Part 14

So he had pleased them all, and, I admit, he had pleased me too; but he mostly showed his tact in winning the suffrages of the feminine members of my household. For Mrs Bulkeley is not a cipher by any means, even in my business transactions, and she has an amiable habit of warning me against entering into commercial relations with any one she mistrusts or dislikes. The next day beheld assembled in the showy Pall Mall chambers of Colonel Sling the same quartette that had closed around the mahogany in Magnolia Villa on the preceding day. Tom Harris and I drove down there together from the City, and we found the two Americans awaiting us with a hearty welcome. There were maps on a great table, and plans, and minerals, and parchments, and heaps of papers, carefully stacked and docqueted, and files of letters with great red seals to them that would have carried conviction home to the most incredulous. And the Colonel, after the first salutations were over, and after tenderly inquiring about the health of my womankind, commenced a lucid explanation of the exact position of the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway—its position, I mean, in a pecuniary point of view, not its geographical position. The latter, we ascertained by a glance at the map, to be in the free State of Iowa, skirting Missouri, and with one terminus in Illinois State and the other in Nebraska Territory. But information now came showering upon us, and the Colonel was extremely careful to prove every fresh axiom which he laid down by an appeal to documents of the most incontrovertible character. There was the original concession of the line, approved by the State Legislature, signed by the governor, registered by the State’s law officers and by the Federal attorney of the district. There were similar documents, to which the autographs of the governors of Nebraska and Illinois were attached. There were the reports of surveyors, the accounts of contractors, subcontractors, architects, machinists, and ironmasters. Moreover, there were specimens of minerals found in the immediate neighbourhood of the line, and within the liberal grant of land which the State had made—which specimens the Colonel showed us, in rather a careless way, as mere incidental advantages. But the eyes of Tom Harris and myself sparkled at the sight; for although we were not adepts in geology, we knew iron ore, and copper ore, and limestone, and hornblende, and fine marble, when we saw them; and visions of mines and quarries to be worked at vast profit, or leased for high rentals, flitted brilliantly before us. What wonder that, on hearing the generous terms on which the two American gentlemen were willing to admit us to a full participation of their advantages, Tom and I shook hands most heartily with Doctor and Colonel, and devoted ourselves from that moment to the establishment of the projected Company? And then Colonel Coriolanus rang the bell for lunch, and we all drank, over and over again, in creaming bumpers of Clicquot, prosperity and success to the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway. Two day after, out came our prospectus to dazzle the City. A more flowery manifesto, or one more fertile in temptations, I have seldom seen. It proved, moreover, as plainly as that two and two make four, that the investment was as secure as the bank, if not more so, and a hundred-fold more remunerative. Never was there such a railway; never were there directors so opulent, so respectable, so conscientious, so experienced; never was there a line on which the expenses were so trifling, the traffic so enormous, or the dividend so princely, as that of the Nauvoo and Nebraska. Iowa was a State of boundless fertility, of inexhaustible resources—cereal, mineral, commercial. The line would be part of a main highway to the Far West, and the Old World and the New World pour tribute into the cornucopia of its matchless wealth. Cities were to spring up, fair and flourishing provinces were to blossom, where the virgin soil now awaited the spade and the ploughshare: we were to carry tobacco, madder, corn, cattle, immigrants, and ore. The gigantic fortunes we were to make were thrown into the shade by the benefits we were to confer on posterity and our contemporaries. Unborn millions were to canonise the projectors of the Grand Nauvoo and Nebraska; and we were not only to insure for ourselves the smiles and blessings of ages yet to come, but were to feather our nests pretty handsomely in a few short months. Not only were we to take rank as philanthropists of the first water, but to rig the market as well. Nor were the advantages of the new railroad confined to the eminent and clear-sighted capitalists who had first embarked in it. No; in that good cause the widow’s mite was welcome. Never, it was pointed out, was so admirable an opportunity offered to ladies of limited income, to struggling professional men, to decayed gentry or others, to double or treble their little store by means of the splendid dividends, the bonuses, premiums, and other good things, to be expected from the Company. Who has not read many such glowing proclamations as this, promising to realise the dreams of an El Dorado for the lucky speculator, bolstering up each statement by an imposing array of figures, and always concluding by the recommendation that (to prevent disappointment) _immediate_ application be made at the office for shares? We had a secretary and cashier, and Dr Titus A. C. Bett was so kind as to undertake the latter responsible position; while the celebrated Wyldrake Flam, Esq., a gentleman who had been concerned with a good many companies in his time, was happily secured for the former situation. Sir George Gullings, M.P., a rich banker who had earned his baronetcy by his long course of voting for a Whig Ministry, was our chairman; and, of course, Tom Harris, Colonel Sling, and I, were among the managing directors. We took a great many shares amongst us; but, of course, by far the greater number were submitted to public competition, and the frequenters of the money market bit with tolerable freedom. But there were some wary old fish who refused so much as to nibble at the glittering bait, and foremost amongst them was old Muggins, that veteran stockbroker of whom Tom Harris had made mention at my table. Muggins was a character, and disagreeably outspoken. One day I met him at the Royal Exchange, and taking him playfully by the button, I asked him why he gave our Company the cold shoulder.

