208 IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 



young women employed here, they must be exceedingly well 

 paid ; a comparison drawn between them and the same class of 

 employees in England would be singularly in favour of the 

 Taunton ' Maids of the Mill/ '' 



YANKEE PEDLARS. 

 " I noticed that the upper or promenade deck of the CoU 

 umbus, was completely taken up by a double row of flashy- 

 looking covered carts, or tilt waggons, as they are called here. 

 Upon inquiry, I found that these contained the goods, and were 

 indeed the movable stores, or shops, of that much-enduring 

 class, the * Yankee Pedlars,' just setting forth for their annual 

 winter cruise, amongst the ])lantations of the south, where, 

 however their keen dealing may be held in awe, they are looked 

 for with lively anxiety, and their arrival greeted as an advent of 

 no little moment. 



" They form a hardy and enterprising class, and ought to be 

 well paid for the risks and great labour they undergo, being in 

 fact the mercantile pioneers of the continent; every corner of 

 which they penetrate from the Atlantic to the Pacific, supplying, 

 in their route, the frontiers with little luxuries that else would 

 never find a way there for years to come. They thus keep tl»c 

 chain of civilization entire, binding the necessities, to which 

 it administers, through these its adventurous agents, whose 

 tempting * notions' constantly create new wants amongst the 

 simple children of the forest and prairie. 



" Arranged in a half-circle about tlie bow, on the main deck, 

 I observed the horses of these royal pedlars ; they stretched their 

 necks out to examine us with a keeness of look worthy their 

 knowing masters' reputation and their own education." 



UNHEALTIIINESS OF THE SOUTH STATES OF THE UNION FOR 

 A WHITE POPULATION. 



"To the negro alone this appears congenial, as the lively look 

 of the chubby little imps that fill every cabin fully indicates. 

 It is impossible not to be struck by the contrast between the 

 looks of these children of the sun, and the degenerate offsets of 

 northern men; I have often observed with feelings of sorrow, 

 the sickly aspect of the children of some road-side storekeepers, 

 or publicans of the white race, as tiiey sit languidly before their 

 parents' door, with sallow parchment skins and lack-lustre eyes, 

 the very emblems of malaria, possessing neither the strength nor 

 the desire to follow those active sjxjrts, natural, and in fact ne- 



