States. But of all that we have ever found in situ, or as exhibited to us in the cabinet of our friend Christopher North, Esq., the cockneyism of these people, on the subject of places of burial, is the most nauseating. Here are persons, we mean the men-editors of this farrago, born and brought up in some narrow court, leading out of a street that communicates with High Holborn or the Poultry, who think, that not only to live in, but to die in, London is the only place for a Christian. It seems, no village bells ever summoned the settlers in Ohio to church; and when they die, Religion will not breathe her sweet and solemn farewell on their graves!' that is, the sexton at St. Clement Dane's will not be hired to ring his bells half an hour at their funerals, a hired undertaker, with six hired mourning coaches, and twelve hired mourners, dressed in shabby black, will not come to place their bones in a spot 'sacred by ancient reverence,' that is, a crowded church-yard, where, if they escape the resurrection-man, their bones will lie a year or two, and then be dug up and shovelled away into the charnel-house. It is a notorious fact, that when, a few years ago, some persons in London, by way of protection against this horrible process, hit upon the plan of iron coffins, it was forbidden by the competent authorities. But the husband or the father will dig the pit, that is to hold them, beneath the nearest tree; he will himself deposit them within it, and the wind that whispers through the boughs will be the only requiem.' Were we wrong in averring, that Mrs. Trollope did not write this? She is a woman and a mother. Is it possible she should think it a calamity, for a wife or a child to be laid in the grave, prepared by the hands of a husband or a father, beneath the nearest tree?'-What! a mother prefer to have a hired undertaker come and take the precious dust, and lay it in a pit, (if she likes that word), which a hireling grave-digger or grave-digger's apprentice has dug;-fellows, that have no feeling of their business, who sing at grave-making?' The 'father or the husband will deposit them in the pit.' And who should do it? Who buried Sarah the wife of Abraham, and Rebekah the wife of Isaac, and when Jacob, whose son was lord of all Egypt, came to die, did he desire to be laid up in ghastly embalment in the imperial vaults of Heliopolis, or covet a resting-place in the eternal pyramids ? No, his heart was in the land of Canaan, in the cave in Macpelah, beneath the trees that were in the field. There,' said the dying patriarch, they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife, and there I buried Leah.' Let us not be misunderstood. Heaven forbid, that we should lightly esteem the solemn rites of Christian sepulture. But this eternal taunting of the first settlers of new countries, that they live beyond the reach of the ordinary administration of Christian ordinances, as supported in large towns, and this villanous sentimentality about bells and requiems, on the part too not of gossipping travellers of either sex, but of journalists who set the tone of feeling for half the reading public of Great Britain, is insufferable. It is some consolation, however, that these revilers of America in this, as in a thousand other things, overshoot the mark of the enlightened public feeling in their own country; and the writer before us, to depict the barbarity of the settlers of the Western country, has unconsciously selected the very images with which Dr. Beattie represents his minstrel as adorning his own Eutaphia, if Mrs. Trollope will let us coin a word. 'Let vanity adorn the marble tomb With trophies, rhymes, and scutcheons of renown, Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave, And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave.' But to return to Americanisms. Page 62 of the American edition, Mrs. Trollope's help' is represented as saying 'Well, I never seed such grumpy folks as you be.' This elegant word is wholly unheard of in America. Same paragraph, 'There is several young ladies of my acquaintance, what goes to live out now and then with the old women about the town.' Mrs. Trollope forgot, in making her 'help' call all the housekeepers in Cincinnati old women, that she says in another place, which we have quoted, that the American females of all classes call each other ladies, and that the English old woman' was her title, seemingly because she was a foreigner. It is apropos of this dialogue, that we are assured the conversations in Mrs. Trollope's book are not given à loisir, but written down immediately after they occurred.' But we will let this go. It is amusing enough to trace the history of recent English criticism on the subject of Americanisms. Fifteen years ago, it was impossible to read an English critique on an American book, without seeing a score or two of words significantly italicised as Americanisms, with inferences, that we spoke a new jargon in this country. The subject was taken up, this side the water, and it was pretty soon proved to the conviction of our transatlantic brethren, that, when these said Americanisms were not the peculiarities of individual authors, for which America was no more accountable than England is for her Jeremy-Benthamisms, the words charged as being new-invented barbarities of ours were mostly drawn from the pure wells of English undefiled, and had happened to be preserved in America while they were lost in England. Then came Captain Hall, and was astonished to find but forty or fifty words of American coinage, and even this number subsequent research had reduced; and Mr. Vigne, the latest of the English travellers in this country, has at last hit the nail on the head, and told the simple truth of the matter, in the following terms; 'The meat of the canvass-back