“Mr Bulkeley, sir, I’ll tell you,” said Muggins, with a frown: “I shirk your Company, sir, because I can’t afford to lose my property in duck-and-drake fashion among those swindling Yankees. I hate bubbles, sir, and this is worse, for it is a cruel robbery.”

“Sir, sir! Mr Muggins!” said I, choking with anger. What did this remarkable man proceed to say? Just this:

“George Bulkeley, I have known you from a boy, and you are an honest man, though not very bright (I was speechless at his effrontery). When I call this affair a swindle, I don’t impute blame to you, for I am aware that you are a dupe, not a duper. But I don’t pity you for losing some pen-feathers out of your wings, as you will do; I keep my pity for the poor wretches who will be plucked bare, and who can least spare the little savings or capital your fine prospectus has wheedled them into investing,—I mean the widows and old maids, the half-pay officers, the needy clergymen, that your Company is to ruin. I wish I could see your American friends in the pillory, I know! Good-day.”

And off he went, leaving me very angry, but a little dismayed as well. After all, old Muggins passed for an oracle in the city; and seriously, _had_ I examined sufficiently into the foundation of all the alluring statements we had published with the sanction of our names? What Muggins had said about the widows and poor helpless folks gave me an unpleasant twinge in my heart, and conscience came and whispered, “George Bulkeley, the accomplice of rogues, is not very far from being a rogue himself, is he?” I made a bold resolution. I determined to go out myself to America, and, on the spot, thoroughly to investigate the condition and prospects of the line of railway. When I broached this proposal at the next meeting of the Board, Colonel Sling and the Doctor were found to be violently opposed to it, and to be inclined to resent such interference on my part as an insult. And the influence of the two Americans was very considerable with the committee, partly because all our information was derived from the authority of Colonel Sling, and partly because the transatlantic gentlemen had a custom of putting down and pooh-poohing whatever any one but themselves happened to say. But I was firm this time; and besides, as I offered to go out without putting the Company to any expense whatever, the opposition to my departure could not decently be continued. Then, to my surprise, Colonel Coriolanus Sling very kindly offered to accompany me, and to save me all trouble and inconvenience by lending me the aid of his perfect knowledge of the localities. The Doctor, as cashier, must of course remain at his post; but the Colonel could be spared, he felt assured he could be spared, and indeed he proposed that we should go as a deputation, and at the cost of the Company. Why not? Our shares were at a premium. Money was flowing in. All went prosperously with us. Why not? The Colonel’s proposition was carried _nem. con._, and it was agreed that George Bulkeley, Esq., and Colonel Coriolanus Sling, should proceed at once to Iowa, there to survey, report, and inspect. Mrs Bulkeley’s consent was procured; and indeed, but for the terrors of sea-sickness, she would have insisted on accompanying me. The Cunard packet, Mersey, was to sail from Liverpool on the 17th of the month; our berths were engaged on board her; and it was duly agreed that the Colonel and I were to go down together on the day preceding that of embarkation. I never thoroughly understood why the gallant American officer did not keep his appointment. He wrote me a hurried note, saying that important business detained him in town, and that he would join me in Liverpool; but I believe a dinner at the Star and Garter, at Richmond, was the engagement in question. At any rate I travelled alone; alone I embarked; and though I looked out for the Colonel till the last moment, till the bell rang, and the plank was withdrawn, and the huge paddlewheels began to revolve, no Colonel came. And we went to sea with his name in the roll of passengers, but without his corporeal presence on deck or in cabin. I cannot say that I was altogether sorry. I felt instinctively that I was by far more likely to form an unbiassed judgment when alone. I felt that in company with a man so plausible, so fluent of speech, and so experienced in all the ways of the singular country for which I was bound, I should be in danger of seeing all objects through the rose-coloured haze in which it was the Colonel’s policy to mask them. But, at the same time, I was a little nervous at the prospect of exploring the Far West without a Mentor; and the weight of the responsibility attaching to my report was not exactly reassuring. The packet was crowded, for many were desirous of making use of the last week or two of fine still weather, before the November gales should begin to expend their