/ILABAJfA. 141 



very trying. On one occasion, when the papers announced 

 some trifling factory row in Paisley or Glasgow, a wealthy 

 neighbour hastened to condole with him on the fact that 

 " the Scotch were throwing off the l^ritish yoke," for the 

 ignorance of European life was such as to make the picture 

 in Martin CJiuzzlczvit, twelve years later, seem in no degree 

 whatever a caricature. " The universal notion here," says 

 my father in July, 1838, "of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, 

 is that they are conquered provinces, on a par with Poland, 

 kept in a state of galling servitude by the presence of a 

 powerful ' British ' army." Nor was it ever supposed that 

 the confident prophecy that America would shortly "whip 

 the British " could be other than pleasant to the young 

 English schoolmaster. Let those who are ready to con- 

 demn such crudity reflect how often, even to the present 

 day, well-bred Americans in this country have to endure 

 with silent politeness sentiments from ourselves which are 

 scarcely less crude in their ignorant misconception. 



There was, however, a much more serious reason for 

 discomfort. The population was gallant, cordial, easy- 

 going, and hospitable ; but underneath the agreeable sur- 

 face of life there was an element of lawlessness which 

 created in a stranger a painful sense of insecurity. Every 

 man was a law to himself, and to curb the passions was not 

 understood to be a part of the science of life. What first 

 opened my father's eyes to the conditions of Alabaman 

 society was a little circumstance which occurred after he 

 had been a month or two at Mount Pleasant, in the next 

 village. A travelling menagerie had arrived there ; but, in 

 some way or other, its proprietor contrived to offend an 

 overseer, who, without scruple, called some of his com- 

 panions together, and rolled the caravans over the edge of 

 a steep ravine into the creek below. They were broken 

 before they reached the water, and the iron cages, full of 



