TRANSATLANTIC SKETCHES. SOUTHWARDS AND WESTWARDS-TRENTON, ITS IRON WORKS-INCIDENTS OF THE RAIL-BALTIMORE-RAILWAY WAR-NEGRO SCHOOLS. TOWARDS the end of April we left New York to make a tour along the Atlantic coast, as far as Baltimore, then westward to Cincinnati, and so back again by the lakes and Albany to Boston. This, by the way followed, was a distance of about 2,200 miles, carrying us through different States and different climates, with varying occupations for the people, and various characteristics, all which proved very interesting. We were accompanied most of the time by a retired soldier, late of the military engineer corps, and one who had been in all the hard fighting of the Mexican war. His companionship, with its inexhausted tales of active service, of strange and interesting countries and peoples, was an additional source of information and pleasure on this journey. Our first stage was to be Philadelphia; we stopped, however, by the way, to examine some iron-works at Trenton, the capital of the state of New Jersey. This is a place of considerable importance, containing a population of about 15,000, largely engaged in manufactures. The town is beautifully situated on a bend of the river Delaware. Its prominent building is the Capitol, or State-house, which stands on the bank of the river, in a "yard," or small park, tastefully laid out. Neatly gravelled walks wind through grassy plots, luxuriously shaded with well-grown trees. This matter of shade is of much more consequence in the United States than here, but it is a matter which might well obtain more attention, even in this temperate climate. One of the characteristics of almost every American town which first attracts a stranger's notice, is the carefully-preserved row of shade-trees on each side of the streets. They add much to the beauty of the towns, and in the hot weather the protection they afford from the sun is very grateful. In the grounds of the Trenton Capitol there were magnolias, guelderoses, lilacs, etc., all covered with blossoms, and the quiet and sylvan beauty that reigned round these offices of state and halls of legislature, afforded a most pleasing contrast to the heat, and dust, and noise that reign in a like neighbourhood in our own metropolis. We could not help being struck, too, with the character of the houses in the main street near the State-house. There is no attempt at regularity; all are more or less set back from the street, some have patches of garden in front, some are built of wood, some of brick, some are covered with creeping plants, all have the thick shadetrees in front. They present everywhere the sign of comfortable, not to say luxurious independence. In passing through this and many other towns of a similar character in America, we have often wondered whence the incomes are derived on which the people live who dwell there. For there are few persons comparatively in the States who have independent incomes. The country is too new as yet to have a monied class of any extent. Many of course are engaged in trade and manufactures, and there are many doctors, lawyers, and ministers, but after making the fullest allowance for these, there are multitudes in every town, and the towns themselves are multitudes, whose incomes are obtained in some other way, the statistics of which could not fail to be very interesting. The company that owns the iron-works at Ringwood, already described, have two important works at Trenton. One is an ordinary rolling-mill for the production of bar iron, rails, etc. They make at this work the iron frame-work which is now much in use for building in America. Nearly all the new public buildings, custom-houses, mints, banks, and offices are erected fireproof. The floors are formed of rolled malleable iron girders, with light brick arches between, and are supported on cast-iron pillars. This style of building economises space has the advantage of being fireproof, and is less costly than the ordinary work. The other work is for making wire. Here the visitors can see those "blooms" we described as being made at Ringwood, heated and hammered into bars about four feet long, and four inches square, then rolled out into rods twenty-five feet or more in length, and from a half to a quarter of an inch in diameter, and these again drawn out, and drawn, and re-drawn, till the product of the last process is a wire that rivals in tenuity the finest silk. The first part of the operation is like rail rolling in miniature, and this part of the work is as black and dirty as an ordinary rolling mill. But as the fineness increases, the process becomes more delicate, till at last it is exceedingly so and very beautiful. The wire is finished by being annealed, giving it a beautiful steel colour, or it is tinned or coppered-covered, that is, with a thin film of tin or copper. This is effected by immersing it in a pot of molten tin or copper, and thereafter polishing it with leather. In a work adjoining, we saw in process a malleable iron gun-carriage making on trial. The wooden carriages of the barbette guns (a barbette gun is one which is fired over a fortification, not through an embrasure, and is consequently open to all weather), from constant exposure, rot in from one to three or four years; and so the War Department has resolved to make experiment of iron ones. The commission of officers, who visited the Crimea