Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 1 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881Russell, William Howard, Sir
History
Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 1 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881
Russell, William Howard, Sir
United States -- Description and travel
There are, perhaps, many more Englishmen prejudiced and unfair towards
things and persons American than there are Americans perverse in their
opinions regarding the Old World and their British ancestors, and the
Americans are I think remarkable for their abstinence from allusions
to the great Civil War in ordinary conversation, nor do they obtrude
their party views generally on strangers. A pompous gentleman, a
harmless little Dogberry enough, who held civic office at Detroit,
considered it right to express some strong opinions about the Battle
of Bull Run, at which he had not been. I have remarked that
expressions of political feeling relative to the great conflict of
1861-5 were most forcible in the mouths of men who had not ventured
their legs, heads, or bodies in the fray, and of such was our
bourgeois Boanerges. He was desirous of astonishing the Duke by
exhibiting "our society" and "our young ladies," of whom he talked as
if they were his private property. Judging by what we saw, Detroit may
be proud with reason and without the help of the Mayor, of both, but
he probably did not mean what he said and meant to be patronising
only. The gentlemen of Detroit were most courteous and agreeable, and
full of the desire to please and to show their city, without missing
one feature of it, but our programme did not permit us to dally on the
way, and we had to continue our journey to Chicago in the afternoon,
resign the pleasure of Russell House and reject the blandishments of
our kindly conductors. Throughout the whole of our tour the only
offensive remark concerning the only lady of our party appeared in a
Detroit paper, and I am bound to say no one expressed greater disgust
and indignation at the attack, which was after all only some coarse
criticism on a travelling costume, than the American gentlemen who
spoke of it. We dined at the Russell House and drove to the Michigan
Central railroad station after midnight, having been ten hours in
Detroit.
There had been lately a general revision of the programme, but, after
all, Chicago was not so much out. The first idea was to arrive on the
20th: we actually arrived on the 21st, and that before 6 o'clock in
the morning.
_May 21st._--The special train scrambled into the Chicago terminus, or
depot (which has not yet done Phoenix from its ruination in the
great fire) at some unpleasantly early hour this morning. (We have
been subjected to three, if not four, distinct alterations in
time-keeping as we travelled west. New York time rules up to the State
borders; Columbia time regulates watches and clocks till Chicago is
reached, and then westward the time changes again.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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