CHAPTER VII

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LIVERPOOL CONTINUED.—IRISH BEGGARS.—CONDITION OF LABOURERS.—COST OF LIVING.—PRICES.—BATH HOUSE.—QUARANTINE.—THE DOCKS.—STREET SCENE.—“COMING YANKEE” OVER NONSENSE.—ARTISTIC BEGGING.

[Sidenote: _BEGGARS.—PLACARD._]

I have learned nothing reliable about the price of labour here; the Irish emigration keeps it lower in Liverpool than elsewhere. This reminds me of beggars, and of a placard posted everywhere about the streets to-day. The beggars are not very frequent, and are mostly poor, pitiable, sickly women, carrying half-naked babies. The placard is as follows:—“The SELECT VESTRY inform their fellow-citizens, that in consequence of the extremely low price of passage from Ireland—4_d._ (8 cts.), great numbers are coming here apparently with no other object than to beg. They earnestly desire that nothing should be given them.” As a specimen, they mention the following: an Irish woman, pretending to be a widow, was taken up, who had obtained 3_s._ 2_d._ (80 cts.) in an hour and a half after her arrival. Her husband was found already in custody.

The people all seem to be enjoying life more, or else to be much more miserable than in America.[3] The labourers seem haggard and stupid, and all with whom I have talked, say a poor man can hardly live here. There is a strong anti-free-trade growling among them, and they complain much of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, asserting that American ships are now getting business that was formerly in the hands of the English alone, and so American sailors do the labour in the docks which was formerly given to the stevedores and working-men of the town.

[3] I was surprised to find this remark in my first letter from Liverpool, for it is the precise counterpart of my impression on landing again in the United States, after six months absence in Europe. I observe lately, that the Earl of Carlisle has said something of similar import. I do believe the people of the United States have less of pleasure and less of actual suffering than any other in the world. Hopefulness, but hope ever unsatisfied, is marked in every American’s face. In contrast with Germany, it is particularly evident that most of us know but little of the virtuous pleasure God has fitted us to enjoy in this world.

[Sidenote: _PRICES.—BATHING.—DOCKS._]

Clothing, shoes, &c., and rents, are a good deal cheaper than in New York, and common articles of food but little higher. I have obtained the following, as specimens of prices for a few ordinary necessaries of life (1st of June):

_Beef_, _mutton_, and _pork_, fine, 12½ cts. a pound; _lamb_, 16 cts.; _veal_, 10 cts.

_Salmon_, 33 cts. a pound; _fresh butter_, 27 cts.; _potatoes_, 31 cts. a peck.

_Fowls_, 75 cts. a pair; _rabbits_, 50 cts. a pair; _pigeons_, 37 cts. each.

_Best Ohio flour_ (“superfine”), $6.25 a barrel.

_Bread_, 2½ cts. a pound, or a loaf of 12 lbs., 30 cts.

_Bread_ of best quality, 3 cts. per lb., or loaf of 12 lbs., 35 cts.

Sugar is higher, and tropical fruits, pine-apples, oranges, &c., are sold by the hucksters for more money than in New York.

_Gas._—The town is well lighted by gas, and it is much used in private houses—much more generally than in New York. Price $1.12 per 1000 feet.

_Water._—Water is conveyed through the town and to the shipping in tubes, through which I believe it is forced by steam-engines by several companies. The manner in which they are remunerated I did not learn.

_Bathing._—There is a very large and elegant bath-house (covering half an acre), built of stone, by the corporation, at an expense of $177,000. It is fitted with suitable accommodations for all classes of bathers, at various prices. There is a public bath (45 by 27 feet) for gentlemen, and another for ladies. The water is all filtered, and the cold baths have a constant fresh supply and outflow. A steam-engine is employed for pumping, etc. From what I saw, I should suppose the use of this establishment was _fashionable_. There are also floating baths in the river, as at New York; and beach-bathing and sea-swimming can be enjoyed at a few minutes’ distance, by ferry, from the town.

_Quarantine._—There are no buildings or ground employed for quarantine, but a number of large hulks are moored in the bay for this purpose. Quarantine vessels are anchored near them, and keep a yellow flag flying. It is a great many years since a vessel has been quarantined here, however, the medical men being generally agreed that such precaution is useless, or effective of more harm than good.