two years ago, reported their frequent use in Russia, and other places. Other officers, too, had notes and drawings of iron gun-carriages. Those now making at Trenton are on a new and different plan from any known elsewhere. They are to be made of triangular pieces of boiler-plate, strengthened throughout with angle-iron, and the rails on which the carriage is to run are to be formed in the same way. If successful in practice, the adoption of iron-plate, instead of wood, will be likely to create a revolution in the manufacture of gun-carriages. In the evening we went on to Philadelphia. The sun was setting gloriously over the town of Trenton as we bade it adieu, lighting up the dome of the State-house and the church spires with ruddiest light. The monotony of the journey was only broken by a couple of boys, who came into the cars with an old wheezy accordion and triangles, and who serenaded in a way that surely most of the passengers would have gladly dispensed with. The freedom with which such things are allowed in the trains in America cannot but impress the stranger unfavourably with the system of railway travelling. Owing to the formation of the carriages, persons can pass from one end of the train to the other, and no matter how short or how long the journey may be, there are constantly people passing to and fro. Boys with newspapers, novels, etc.; others with lozenges, pea-nuts, walnuts. This, and the constant moving about of passengers-the chewing tobacco and spitting, and the close atmosphere of the cars-makes a ride by rail in the States contrast very badly with a railway journey in the old world. More astonishing still, to one accustomed to the regularity and certainty of trains in Europe, was an incident that occurred on the prosecution of our journey to Baltimore. The train had stopped at a station, and gone on again for some distance, when a person in one of the cars discovered, too late, that the station just left was the one where he should have got out. He immediately pulled the cord that rings the stopping-bell, and the train was brought to a stand. It rained heavily at the time, and our obstructive, not content with delaying the whole train to rectify his mistake, insisted on being carried back to the station. There was a loud discussion and some resistance, but eventually he gained his point, and the train actually moved back with him. The result to us was a delay of half-an-hour, for we lost our time; and instead of passing the up-coming train at the next station, for there is but a single line of rails, had to wait where we were till the other train had passed. It seemed a very cool proceeding to make a whole train-load yield to accommodate one; but it called forth little general remark. We arrived in Baltimore on Saturday afternoon, and remained there till Monday evening. In the course of our wanderings we paid a visit to the Maryland Mechanics' Institute Library, where we saw a rude engraving of Baltimore as it appeared a hundred years ago. At that time it was a settlement of only some thirty houses; and where the fashionable streets now are, was forest only. These hundred years have wrought a mighty change in Baltimore. It is possessed now-a-days of an extensive and active foreign trade, and its home-trade must be both large and profitable. We visited one wholesale and retail general haberdashery establishment, employing sixty-one clerks and assistants, and turning over £25,000 to £30,000 per week. This store had a fine marble front to the street, and the back portion of it was lit by a magnificent dome. It was a more handsome shop than we had seen anywhere else in America, and such a business seemed evidence of the prosperity of the city, and of the wealth of the surrounding country. This was farther proved by the extent, elegance, and costliness of the plate in an adjoining silversmith's. Luxury follows wealth with great rapidity in the cities of the Atlantic coast; and sometimes in the interior it may be observed in ludicrous incongruity. At this time the great topic of all-engrossing interest in Baltimore was a strike of the conductors of the freight trains on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, and the riotous proceedings which resulted from it. The company had for some time suffered great loss from the pilfering of their cars while on the way between Baltimore and Wheeling, and to obviate this had lately issued an order, that the cars, when loaded at the one point, should be sealed, delivered on a written receipt to the conductors, and by the conductors to the agent at the point of delivery, also on a written receipt. The conductors considered this proceeding an impeachment on their honour and honesty, and refused to go into the arrangement. Upon this the company abolished the office of conductor altogether, and put the trains under the charge of the enginemen, giving them the assistance of an additional brakesman. Deprived of their employment in this way, the conductors got up a party in the city, mobbed the trains near Ellecotz's Mills, a few miles out of Baltimore, and just beyond the police jurisdiction of the city, uncoupled the cars, and prevented the trains going on. This state of matters went on for some days. At last the military were called out, and detachments placed on guard over each train. The first day, although the soldiers fired upon the rioters, still the