fury upon the vast breadth of the Atlantic. There were but few Britons on board; but there were Dons in abundance; and great numbers of pallid ladies, with Parisian toilettes and faulty teeth, and of sallow lean-visaged men in tail-coats and varnished boots, returning from a tour of European baths and cities. Also, there were plenty of keen-looking persons, who eyed all mankind with suspicious scrutiny, who had memorandum-books sticking out of the pockets of their black satin vests, and who were probably not unconnected with commercial pursuits and the cotton trade. Aware that I was on my way to a new world in more senses of the word than one, a world whose standard of morality was wholly novel, I took every opportunity of acquiring information which might afterwards prove invaluable. I therefore associated exclusively with natives of the Western Continent, studied their sentiments, and stored up every scrap of information bearing on traffic and transit. I will own that my pride met with frequent abrasions; that my deepest-rooted convictions were rudely assaulted; and that I was unable to avoid observing that my neighbours would have been all the better for a little more attention to the precepts of Lord Chesterfield. We are not always very fastidious in the city: I am constantly obliged to bargain, dine, and converse, with uncommonly rough diamonds; but I do not think that any Cockney alive can contrive to render vulgarity so glaringly offensive as his Yankee congener. I was most unlucky in my fellow-passengers, some of whose habits were distressing to a degree, and did not show any remarkable improvement since the days when Mrs Trollope and Captain Hamilton crossed the Atlantic. I began to owe Sir Walter a grudge for his discovery of tobacco, since tobacco, chewed to pulp, and lubricating the deck and cabin-stairs with its nicotian extract, became the bugbear of my existence. Besides, I prefer to see gentlemen sit with their feet in a more normal position than an undue elevation of the boot soles can afford. I wish our transatlantic brothers would smoke a little less and wash a little more; and I never could entirely pardon young Mr Tips for whittling my portmanteau. Mr Tips—young Mr Tips, that is—Minos Blackstone Story Tips—was the sharer of what was facetiously called my state-room. The latter was a wedge of a cabin, with two little berths in it, not quite so spacious as the box-beds in an old-fashioned Highland cottage, and was naturally meant to accommodate two passengers. Under ordinary circumstances, Colonel Sling would have held divided empire over this den with myself; and I believe that, in strict justice, the whole should have been mine, seeing that I had signed the cheque in payment for both passages. But berths were at a premium: several passengers had come on board at the last, and had to shift for their quarters as they might, and among them the Tips family. Now, although the “state-room” was rightfully mine, yet I was easily induced to permit the installation of young Mr Tips in the undermost berth, though I admit that my temper was sorely tested when I found him in bed, one rather blusterous afternoon, very sick, and beguiling the tedious hours, by operating with a sharp penknife on the glossy leather of my new portmanteau—Allen’s best, fitted for India and the colonies. Also this delightful youth—a lawyer from the cradle, as his names imply—was fond of using my pet razor, and borrowing my scissors and brushes; was not over partial to soap and water; and sang queer nasal songs at untimely hours, besides smoking in bed. I might have had a pleasanter companion, but I had let him in, and there was no help for it, while, after all, the voyage was but for ten days. Why had I let him in? For two reasons: firstly, because exclusiveness is most unpopular among Republicans; and the old sentiment which dictated the New York proverb, that “A man must be a hog to want a bed all to himself,” still exists in a modified form. Another reason was, that I wanted to make friends, and get letters of introduction to some Western citizens who would be able to tell me all about the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway, and perhaps a little about Colonel Sling. I knew that Americans, amongst each other at least, were most generous in this respect. I was aware that few retired storekeepers or land-jobbers brought over their charming families without being provided with introductions from ex-ministers and secretaries to half the peers and princes of Europe; that American diplomacy was subservient to any one who could influence an election; and that very queer folks indeed had the honour of figuring at royal levees and state balls under the wing of Franklin’s eagle. I determined, therefore, to be as conciliatory as possible in all my dealings with the citizens and citizenesses of the model commonwealth.

