ALABAMA. 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 British yoke," for the 

 ignorance of European life was such as to make the picture 

 in Martin Chuzzlewit, 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 