mob was too much for them, and they succeeded in stopping the trains. Next day came out a proclamation from the Governor, somewhat equivalent in effect to the reading of the Riot Act in this country. We saw a party of the Maryland volunteers— splendid fellows, all picked men-go off to the scene of action on Saturday afternoon (May 2). Not at all intimidated, the mob seemed to be bolder than ever, and attacked the trains even under the military escort. One fellow stood out from the rest, who were covered by brushwood, and fired several shots with a revolver at the engine-driver, missing him, however. There were three or four soldiers on this engine, two of whom fired at the rioter, and although the engine was running ten miles an hour, both balls took effect, hitting the man in the forehead, within an inch or so of each other. This damped the courage of the rioters, but they took a deadly revenge. They dispersed for the time, but presuming that the military were to return over night, they waited till it was dark, and then returned, and dug up some of the rails, by which means an engine and train were thrown off the line. The railway company feared something of this kind might be tried, and had put on a long train of pig cars before the passenger cars, running them very slowly, so that the seriousness of the accident was modified. As it was, although no lives were lost, some limbs were broken. One young fellow, a soldier, had his thigh broken. The man killed was said to be a well-known rough, and of some arrested, one was only newly out of jail. The mob was out in great force, to the number of several thousands, but this death of one of them seemed to quell the spirit of resistance, and no fresh attempt was made farther to disturb the passage of the trains. During the Sabbath spent in Baltimore, we had an opportunity of visiting a coloured school connected with a church for negroes, of which Mr Galbraith, a white man, is pastor. There were present about one hundred and twenty of all shades of colour, of all ages, and of great variety of capacity. The superintendent informed me, as the result of his experience in teaching the coloured race, that he found some of them very clever, while some could no more be taught than an ox. Another gentleman, who had a good deal of experience in teaching in this school, thinks, that up to a certain age, all can be taught, but that if that age is passed, it is difficult, or next to impossible, to instil information into them; while those who have begun before, and made tolerable progress, when they arrive at it remain stationary. During an address delivered to this particular school, we observed that they were on the whole most attentive, and seemed to appreciate what was said. We also heard Mr Galbraith, their minister, catechise them; their answers were remarkably good, and impressed us with the idea that they certainly can be taught. It was altogether a most interesting sight. Some of these children (we noticed in particular one little boy) were as white as any European, and but for the crisp curly hair, could hardly have been known to have negro blood. What tell-tales these pale faces are! They look far less happy than the browns and blacks; for among the latter there prevails a universal cheerfulness and light-heartedness, very striking to us who are accustomed to attach to the name of slave the down-heartedness and gloom of a grinding oppression. This was still farther impressed upon us by meeting, on our way back to the hotel, a large coloured congregation coming from church. The women were dressed in gaudy silks, and the men in good black clothes, while both indulged in a great display of showy jewellery-a more respectablelooking and happy like set of people one could not meet anywhere. They are very far from being the down-trodden class, which, at least in England, they are supposed to be. We went in the evening to a reformed Presbyterian Church, assembling at the comfortable hour of eight. But Reformed Presbyterianism in Baltimore bears little resemblance to its prototype among the hills of Galloway; and in the ultra-congregationalism of its church government, and the laxity of its doctrines, our readers would fail to recognise any relationship to the pure faith, and somewhat strict church principles of the highly-esteemed Symingtons. Neither would a full-beard, black stock, and turned-down collars, be considered, in the West of Scotland, the proper ministerial adjuncts. The sermon from the words—“ Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord," was a very clever one-full of original and striking thought; and the man was eloquent, although, like many of his American compeers, apt to be noisy in his eloquence, and too demonstrative. For long the Roman Catholics were, and by many they are still supposed to be, the majority in Baltimore. They are not so now. The Methodists alone out-number them, without taking into account any of the other denominations; and this notwithstanding the increase of the Irish population. Here, as elsewhere on the American continent, the profession of Rome is on the decline. THE LAST WAVE. "TWAS Autumn night, all languidly With whisp'rings ever new; And, gazing o'er the gloomy deep, I sighed for earth-born joy Like weary child I came to weep "When the last wave upon the beach Then," said a voice, "within thy reach Oft o'er the deep my longing eye |