take leave to say that inferior grades of people--the bulk of those walking the street, for example--are about as guilty of it as are the Americans; and it must doubtless be from this source that our transatlantic brethren have been contaminated. This hint as to the origin of a bad practice may perhaps suggest amendment in those departments of our population where it is required. Might not something also be done in the way of school instruction?

FOOTNOTES:

[6] 'Let six such Americans meet round a stove, in a bar-room, or parlour, or hotel drawing-room, of a morning--of the six, four will spit before speaking a word; one will bid good-morning first, and spit afterwards; the sixth will make a remark somewhat at length upon the weather, and, by way of compensation for extraordinary retention, spit twice or thrice.'

'THE MAGNETOSCOPE.'

In No. 415 of this Journal, we printed a paper with the above title, merely as one likely to excite interest, but warning the reader that we did not ourselves vouch for its statements. This caution appears to have been very necessary; for Dr Madden--the substance of whose lecture was given in the article--now declares, that 'very shortly after its delivery, he, in common with many others, detected a serious fallacy in the whole series of experiments; and that, by prosecuting his inquiry in this new direction, he ascertained that not one of the hitherto recorded experiments can be looked upon as proving the existence of _magnetic currents_ at all.' The pendulations, it seems, are caused solely by 'slight mechanical impulsions, unconsciously or half consciously conveyed to the instrument by the luckless experimentalist.'

VILLAGE CLEANING.

It is a serious mistake to suppose that sanitary arrangements are required only for London and other large cities. Few small towns or even villages are exactly what they should be as regards health. Villages, indeed, by having no jurisdiction, are in many cases far more unhealthy than populous towns. We could point out a village of a few hundred inhabitants--a pretty place to look at, at a distance--where there is much mortality among infants and others in consequence of foul gutters and bad drainage. In a small pamphlet, forming an appeal to the ratepayers of Keswick on this subject, there occur the following observations respecting the state of a place called Braithwaite, which we candidly believe might apply to a hundred other villages in England, and more particularly Scotland:--'The village of Braithwaite, for example, contains, in proportion to its population, more dirt, disease, and death than any decent town. It is one of the most romantic and filthy villages in England, and yet it might easily be made one of the cleanest and neatest. There are lanes, alleys, and courts in almost all small towns and villages, in which the mortality is greater far than that of our great towns; nay, in hamlets, and isolated farmhouses in this, as in many other country districts, there is often more sickness in proportion to the population than in cities; and I could point out within a circuit of a few miles, localities in which, during the last few years, scrofula, small-pox, measles, and typhus fever have left their ravages; and which, with proper care and cleanliness, might, I firmly believe, have escaped. But that disease, and especially infectious disease, haunts all ill-drained, ill-cleansed, and ill-ventilated places in both town and country, there are now few intelligent persons that require to be convinced; and the question has come to be with the well-informed part of the public, as it has long been the question with medical men--has not the time now arrived to _compel_ those who harbour the filth and the contagion that carry off one-half of mankind, to expel those enemies to the human race? The innumerable statistical inquiries of the last ten years on this subject, all go to prove that dirt, squalor, close air, and stagnant water, are the causes of one-half the mortality of mankind in civilised countries. The majority of thinking people of all classes--and these, though a small minority of mankind, are the directors of every great social movement--are coming to see that we must proceed with this sanitary business at once; and that, if not by mild means, then by a little wholesome compulsion, we must oblige the owners of property haunted by death and contagion, to yield to the demands of society. If a man may not harbour a ferocious bull-dog in his alley, is he to keep a noisome ditch running at large there?--and if he may not hold a main of fighting cocks, is he to keep cholera and typhus in his house? For my part, I cannot see, if a justice of the peace can stop a man from knocking me down with a bludgeon, why he should not be authorised to interfere to save me from a typhus fever; and if he can prevent boys from endangering the lives of passengers by firing guns on the high roads, why he should not also be enabled to forbid the open sewers and other nuisances, which, if not so noisy, are even more dangerous. A railway company pays heavily for the lives and limbs of passengers sacrificed by the neglect or rashness of its officials--should not a town be equally liable for the losses caused by a public violation of the laws of health? We move slowly in this neighbourhood, disliking changes, and hold strongly, while the rest of the world is advancing, to the old ideas; yet even Wordsworth's consecration of this sentiment to Cumberland--

"Hail usages of pristine mould,
And ye that guard them, mountains old!"

can scarcely apply to bad drainage and ventilation.' We should think not. There is a scandalous deficiency in the ordinary institutes of the country on this important subject of town and village cleaning!

NATIONAL CUSTOMS.

Sir C. Napier put down the practice of suttee, which, however, was rare in Scinde, by a process entirely characteristic; for, judging the real cause of these immolations to be the profit derived by the priests, and hearing of an intended burning, he made it known that he would stop the sacrifice. The priests said it was a religious rite which must not be meddled with--that all nations had customs which should be respected, and this was a very sacred one. The general, affecting to be struck with the argument, replied: 'Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom: prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom: When men burn women alive, we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs!' No suttee took place then or afterwards.--_Sir C. Napier's Administration of Scinde._

BY THE SEA.

BY CALDER CAMPBELL.

When tired of towns, and pining sore
For change to healthful ground,
Thou turn'st from crowds--still at the core
Feeling thy heart's worst wound--
When thou hast knocked at every door,
Yet no admittance found:
At every door where Pleasure in
Glides, with a sunny grace,
But which thine own bale barreth up
From thee--then seek a place
Where gates of stone and brass are none
To frown thee in the face!

The woods have walks, where thou mayst find
A balm to salve thy grief;
And in and out where waters wind,
Are sources of relief,
In which, if thou wilt bathe the mind,
Thou'lt have no comfort brief,
But peace--that falleth like the dew!
For everything that shews
God's sunshine speaketh marvels true
Of mercy and repose,
And joy, in rural scenes, beyond
All that the loud world knows!

Yet more, than wood or woodland rill
Can give of keen delight,
We glean from ocean-margins, till
The spirit--at the sight
Of all its range of changeful change--
Becometh, like it, bright!
Bright when the sunlight on it falls,
Or grave and grand when, dark,
The shadowy night lets down its pall
Upon each human ark;
And every surge seems but to urge
Extinction of life's spark!

A change, an always active change,
An everness of grace,
Of grace and grandeur, takes its range
Over the ocean's face:
As in a book for thoughts men look,
Thoughts in it we can trace!
A thought to turn us from ourselves
And all our petty cares--
A thought to move the spirit's love
To God, and God's affairs;
And thereby give to all that live
The sympathy that spares--

That spares our brother man from blame,
And pities him when o'er
His nature come such clouds of shame
As menaced us before:
God only can the sea-swell tame,
The mental peace restore!
Look on the ocean, then, and feel
Its turmoil and its calm
Arouse or tranquillise thy mind--
A stimulant or balm;
A thundertone to make thee think,
Or, gently soothing psalm!

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