Norwich bulletin., 1912-03-20
Eastern COnneCtiCut's Early Travellers
 Rev. F. R. Shpman of Andover Read Interesting Paper Be- fore Society of the Founders of Norwich.

lege, Cambridge. came this way in 1893, brought to America by interest in the slavery question, and to Windham county through interest in Prudence Crandalrs school at Canterbury, where she was teaching blacks and whites to- gether Mir Abdy was a traveller who had eyes in his head and kept them open, with gaze clear and intelligent He waxed enthusiastic over the farm CTS. He described the true New Eng land of the time. but a New England which in It's perfection was soon to pass to the America and New England which Dickens saw
 Norwich Hotels in 1847.
 part of Rev. Mir. Shipman's paper which was listened to with particular appreciation was that referring to what another EnRlishman. Alexander Mackey wrote of Norwich hotel con ditIons in lS47. Mackey set out from Worcester for Norwich. having arrived in America the day before. The short winter afternoon had ended. and the asthmatlc engine trundled along in the darkness, l2 miles an hour. The fire was fed with wood, and the train was followed by a long, thick wake of sparks Inside the car about 50 pas sengers drowsed in the stifling heat,
 
 there was silence among them, except when a nodding passenged lunged for ward and almost lost hold of his quid of tobacco
 Wanting fresh air, MT. Mackey went out and stood on the platform. The conductor warned him; told him that in case of an accident The wouldn't stand no chance" Did they often have accidents?'' asked MT. Mackey. Some times" said the conductor, running off the rail" MT. Mackey returned to his seat, no more comfortable than he was before. Norwich was reached late. Your river had been chOked with ice for two days and the travellers of the two preceding days had pre- empted the hotels. After a vain search for a bed, MT Mackey returned to the hotel near est the station in time to be borne into the dining room on the first wave of the hungry crowd "The bacon and ham were good. LudiCTous in the ex- treme were the attempts at chop and the faint limitations of steak. The oys- ters were boiled into a sort of black broth. There were innumerable sweets and sweetmeats, fowl in every mode and preparation. very white bread and very black bread. Indian corn prepared in half a dozen different ways, with tea, coffee, beer and every variety of spirituous liquor. The episode wound up by each man paying half dollar to a salloW looking sentry in yellow | shirtsleeves who stood at the door to receive 1t "
 This is a very Martin Chuzzlewittish picture of the Norwich hotel of 1847, and the little that followed was no less so. The ugly meal over, MT. Mackey returned to ponderous but very com fortable armchair in the barrOom Soon the floor was covered with sleeping men. Mir. MaCkey, too, composed him self for troubled slumber; but before | he slept his neighbOr attrcted his at tentiOn. He ''chewed with unusual ve- hemence, and expeCtorated with uner [ ring certainty into e spittoon which lay 1 between two sleepers on the floor He l occasionally varied his amusement by | directing his filthy distillations against l the stove, from the hot sides of which they sometimes glanced with the re- port of a pistol"
 The one wretched night which this 1 Englishman spent in your city came l to an end at last. In fact at 3 o'clock l the travellers were reused and told that the boat had come up in the night At they were starting away from Allyn's Point
 ! It was not much that CnlS LraVeler | saw of the Rose of New England" |" | And yet the Rose was there, only it's l petals were closed to him.
 Mrs. Sigourney.
 They were wide open for another traveller, Mrs. Sigourney, who had writ | ten two years before, in her ladylike way (ladylike. but weighing about | 300): ITO enumerate the spots in the neighbOrhood of Norwich where the lovers of nature might delight to rumi- nate would be difficult Equally so
 would it be to do justice to the social virtues that predominate there, and to 1 the hospitality and cordial feeling
 which naturalize the stranger and un- | lock the springs of sympathy" There 1 Is one home in Norwich which to me | stands for all the rest; and knowing it
 as l do, l close with fervent Hear, | hear. Amen" to Mrs. Sigourney.
 A burst of applause as Rev. MT | Shipman closed was proof of the pleas
 ure given his auditors by the grace fully written paper and on motion of i Rev G. H, Ewing he was given rising
 vote of thanks.
 Two well rendered selections by the
 choir, Absent (MetcalO and Cobwebs i e. Smith), closed the programme for | the afternoon.