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We have not made a business of sight seeing, and I want to give you the general aspect of the town, rather than show up the lions. The Liverpool docks, however, are so extensive, and so different from any thing we have of the kind in America, that you will wish me to give a few particulars of them.

_The Docks_ are immense basins, enclosed from the river, or dug out from the bank, walled up on all sides by masonry, and protected on the outside, from the sea, by solid stone piers or quays. In these quays are gates or locks, through which, at high-water, vessels enter or leave. When the water has slightly fallen they are closed, and the water being retained, the ships are left securely floating at a height convenient for removing their cargoes. The docks are all enclosed by high brick walls, but between these and the water there is room enough for passing of carts, and for the temporary protection of goods under wooden sheds, as they are hoisted out, and before they can be removed. The streets about the docks are mostly lined with very large and strong fire-proof warehouses. The quay outside the docks is broad enough to afford a wide terrace upon the river, which is called the Marine Parade, and is much resorted to as a promenade. Stone stairs at intervals descend to the bottom of the river, and there are similar ones within the docks to give access to small boats. There are buoys and life-preservers lashed to the rails of the bridges, and small houses, occasionally furnished with instruments and remedies, for the resuscitation of drowning persons.

There are graving docks in which the depth of water can be regulated at pleasure, for the inspection and repair of the bottoms of vessels; and there are large basins for coasters, to which there are no gates, and in which the tide rises and falls, leaving them in the mud at the ebb. The large docks are connected with each other, and with the graving docks, by canals, so a vessel can go from one to another at any time of tide, and without going into the river.

[Sidenote: _LIVERPOOL.—DOCKS._]

But you have yet no idea of the spaciousness and grandeur of the docks. Some of them enclose within their walls ten or twelve acres, half of which, or more, is occupied by vessels. The twelve now completed (there are more building) extend along in front of the town uninterrupted by buildings for more than two miles, or further than from Whitehall Stairs to Corlear’s Hook, in New York. On the other side of the river, a considerably larger extent of docks is laid out and constructing. A basin for coasters, which covers over sixteen acres, and in which there is twelve feet at low water, is just completed there.

Each dock has its own dock-master, custom-house superintendant, and police force. The police is the most perfect imaginable. It is composed of intelligent and well-instructed young men, most courteous and obliging, at the same time prompt and efficient. It quite surprised me to see our fierce captains submit like lambs to have their orders countermanded by them.

There are three docks for the convenience of steamers alone. The American steamers, I suppose, are too large to go into them, for they are lying in the stream.

The docks were built by the town, and besides the wonderful increase of its commerce which they have effected, the direct revenue from them gives a large interest on their cost. The charges are more moderate than at other British ports, and this has, no doubt, greatly helped to draw their commerce here. This is the principal ground, for instance, of the selection of Liverpool in preference to Bristol as the port of departure for transatlantic steamers. The foreign commerce of Liverpool is the most valuable of any town in the world. Its immense business is probably owing to its being the best port in the vicinity of the thickest manufacturing district of England. It is not naturally a good harbour, but a very exposed and inconvenient one. The port charges at Bristol have been lately greatly reduced, and are now lower than those of Liverpool, or any other port in the United Kingdom. The amount paid by vessels for dockage has in some years been $1,000,000, and the whole is expended by the corporation in improvements of the town and for public purposes.

The small steam craft do not usually go into the docks, but land passengers on the quays outside. The ferry-boats, of which there are half a dozen lines crossing the Mersey, all come to one large floating wharf, from which the ascent to the quays is made easy at all times of tide, by a sufficiently long, hinged bridge.

There is a Sailor’s Home now building here, which will certainly be a noble record of the justice and liberality of the merchants of the port to their humble associates on the sea. It is situated in an open public place, not far from the Custom House and City Hall. It is built of stone, in the Elizabethan Gothic style, and was considered a design worthy of giving Prince Albert honour in the laying of its corner-stone. It is already a stately edifice.

