Chapter 41 - Page 2

those days, I only marvel that, in my many strolls, my
passport was not a thousand times demanded.

Nevertheless, I was only a forlorn looking mortal among tens of
thousands of rags and tatters. For in some parts of the town, inhabited
by laborers, and poor people generally; I used to crowd my way through
masses of squalid men, women, and children, who at this evening hour, in
those quarters of Liverpool, seem to empty themselves into the street,
and live there for the time. I had never seen any thing like it in New
York. Often, I witnessed some curious, and many very sad scenes; and
especially I remembered encountering a pale, ragged man, rushing along
frantically, and striving to throw off his wife and children, who 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