CHAP. XIII.] IRISH VOTERS. 189 



that can advance and refine the mind and taste of a great popu 

 lation, are facilitated by this contact of the rich and poor. In 

 addition, therefore, to the importance given to the rniddb and 

 lower classes by the political institutions of America, I can not 

 but think it was a fortunate geological arrangement for the civil 

 ization of the cities first founded on this continent, that the an- 

 thracitic coal-fie]ds were all placed on the eastern side of the 

 Alleghany mountains, and all the bituminous coal-fields on their 

 western side. 



One day, when we were dining at the great table of the Carl- 

 ton Hotel, one of the largest and most fashionable establishments 

 of the kind in New York, we were informed by an American 

 friend, that a young man and woman sitting opposite to us were 

 well known to him as work-people from a factory near Boston. 

 They scarcely spoke a word, but were conforming carefully to 

 the conventional manners of those around them. 



Before we left New York, we witnessed an unforeseen effect of 

 the abundance of waste water recently poured into the city through 

 the new Croton aqueduct. In the lower streets near the river 

 the water in the open gutters had frozen in the course of the 

 night, and, next morning, the usual channels being blocked up 

 with ice, a stream poured down the middle of the street, and was 

 in its turn frozen there, so that when I returned one night from 

 a party, I wished I had been provided with skates, so continuous 

 was the sheet of ice. Then came a thaw, and the water of the 

 melted ice poured into the lower stories of many houses. The 

 authorities are taking active measures to provide in future against 

 the recurrence of this evil. 



I suggested to one of my friends here that they had omitted, 

 among their numerous improvements, to exclude the pigs from 

 the streets. &quot;It is not possible,&quot; said he, &quot; for they all have 

 votes ; I mean their Irish owners have, and they turn the scale 

 in the elections for mayor and other city officers. If we must 

 have a war,&quot; he added, &quot; about Oregon, it will at least be at 

 tended with one blessing the stopping of this incessant influx 

 of hordes of ignorant adventurers, who pour in and bear down 

 our native population. Whether they call themselves the true 



