The Express.
London, England, 1867-11-14 00:00:00

LIICA11211D; 14, 'AD AL]

M=ICA.

(nom. on 'SPECIAL

NEW YORK, Nov. 2.

I have not mentioned the Mrs. Lincoln scandal,
because I was in hopes it would pass over without
much notice frOm the press ; but as Rhea attracted,
I see, more or lesa attention in England, and is
ansceptible of a great variety of explanations, I
suppose everybody who professes to give the
English public an idea of what is occupying
people's minds here must say something about it.
I shall now do so, but very unwillingly, because,
in the first place, it is a very nauseous subject, and
in the next, because it has not excited nearly as
much attention here as you will probably think it
ought. The fact is, that Mrs. Lincoln's pecu-
liarities are no novelty to people here. When,
therefore, she appeared in New York accusing the
Republican party of ingratitude, and threatening
to expose for sale certain shawls and other
finery which were presented to her during
her occupancy of the White House, it did not
excite anybody surprise. Her conduct during
Mr. Lincoln's administration was a source of the
deepest pain and mortification, to his friends cer-
tainly, and it was believed to himself, but there
was too much respect and sympathy felt for him
by all parties for even the press to make any, or
more than very slight allusions to the subject.
' After his death it was hoped she would go home
and live in retirement for the rest of her days.
He left an estate amply sufficient to support her
comfortably in the way she had always lived, and
better too ; and until within the last month we
were flattering ourselves that we had heard the last
of her; she has, however, suddenly appeared on
the scene, and with old finery for sale, and making
a parade of her griefs, which deprives her- of all
claim to notice or reply on her own account. On
account of the people, on whom she may bring dis-
credit, however, something has to be said in ex-
planation. Mrs. Lincoln is a Kentuckian, or, as
Southerners would tell you, " one of the Toddy of
Kentucky," and a friend told me the other day
that he often during the war heard Southerners
wondering how she, a " Todd," could have mar-
ried such a person as Mr. Lincoln. Now the
South-western women, of whom she was
i a fair specimen, are a class of which it is
difficult to give you an idea without saying
very hard things, or things which may seem gross
; exaggerations. They are " loud " and " fast," to
a degree of which Englishmen can hardly conceive
It is, however, not the " loudness " and fastness "
of vice, but of semi-barbarism. All South-
western life is a caricature on civilisation. The
man whom you see round the stoves in the Missis-
sippi steamers or hotels, dressed in black, with
patent-leather boots, looks like a civilised man, but
he is really a half-savage, would murder you for the
turning of a straw, probably carries a bowie knife
under his dress coat with which to do it, is utterly
indifferent to most of the decencies and restraints
of civilised life, will eat anything anywhere, sleep
in any kind of bed with any number of companions,
but thinks himself a "gentleman," because he is
ready to fight, and indulges in a sort of barbaric
affectation of politeness towards 'women, made up
half of traditions of the age of chivalry, got out of
novels, and half a barbarous contempt for their
weakness. There are no hereditary manners in
the South-west except amongst the French creoles.
!The American population even in Tennessee and
Kentucky, which are amongst the older
States, are the descendants in the second or third,
generation of wild backwoodsmen from the Virgi-
nian and Carolinian frontier, who when they emi-
grated were dressed in leather, and could generally
neither read nor write. The first generation passed
its time in a struggle for existence with the Indians
! and the wilderness, killing each other a good deal
Iby way of variety. A curious and instructive pic-
ture of the state of society in those States during
the earlier part of the century is to be found in
! Parton's "Life of Andrew Jackson." The chil-
i dren of the first settlers grew up, of course, if any-
: thing wilder and more ignorant than their parents ;
! but as wealth and negroes increased, of course re-
finement and education increased. The families
who got hold of most negroes, and got hold of them
first, grew into a kind of aristocracy—known here
as "the first families." The men of them became
I " gentlemen" of the old Irish type, fighting, drink-
ing, hunting men—devoted to the ladies of course ;
I and the women a kind of coarse "belles," whose per-
formances in any older community would be shock-
! ing, but who out there passed merely as spirited.
I One of them, a Kentuckian, who twenty years ago
was famous throughout the south-west as a beauty,
and though decidedly more enterprising than
Imost of her sisters was nevertheless of the
I same general type, signalised herself one evening
on one of the great river boats, by leaving the
door of the state room open, revealing her to the
company in the saloon kneeling at her bedside
in her night dress, with dishevelled hair, saying
her prayers. In Europe and the Eastern States
this would have been called "improper," but in
her it was not in the least so. It was simply a bar-
baric attempt at the picturesque and sentimental.
Mrs. Lincoln was bred in this school of manners,
and her life afterwards, in Springfield, Illinois,
was not of a kind to refine her, or give a knowledge
of the world, in the absence of what the French
call a bun nature!. Her translation to the White
House turned her head, and brought out all that
was worst in her education and manners. She be-
came the centre of attraction to a host of adven-
turers, strangers, and intriguers, who are always
hanging about the presidential mansion in search
of places, or jobs, or contracts, and her society
was largely composed of fourth-rate and slightly-
damaged fashionable. from New York, and other
large cities. This state of things was a sore
affliction to the public during the war, and I
might cite many cases in which Mrs. Lincoln's
appear rice on solemn and even touching occasions in
Mr. Lincoln's administration visibly and deeply
mortified him. He was a man, however, who bore
his own as well as other people's sorrows with a
smiling face, and I doubt if either Mrs. Lincoln or
anybody else ever heard a word of reproach or
complaint from him on the subject. As he left
nearly twenty thousand pounds—a sum which, at
the current rates' of interest here, and with the
coat of living as-low as it is in Illinois—was amply
sufficient to maintain all those of his family who
are still unable to provide' for themselves in more
than comfort. Had Mrs. Lincoln been a different
kind of person, a million of dollars would have
been made up for her, had she desired, without
any difficulty, but her career in Waahington had
been such that most people felt thankful that her

CITWOPENOE

husband's estate was large enough to save them
the necessity of doing anything for her. Her hat
expedition to New York is looked on as an attempt
to extort money, and lam glad to say it has tho-
roughly failed. Nobody will, of course, contribute
a cent, and the shawls and other finery which
were undoubtedly given her as bribes to secure her.
influence Ifith the President, have found no pur-
chasers, or at least had not a day or two ago. All
this is very disagreeable to write, and, I trust, to
moat people disagreeable to read, but it ought
I nevertheless to be said, since anything has been
said about the matter at all.

THE HURRICANE AT ST. THOMAS.

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