第185章

Cincinnati has long been known as a great town--conspicuous among all towns for the number of hogs which are there killed, salted, and packed. It is the great hog metropolis of the Western States; but Cincinnati has not grown with the rapidity of other towns. It has now 170,000 inhabitants, but then it got an early start. St. Louis, which is west of it again near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, has gone ahead of it. Cincinnati stands on the Ohio River, separated by a ferry from Kentucky, which is a slave State, Ohio itself is a free-soil State. When the time comes for arranging the line of division, if such time shall ever come, it will be very hard to say where Northern feeling ends and where Southern wishes commence. Newport and Covington, which are in Kentucky, are suburbs of Cincinnati; and yet in these places slavery is rife. The domestic servants are mostly slaves, though it is essential that those so kept should be known as slaves who will not run away. It is understood that a slave who escapes into Ohio will not be caught and given up by the intervention of the Ohio police; and from Covington or Newport any slave with ease can escape into Ohio. But when that division takes place, no river like the Ohio can form the boundary between the divided nations. Such rivers are the highways, round which in this country people have clustered themselves. Ariver here is not a natural barrier, but a connecting street. It would be as well to make a railway a division, or the center line of a city a national boundary. Kentucky and Ohio States are joined together by the Ohio River, with Cincinnati on one side and Louisville on the other; and I do not think that man's act can upset these ties of nature. But between Kentucky and Tennessee there is no such bond of union. There a mathematical line has been simply drawn, a continuation of that line which divides Virginia from North Carolina, to which two latter States Kentucky and Tennessee belonged when the thirteen original States first formed themselves into a Union. But that mathematical line has offered no peculiar advantages to population. No great towns cluster there, and no strong social interests would be dissevered should Kentucky throw in her lot with the North, and Tennessee with the South; but Kentucky owns a quarter of a million of slaves, and those slaves must either be emancipated or removed before such a junction can be firmly settled.

The great business of Cincinnati is hog killing now, as it used to be in the old days of which I have so often heard. It seems to be an established fact, that in this portion of the world the porcine genus are all hogs. One never hears of a pig. With us a trade in hogs and pigs is subject to some little contumely. There is a feeling, which has perhaps never been expressed in words, but which certainly exists, that these animals are not so honorable in their bearings as sheep and oxen. It is a prejudice which by no means exists in Cincinnati. There hog killing and salting and packing is very honorable, and the great men in the trade are the merchant princes of the city. I went to see the performance, feeling it to be a duty to inspect everywhere that which I found to be of most importance; but I will not describe it. There were a crowd of men operating, and I was told that the point of honor was to "put through" a hog a minute. It must be understood that the animal enters upon the ceremony alive, and comes out in that cleanly, disemboweled guise in which it may sometimes be seen hanging up previous to the operation of the pork butcher's knife. To one special man was appointed a performance which seemed to be specially disagreeable, so that he appeared despicable in my eyes; but when on inquiry I learned that he earned five dollars (or a pound sterling)a day, my judgment as to his position was reversed. And, after all, what matters the ugly nature of such an occupation when a man is used to it?

Cincinnati is like all other American towns, with second, third, and fourth streets, seventh, eighth, and ninth streets, and so on. Then the cross streets are named chiefly from trees. Chestnut, walnut, locust, etc. I do not know whence has come this fancy for naming streets after trees in the States, but it is very general. The town is well built, with good fronts to many of the houses, with large shops and larger stores; of course also with an enormous hotel, which has never paid anything like a proper dividend to the speculator who built it. It is always the same story. But these towns shame our provincial towns by their breadth and grandeur. Iam afraid that speculators with us are trammeled by an "ignorant impatience of ruin." I should not myself like to live in Cincinnati or in any of these towns. They are slow, dingy, and uninteresting;but they all possess an air of substantial, civic dignity. It must, however, be remembered that the Americans live much more in towns than we do. All with us that are rich and aristocratic and luxurious live in the country, frequenting the metropolis for only a portion of the year. But all that are rich and aristocratic and luxurious in the States live in the towns. Our provincial towns are not generally chosen as the residences of our higher classes.

Cincinnati has 170,000 inhabitants, and there are 14,000 children at the free schools--which is about one in twelve of the whole population. This number gives the average of scholars throughout the year ended 30th of June, 1861. But there are other schools in Cincinnati--parish schools and private schools--and it is stated to me that there were in all 32,000 children attending school in the city throughout the year. The education at the State schools is very good. Thirty-four teachers are employed, at an average salary of 92l. each, ranging from 260l. to 60l. per annum. It is in this matter of education that the cities of the free States of America have done so much for the civilization and welfare of their population. This fact cannot be repeated in their praise too often.