The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-15 00:00:00

Delaware, through a pretty undulating country, would
convey him to Baltimore. As Philadelphia was remark-
able for the tidiness of its streets so Baltimore was remark-
able for the good looks and comeliness of its ladies.
Before the late war Baltimore was a pleasant town to
dwell in, possessing a most hospitable disposition towards
strangers. Once more ho would suppose that the traveller
continued his journey on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway,
making no stoppage until he arrived at Cincinnati. As to
travelling in the cars, to imagine what it was like you
must fancy a long and wile omnibus, with a passage in
the middle, and furnished with rows of stuffed seats. You
must then fancy every second passenger chewing tobacco
for very life, and you must then picture to yourself a total
absence of ventilation, and a reeking odour of tobacco
juice, apples, oranges, and moist clothes; then you would
have some faint notion what travelling in the cars meant.
(Laughter.) On many of the American Railroads, how-
ever, if you were able to invest half a dollar for the pur-
pose, you could enter a sleeping car, where well-venti-
lated sleeping apartments were arranged in the same manner
as a ship's cabin. Before arriving at Cincinnati it was
necessary to cross the spur of the Alleghanies, while the
Ohio was crossed by means of a huge raft. Cincinnati
was a large dirty city, famous for its pork and a sparkling
wine, dear in price, pleasant to drink, and termed Catawba
champagne. Pork was manufactured so rapidly at
Cincinnati as to remind one of the scene in the pantomime
where a policeman was put into a box and came out again
all cut up again into sausages. (Laughter.) " Hog and
hominy " were to be had at Cincinnati in perfection ; and
he might remark that punctuality was not only the soul
of business, but the soul of eating also in the States.
(Laughter.) Ho had soon waiters told off to various
dishes ; at the word " one " each dish cover was firmly
grasped with the thumb and fore-finger, and at the word
" two " every cover was removed with military precision—
(laughter)—while such was the voracity and the velocity
with which the good things on the table were despatched,
that if you showed any shyness or reserve you stood no
chance of getting anything at all. (Laughter.) The
noble lord then conducted his audience—over abominable
roads, the very recollection of which, he said, made his
bones ache—to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, of which
he gave a detailed account. As this cave has been re-
peatedly described before it is perhaps scarcely necessary
to follow his lordship through this portion of his lecture ;
it may be noted, however, that he stated that in one part of
the cave some stone cottages had been recently erected
by an enterprising doctor for the reception of consumptive
patients ; this " summary mode of interring patients before
they died" failed, but the doctor, nevertheless, pocketed
his fees. (Laughter.) His lordship also called attention
to the part of the cave kßown as the chapel, where, ho
said, a couple had once been married, the traditfon being
that the bride had promised her mother not to marry her
lover anywhere on the face of the earth, and that she
did not consider that the pledge which she had given
prevented her from marrying him under the earth. (Much
laughter.) Hav'mg followed the windings of the cave
(which extended over more than 100 miles) for some time,
the noble lord said he would again take the cars to the
West, and turn to St. Louis, 1,200 miles from New York.
There was nothiitg peculiar to distinguish St. Louis from
other largo American cities, except that it had been for
years looked upon as the extreme western point of
American civilisation. The houses were built of wood,
and to guard against fire there were at the street corners
large knobs communicating by means of electricity with
a central fire office. Some eighty miles from St. Louis
was a celebrated iron mountain ; the works were well
worthy of a visit ; the ore, before smelting, was among
the purest in the world. He would now mount the cars
again, and creep along through miles of desolate-looking
forest land to Chicago, which might be said to have been
built more for utility than for ornament. The streets,
however, were well laid out on the usual American plan—
broad, straight, and at right angles. The houses were the
plain, four-walled boxes which might be seen in any ordi-
nary Anglo-Saxon town. The position of Chicago, on
the borders of one of the great inland lakes, was admirably
adapted for trading purposes, and if we took into considera-
tion the fact that it had no existence 35 years ago, and that
it now comprises between 150,000 and 200,000 inhabitants,
it would be seen that its progress has been marvellous.
Rapid, however, as had been the rise of Chicago, it bore
no comparison with what had taken place in the lately
discovered oil regions of Pennyslvania, where within a
very few months of the felling of the trees of the forest
cities of several thousand inhabitants had sprung up.
A long journey of twenty-four hours, through a flat and
uninteresting country, brought the traveller to Niagara
Falls station—that was to say, to Niagara Falls, 'the
mightiest cataract in the world. After alluding to the
geological formation of the district, noticing a theory that
in the course of 16,000 years the Falls would gradually re-
cede towards Lake Erie until they altogether ceased to
exist—a theory, however, which concerned the present gene-
ration very little—(laughter)—the noble lord observed that,
strange to say, the general impression of travellers on see-
ing Niagara for the first time was one of disappointment.
The eye was unable at first to take in the vast torrent of
water. A feeling of awe, however, succeeded, as greater
proximity impressed one's mind with the sublime spectacle.