I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with old Mr Tips,—Judge Tips, of Salem, Mass.—his Christian name was Magnentius,—in rather a curious manner. He sat next to me at the general dinner in the best cabin or saloon. The table was crowded, but there were three below me, on the same side of the long board. The dinner was a capital one: the Cunard directors are famous for good feeding; and Judge Tips, father to my young companion, played an excellent knife and fork. A dish of peas came round, the last of the marrow-fats, the latest peas of summer; and indeed I cannot conceive from what remote market the steamboat purveyors had imported them, seeing that Covent Garden had been barren, in respect to this vegetable, for some weeks. I am very fond of peas, and was rejoiced to see my favourites once again; and I anxiously awaited their arrival. Miss Tips, Miss Julia Tips, and Tips _mère_, as the French would say, had each taken a decorous spoonful from the flying dish, and now the black waiter was offering the delicacy to Tips himself, enough being left for five persons at least. What was my horror to behold the Judge deliberately monopolise the whole—sweep, as I live, every pea into his own plate—and then turning to me, with a greasy smile, remark, “I guess, stranger, I’m a whale at peas.”[4] Yes, Mr Bright tells sterling truth. There are some matters in which the most acquisitive of us all are distanced by an American. Judge Tips was obliging enough to favour me with a good deal of his improving conversation, and by meekness and affability I won his heart. He not only invited me to visit him at Salem, but when I hinted that I was on my way to the West, and should be glad to make the acquaintance of any notable citizens of Illinois or Iowa, he gave me the coveted letters of introduction to more than one magistrate, sheriff, and popular preacher. Nor did any accident mar the even tenor of our agreeable passage to New York. We had almost uniform good weather; and before the evening of the eleventh day, we were standing on the wooden landing-places of the Empire City, surrounded by German porters, Irish car-drivers, and Yankee touts. The latter race, wise in their generation, prefer head-work to the toil of actual muscle, and permit old Europe to furnish them with soldiers and foremast-men, stevedores, navvies, and dock labourers; while they supply officers, foremen, mates, and overlookers, to regulate and profit by the exertions of their hirelings.

The Astor House is not what it was. It has been distanced by more gigantic competitors; and as for the Tremont, it is left high and dry, like a stranded whale, by the tide of fashion. Nevertheless, I bestowed my patronage on the latter, perhaps for Sam Slick’s sake, and spent a couple of days under its hospitable roof while recovering from the sensation of cramp, tedium, and nausea quite inseparable from a sea voyage. Then I set out for the West. The journey, as far as Fort Madison, on the western boundary of the State of Illinois, I performed by railway, expeditiously perhaps, and not very uncomfortably, in spite of the amount of rocking and swinging due to a carelessly-metalled “permanent way,” if I may employ the phraseology of engineering. But I could not, with a clear conscience, agree with the enthusiastic comments of my fellow-travellers, as to the immense superiority, in speed and accommodation, of American railroads over those of Britain. After being jolted and swung till one’s bones ached, all the time, perhaps, being at a net speed of thirty miles an hour, it was rather provoking to listen to such remarks as the following:—

“Wall, mister, I expect our flying locomotives do rayther astonish you. They kinder take the conceit out of Old England, I some think.” Or, more gravely, “I believe, sir, it’s pretty universally admitted that America whips the world for speed. We have beaten your yachts, we have licked your racers, and our trains must make you think small beer of your expresses. We go ahead, _we_ do!”