Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 1 (of 2)Power, Tyrone
History
Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 1 (of 2)
Power, Tyrone
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
Here is a suite of horrors, plainly and briefly set down, sufficient to
supply stuff for any murder-loving three-volume novelist; yet is there
one other, and that not least, to be added; for it appeared in the
progress of the trial, and time in the ordinary course confirmed this
evidence, that the poor child, the daughter of the murderess, had fallen
a victim to the lust of this devil, Mina.
The fate of the girl and her infant I could not rightly learn; all that
was known, indeed, being her removal to some distant part of the
continent. The mother, it was believed, yet resided within the walls her
guilt has made for ever infamous.
The house is always pointed out to the passing stranger, and was, when I
saw it, no unfit monument of its owner's crime, and the curse which so
quickly followed on it. Its fences were thrown down, its outhouses in
ruin, the paths about it overgrown with filthy weeds; and the latticed
window-shutters, once gay as green paint could make them, now dirty and
broken, were left to swing loose from every wall. Still, evidences of
its being inhabited were exhibited about the yard, where a dog and a few
fowls lay basking; and suspended from the branch of a blighted tree,
standing near the fallen entrance-gate, hung an ill-inscribed sign,
bearing the inscription "_Temperance House_" in large characters.
A singular change,--the abode of the grossest lust, and the scene of the
foulest murder, perhaps, ever combined in the full catalogue of crime,
changed into a temple to Temperance.
JOURNAL.
_Sunday, December 1st._--A little cloudy, but mild and pleasant. We have
up to this date no severe weather; and, indeed, with the exception of
now and then a day not colder than some which we experienced in
September, have had no remembrancer of the approach of frost: but I
fancy old father Winter "'bides his time," and will not spare us when
his icy wings are once loosed upon the north-east wind.
Rode to German Town, and down the ravine of the Wisihissing. A stranger,
looking over the continuous level which is presented to his view on a
first glance at the country surrounding Philadelphia, has many pleasant
surprises in store, if he be of an errant habit and much given to
exploration; since there are several ravines of singular wildness in
this vicinity, having bridle-paths connecting them with the different
roads, and a great deal of broken country, whose variety well repays the
adventurous equestrian.
This is a mode of proceeding I would counsel every traveller to follow
who desires to become well acquainted with the general character of a
country, as but little of this can be known from a hasty drive along the
common line of road. Never let the idea of being badly mounted deter a
man from this experiment; but let him send for the best hack that the
place may afford, or, what is a better plan, go and see after one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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