The width of the whole cataract was 1,080 yards, the height
of the Horseshoe Fall was about 158 feet, and that of
the American, or smaller fall, was 164 feet. To:give an idea
of the fall of waters, it was sufficient to say that they were
computed to amount to 20,000,000 cubic feet per minute.
To attempt to measure the volume of such a vast cataract

shore, such was the bewildering idea of Almighty power
and infinite wisdom conveyed to the mind of the spec-
tator. An American who saw the Falls was stated to have
been able to find no better resemblance to them
than that of the sea pouring down 'from the moon—
(laughter) and certainly nowhere else in the
world was such a scene to be found. Two miles below
the Falls was a suspension bridge, constructed to
unite the America and Canadian sides of the
river, and here a good view both above and
below the Falls was to be obtained. If the traveller next
made a bold plunge on Lake Ontario four hours would find
him at Toronto, the streets of which had a wood instead
of a stone pavement. While he (Lord E. Cecil) was in
Toronto the Canadian Houses of Legislature were sitting,
their removal to Otawa not having been then determixed
on. The prevalence of tobacco chewing in the midst of a
debate certainly did not add to the dignity of the assem-
bly, and he sincerely hoped that whatever changes might
be in store in the future such a reform would never be
imported into the House of Commons. At the same time
the Canadian idea of decorum was superior to that which
prevailed in many of the American legislative assemblies,
the debates of which were frequently very amusing. For
instance, here was a report of a speech by an Illinois M.P.:
"Mr. Speaker, I think sheep is property, and our laws
ought not to be so that dogs can commit ravages on sheep.
Up where I live sheep is of more account than dogs, and
although dogs aro useful, sheep are usefuller. Show me
the man who says dogs are usefuller than sheep, and I'll
show you a know nothing. Mr. Speaker, lam through."
(Laughter). The noble lord said he would next halt at
Montreal, the largest town in Canada, the population being
principally French Canadians. Montreal was by no means
deficient in public buildings, although none of them were
remarkable for architectural beauty. Being the older
town, the streets of Montreal were not so well laid out as
those of Toronto, while they were exceedingly hot and
dusty in the summer. The great wonder of Montreal was the
Victoria-bridge, constructed by the Grand Trunk Railroad
Company, whose trains now traverse nearly ten miles of
water by this means. The bridge, with the exception of
the tubes, was all solid masonry, and, although the piers
looked light and fragile, they were calculated to resist a
pressuro of 70,000 tons ; they were constructed with sharp
edges outwards, so as to cope with the great masses of ice
as they came down the St. Lawrence. Quebec was the
oldest town in Canada, having been founded in the reign
of Francis I. of France, .by Jacques Cartier, a lineal de-
scendant of whom was Prime Minister of Canada. The
streets were irregular and dirty, and the architecture of
the town's buildings was by no means worthy of the
natural beauty of its position. Having referred to an
obelisk 60 feet high, raised to the memory of the Marquis
de Montcalm, the last French Governor-Genemlof Canada,
and also to the Montmorenci Falls, which, he said, although
smaller than those of Niagara, had still a peculiar beauty
of their own, the noble lord observed the military strength
of Quebec was very great, but there were some engineers
who believed that its strength was overrated, and that in
any future siege the improvements in artillery would enable
an enemy to bombard it successfully from the other side of
the St. Lawrence. The weak point in its armour was
still, as in former days, the Plains of Abraham, to the
westward—that memorable battle-field which saw decided
the question whether the English or French race should
rule in America. A monument was erected on the Plains
of Abraham in 1832 to mark the spot where General Wolfe
fell in the action of September, 1759 ; and close at hand
was still to be seen the well which quenched his dying
thirst. No one could look without emotion on this spot
so pregnant with memorable events. The story of Wolfe's
life taught us a lesson of no common patience and energy
exerted in the cause of his country ; and the loss of Wolfe
appeared to remind us of the loss which we had recently
sustained of the statesman who, in the fulness of his poli-
tical glory, had boon taken from amongst us. Both Wolfe
and Palmerston toiled unceasingly to promote their
country's good ; both afforded bright examples of devotion
to the public service ; both in the truest sense of the word
had the honour of England for their uppermost thought ;
and so long as the world endured so long would their
names be connected with England's greatness and pro-
sperity. One word as to the climate and resources of
Canada. The climate was infinitely colder than that of
the United States, owing to the absence of the influence of
the gulf stream ; and for the six months of winter, com-
munication, except by sledge, was impossible. The true
remedy for this was a well-arranged system of railways ;
but from the poverty of the Canadian Government and
the comparative failure at present of the Grand Trunk
Railway of Canada, it was to be feared that most sensitive
of all commodities, money, would be lacking for the pro-
secution of Canadian railways for some time. Canada
would, however, succeed to a magnificent inheritance
when the seaboards of the Atlantic and Pacific wore linked
together by railway communication ; she would have then
the command of the markets on the east and the west, and .