2lf! PROGRESS OF CINCINNATI. [CHAP. XXXVI. 



Every town we had visited in the last three months, since we 

 left Savannah, in January, was new to us, and Cincinnati was 

 the first place where we were able to compare the present state 

 of things with that observed by us in the summer of 1842. In 

 this short interval of four years, great improvements in the build 

 ings, streets, and shops were visible ; a vast increase of population, 

 and many additional churches, and new cotton factories. The 

 soil of the country immediately behind the town is rich, and there 

 is an ample supply of laborers, partly indeed because the Catholic 

 priests strive to retain in the city all the German emigrants. 

 Although they are industrious and thrifty, such an arrangement 

 is by no means the best for promoting the progress of Ohio, or 

 her metropolis ; for, next to having an &quot;Irish quarter,&quot; a &quot;Ger 

 man quarter&quot; in a large city is most undesirable. The priests, 

 no doubt, judge rightly, both in reference to their notions of dis 

 cipline, and with a view of maintaining their power ; for these 

 peasants, when scattered over the country, and interspersed with 

 Protestants, can not be made to confess regularly, attend mass, 

 and read orthodox German newspapers, three of which are pub- 

 blished here daily, and one weekly, all under ecclesiastical cen 

 sorship. There are a large number of German Protestants, and 

 20.000 Catholics, in all twelve churches, where the service is 

 performed in the German language. Only half of these are 

 Romanist churches, but they are much more crowded than the 

 others. The chief emigration has been from Bavaria, Baden, 

 Swabia, Wirtemberg, and the Black Forest, and they are almost 

 all imbued with extreme democratic notions, which the ordinary 

 European training, or the working of semi-feudal institutions, 

 evidently fosters in the minds of the million, far more than does 

 the republicanism of the United States. The Romanist priests 

 feel, or affect, sympathy with this political party, and in the last 

 election they instructed the Germans and the Irish to vote for 

 Polk against Clay. It ought, indeed, to serve as a warning, 

 and afford serious matter of reflection to the republicans of 

 America, that a church which requires the prostration of the 

 intellect in matters of faith and discipline, and which is most 

 ambitious of wordly power, is also of all others the most willing 



