Фредерик Марриет - Diary in America, Series Two

But, notwithstanding the decorum so well preserved as I have mentioned, there are some annoyances to be met with from gregarious travelling. One is, that occasionally a family of interesting young citizens who are suffering from the whooping-cough, small-pox, or any other complaint, are brought on board, in consequence of the medical gentlemen having recommended change of air. Of course the other children, or even adults, may take the infection, but they are not refused admittance upon such trifling grounds; the profits of the steam boat must not be interfered with.

Of all travelling, I think that by railroad the most intriguing, especially in America. After a certain time the constant coughing of the locomotive, the dazzling of the vision from the rapidity with which objects are passed, the sparks and ashes which fly in your face and on your clothes become very annoying; your only consolation is the speed with which you are passing over the ground.

The railroads in America are not so well made as in England, and are therefore more dangerous; but it must be remembered that at present nothing is made in America but to last a certain time; they go to the exact expense considered necessary and no further, they know that in twenty years they will be better able to spend twenty dollars than one now. The great object is to obtain quick returns for the outlay, and, except in few instances, durability or permanency is not thought of. One great cause of disasters is, that the railroads are not fenced on the sides, so as to keep the cattle off them, and it appears as if the cattle who range the woods are very partial to take their naps on the roads, probably from their being drier than the other portions of the soil. It is impossible to say how many cows have been cut into atoms by the trains in America, but the frequent accidents arising from these causes has occasioned the Americans to invent a sort of shovel, attached to the front of the locomotive, which takes up a cow, tossing her off right or left. At every fifteen miles of the rail-roads there are refreshment rooms; the cars stop, all the doors are thrown open, and out rush the passengers like boys out of school, and crowd round the tables to solace themselves with pies, patties, cakes, hard-boiled eggs, ham, custards, and a variety of railroad luxuries, too numerous to mention. The bell rings for departure, in they all hurry with their hands and mouths full, and off they go again, until the next stopping place induces them to relieve the monotony of the journey by masticating without being hungry.

The Utica railroad is the best in the United States. The general average of speed is from fourteen to sixteen miles an hour; but on the Utica they go much faster. 3 3 The railroads finished in America in 1835 amounted in length to 1,600 miles; those in progress, and not yet complete, to 1,270 miles more. The canals completed were in length 2,500 miles, unfinished 687 miles. A gentleman narrated to me a singular specimen of the ruling passion which he witnessed on an occasion when the rail-cars were thrown off the road, and nearly one hundred people killed, or injured in a greater or less degree.

On the side of the road lay a man with his leg so severely fractured, that the bone had been forced through the skin, and projected outside his trowsers. Over him hung his wife, with the utmost solicitude, the blood running down from a severe cut received on her head, and kneeling by his side was his sister, who was also much injured. The poor women were lamenting over him, and thinking nothing of their own hurts; and he, it appears, was also thinking nothing about his injury, but only lamenting the delay which would be occasioned by it.

“Oh! my dear, dear Isaac, what can be done with your leg?” exclaimed the wife in the deepest distress.

“What will become of my leg!” cried the man. “What’s to become of my business, I should like to know?”

“Oh! dear brother,” said the other female, “don’t think about your business now; think of getting cured.”

“Think of getting cured—I must think how the bills are to be met, and I not there to take them up. They will be presented as sure as I lie here.”

“Oh! never mind the bills, dear husband—think of your precious leg.”

“Not mind the bills! but I must mind the bills—my credit will be ruined.”

“Not when they know what has happened, brother. Oh! dear, dear—that leg, that leg.”

“D—n the leg; what’s to become of my business,” groaned the man, falling on his back from excess of pain.

Now this was a specimen of true commercial spirit. If this man had not been nailed to the desk, he might have been a hero.

I shall conclude this chapter with an extract from an American author, which will give some idea of the indifference as to loss of life in the United States.

“Every now and then is a tale of railroad disaster in some part of the country, at inclined planes, or intersecting points, or by running off the track, making splinters of the cars, and of men’s bones; and locomotives have been known to encounter, head to head, like two rams fighting. A little while previous to the writing of these lines, a locomotive and tender shot down the inclined plain at Philadelphia, like a falling star. A woman, with two legs broken by this accident, was put into an omnibus, to be carried to the hospital, but the driver, in his speculations, coolly replied to a man, who asked why he did not go on?—that he was waiting for a full load .”

The most general, the most rapid, the most agreeable, and, at the same time, the most dangerous, of American travelling is by steam boats. It will be as well to give the reader an idea of the extent of this navigation by putting before him the lengths of some of the principal rivers in the United States.

Voice from America.

Many of the largest of these rivers are at present running through deserts—others possess but a scanty population on their banks; but, as the west fills up, they will be teeming with life, and the harvest of industry will freight many more hundreds of vessels than those which at present disturb their waters.

The Americans have an idea that they are very far ahead of us in steam navigation, a great error which I could not persuade them of. In the first place, their machinery is not by any means equal to ours; in the next, they have no sea-going steam vessels, which after all is the great desideratum of steam navigation. Even in the number and tonnage of their mercantile steam vessels they are not equal to us, as I shall presently show, nor have they yet arrived to that security in steam navigation which we have.

The return of vessels belonging to the Mercantile Steam Marine of Great Britain, made by the Commissioners on the Report of steam-vessel accidents in 1839, is, number of vessels, 810; tonnage, 157,840; horse power, 63,250.

Mr Levi Woodbury’s Report to Congress in December, 1838, states the number of American steam vessels to be 800, and the tonnage to be 155,473; horse power, 57,019.

It is but fair to state, that the Americans have the credit of having sent the first steam vessel across the Atlantic. In 1819, a steam vessel, built at New York, crossed from Savannah to Liverpool in twenty-six days.

The number of sea-going steam vessels in England is two hundred and eighty-two , while in the United States they have not more than ten at the outside calculation. In the size of our vessels also we are far superior to them. I here insert a table, shewing the dimensions of our largest vessels, as given in the Report to the House of Commons, and another of the largest American vessels collected from the Report of Mr Levi Woodbury to Congress.