There are chapels for seamen in several (possibly in all) of the docks.[4]

[4] The laws of the port require, That for three hours at high water, there shall be an efficient person on the deck of every vessel in the docks or basins: That the anchor shall be in-board, jib-boom run in, &c.: That no article of freight shall be allowed to remain on the dock-quays for more than forty-eight hours [penalty, $1.25 an hour]: That no light or fire shall be allowed [without special permission] on any vessel in the docks or basins at any time. This last regulation prevents cooking on board, and makes it necessary for the crews to live on shore. The consequent customs are very inconvenient, expensive, and demoralising to the seamen.

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_Later._ We have left Liverpool, and while breathing this delicious fragrance of hawthorn and clover, it is hard to think back to the stirring dusty town, but I will try for a few minutes to do so, and then bring you with me (I wish I could!) out into the country.

A great deal that interested us at Liverpool I must omit to tell you of. I should like to introduce you to some of the agreeable acquaintances we met there, but in what we saw of social life there, there was hardly any thing to distinguish it from America. We were much pleased with some of the public gardens and pleasure-grounds that we visited, and when we return here I may give you some account of them. I meant to have said a little more about the style of building in the newer and extending parts of the city; it did not differ much, however, from what you might see at home, in some of the suburbs of Boston for instance.

[Sidenote: _COMPARATIVE STREET-POVERTY._]

It would be more strange to you to see long, narrow streets, full from one end to the other, of the poorest-looking people you ever saw, women and children only, the men being off at work, I suppose, sitting, lounging, leaning on the door-steps and side-walks, smoking, knitting, and chatting; the boys playing ball in the street, or marbles on the flagging; no break in the line of tall, dreary houses, but strings of clothes hung across from opposite second-story windows to dry; all dwellings, except a few cellar, beer, or junk shops. You can see nothing like such a dead mass of pure poverty in the worst quarter of our worst city. In New York, such a street would be ten times as filthy and stinking, and ten times as lively; in the middle of it there would be a large fair building, set a little back (would that I could say with a few roods of green turf and shrubbery between it and the gutter in which the children are playing), with the inscription upon it, “Public Free School;” across from the windows would be a banner with the “Democratic Republican Nominations;” hand-organs would be playing, hogs squealing, perhaps a stampede of firemen; boys would be crying newspapers, and the walls would be posted with placards, appealing, with whatever motive, to patriotism and duty, showing that statesmen and demagogues could calculate on the people’s reading and thinking there. There would be gay grog-shops too, with liberty poles before them, and churches and Sunday-school rooms (with lying faces of granite-painted pine) by their side. The countenances of the people here, too, exhibited much less, either of virtuous or vicious character, than you would discern among an equally poor multitude in America, yet among the most miserable of them (they were Irish), I was struck with some singularly intelligent, and even beautiful faces, so strangely out of place, that if they had been cleaned and put in frames, so the surroundings would not appear, you would have taken them for those of delicate, refined, and intellectual ladies.

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_Thursday morning, May 30th._

We packed all our travelling matter, except a few necessaries, in two trunks and a carpet-bag, and I took them in a public carriage to the freight station, to be sent to London. The trunks were received, but the bag the clerks refused, and said it must be sent from the passenger station. I had engaged to meet my friends in a few minutes at the opposite side of the town from the passenger station, and the delay of going there would vexatiously disarrange our plans. I therefore urged them to take it, offering to pay the passenger luggage extra, freight, &c. They would be happy to accommodate me, but their rules did not admit of it. A _carpet-bag_ could not be sent from that station at any price. I jumped on to the box, and drove quickly to the nearest street of shops, where, at a grocer’s, I bought for twopence a coffee-sack, and enclosing the bag, brought it in a few minutes back to the station. There was a good laugh, and they gave me a receipt at once for _a sack_—to be kept in London until called for.

[Sidenote: _STREET BEGGING._]

On the quay, I noticed a bareheaded man drawing with coloured crayons on a broad, smooth flagstone. He had represented, in a very skilful and beautiful manner, a salmon laid on a china platter, opposite a broken plate of coarse crockery; between these were some lines about a “rich man’s dish” and a “poor man’s dinner.” He was making an ornamental border about it, and over all was written, “_Friends! I can get_ NO WORK; _I must do this or starve_.”

His hat, with a few pence in it, stood by the side of this. Was it not eloquent?

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