duck is dark, and should be sent to table underdone, or what in America is called "rare.' The word rare, used in that sense, and which is given by Johnson, on the authority of Dryden, is no doubt one of many which have retained in America a meaning in which they are not now known in England, but which was doubtless carried over the Atlantic by the settlers of a hundred years ago. I confess that I was for some time in error. I heard every one around me giving orders that his meat should be "rare," and I thought it a mispronunciation of the word raw.' There But let us proceed with our book. Mrs. Trollope made her first stop at Cincinnati, where she spent the greater part of the time that she was in America. Of her object and pursuits there we have little to say. She has not brought them very distinctly before the public, and we will not. are many perhaps who know them in England, as they are notorious in America; and we will only ask our readers, how much credit an American lady would be likely to get for impartiality, who should leave New York or Philadelphia, in company like Mrs. Trollope's; establish herself at Birmingham, Manchester, or Glasgow, on an errand like Mrs. Trollope's; and, failing to accomplish it, come back to America, and write a book on England as abusive as Mrs. Trollope's? The following is her account of her first establishment at Cincinnati. 'We were soon settled in our new dwelling, which looked neat and comfortable enough; but we soon found that it was devoid of nearly all the accommodation that Europeans conceive necessary to decency and comfort. No pump, no cistern, no drain of any kind, no dustman's cart, or any other visible means of getting rid of the rubbish, which vanishes with such celerity in London, that one has no time to think of its existence; but which accumulated so rapidly at Cincinnati, that I sent for my landlord to know in what manner refuse of all kinds was to be disposed of. "Your help will just have to fix them all into the middle of the street, but you must mind, Old Woman,* that it is the middle. I expect you do'nt know as we have got a law what* forbids throwing such things at the sides of the streets; they must just all be cast right into the middle, and the pigs soon takes them off.' * are. So much for Cincinnati and the troubles of English settlers, accustomed to European notions of decency and comfort. Let us now see, not from Mrs. Trollope's comparisons, but from authentic documents, what European, ay, and Engglish notions of comfort and decency under some circumstances In the course of the last year, and under the operation of the terror inspired by the Cholera, a thorough inspection was undertaken of the condition of Manchester in England; one of the largest, richest and most prosperous towns in Great Britain, and, like Cincinnati, of recent growth. We have before us a very interesting pamphlet, written by James Phillips Kay, M. D., and published at London in the course of the last year, embodying some of the results of this inspection. We quote the following passages. "The inspection, conducted by the district board of health, chiefly referred to the state of the streets and houses inhabited by the laboring population, to local nuisances, and more general evils. The greatest portion of these districts, especially of those situated beyond Great Ancoat's Street, are of very recent origin; and from the want of police regulations, are untraversed by common sewers. The houses are ill soughed, [?] often ill ventilated, *Not American. unprovided with privies; and in consequence, the streets, which are narrow, unpaved, and worn into deep ruts, become the common receptacles of mud, refuse, and disgusting ordure.' The report of the condition of streets and houses is reduced to a tabular form, from which we abstract the following summary results. The number of streets inspected was six hundred and eighty-seven. Of these, two hundred and eightyfour were unpaved; fifty-three were partially paved; one hundred and twelve ill ventilated; that is, we suppose, too confined and narrow to admit the free circulation of air; and three hundred and fifty-two streets, containing heaps of refuse, stagnant pools, and ordure;-substances which, according to Mrs. Trollope's representations, are required by European notions of decency and comfort to vanish with such celerity, that one has no time to think of their existence.' Again, the inspection of houses gave the following results; houses inspected six thousand nine hundred and fifty-one ;-sufficient no doubt for a population, (like that of Manchester) of fifty thousand persons. Of these, two thousand five hundred and sixty-five wanted white washing; nine hundred and sixty wanted repairs; in nine hundred and thirty-nine the soughs wanted repairs; one thousand four hundred and thirty-five were reported as damp; four hundred and fifty-two were ill ventilated; and two thousand two hundred and twenty-one wanted privies. After a number of other facts, showing that these statements gave but an inadequate idea of the condition of the habitations in Manchester, Dr. Kay adds, often more than one family lived in a damp cellar, containing only one room, in whose pestilential atmosphere from twelve to sixteen persons were crowded. To these fertile sources of disease were sometimes added the keeping of pigs, (Mrs. Trollope's especial aversion,) and other animals in the house, with other nuisances of the most revolting character.' The reader, who may happen to have Dr. Kay's pamphlet, and will turn to pages 21, 22 and 23, will find we have omitted details more offensive than any which we have quoted, and throwing still more light on what Mrs. Trollope calls European notions of decency and comfort. And is this state of things confined to Manchester? Why |