MANUFACTURE AT CINCINNATI. 241 ment of rural industry, and how many arts arise out of— necessarily spring from, and are indispensable to-the profitable pursuit of the farmer's operations. No corn or hog grower in Ohio would venture to say that the interests of his class were unconnected with, or opposed to, those of the moneyed men and enterprising merchants and manufacturers of Cincinnati. VOL. I. CHAPTER IX. Case of American cleverness.-Fat cattle of Ohio.-Butcher in Buffalo. -Cause of the growth of the city of Buffalo.-Capital taken out by emigrants. Influence of Europe on the progress of American cities.-Cause of the difference in progress of Canadian and New York cities. Not a result of want of energy in the Upper Canadians. -Lake Erie.--Supposed periodical slow rise and fall in the level of the great lakes.-Evidence of such gradual changes of level.-Their relation to existing terraces, and ancient beaches.-Their supposed cause. Water discharged by the Niagara River.-Hotel at the Falls. -Coloured waiters.-Geological Section at the Falls.-Published descriptions of the Falls.-Popular disappointment.—Wearing action of the water. Varying amount of water discharged over the Falls.Influence of the winds on Lake Erie.-Influence of the noise of the Falls on their impression upon the mind.-Railway to Lewistown. -View from the mountain ridge. Voyage on Lake Ontario.Queenstown heights.-Profits of New York farming, by a New York farmer.-Knowledge and intelligence among these farmers.-City of Oswego. Sackett's Harbour.-Railway to Canada.-Kingston in Upper Canada.-Character of the Upper Canadians.-Difference between a Canadian and a New York wife to a working man.-Difference in the character of the people in the States arising from the number of Germans among them. SEPT. 16TH.-I began a previous chapter by an allusion to the use of the word clever in the United States; I introduce the present by an illustration of the "cleverness" of the people. As we approached the end of our journey to Buffalo, a gentleman, to whom among many others I had been introduced at Syracuse, but whose name I did not know, accosted me in the railway carriage, and asked me to AMERICAN CLEVERNESS. 243 take up my quarters at his house, a couple of miles out of Buffalo. I excused myself from giving him trouble, on the plea that I intended to start again early in the morning for Niagara, and that it would be more convenient for me to go to the American Hotel. He then offered, while I waited for my luggage, to walk into the town to secure me a good room at the hotel. Accordingly, half-an-hour after, when I drove up to the hotel, I found him waiting, and comfortable quarters secured for me. In the morning, when I asked for my bill, I was told that everything was paid. I hesitated at first to receive this pecuniary obligation; but on reflecting that it was meant in kindness, I felt it would be unkind in me, in the absence of my unknown friend, to refuse it. I contented myself, therefore, with inquiring his name, and have pleasure in mentioning the circumstance here, as an instance of the proneness of our Transatlantic cousins to the virtue of hospitality. Notwithstanding the sour and exciting things said occasionally by bitter journalists, on both sides of the water, they will not, in our time at least, altogether forget that "blood is thicker than water." The long and wide main street of Buffalo reminded me of the Trongate of Glasgow more than of any other street in Europe I recollect to have seen, though, of course, it is newer, and less finished in appearance. On the evening of my arrival I took a walk along it, to look at the many large and well-stored shops. Among others, I went into a butcher's store, in which the beef and lamb, to my eyes, seemed excellent. The prices of lamb and mutton were 3 to 6 cents, of beef 4 to 8, of pork 61, and of fowls, when full grown, 5 cents a pound. The import duty on Canadian beef is 20 per cent; so that fat cattle not reared at home are brought chiefly from Ohio, where, as I have said, the excess of Indian corn is used up in feeding stock. Besides the "hog crop " of south-western Ohio, the cattle crop of the eastern portions-which lie 244 AMERICA A GREAT COUNTRY. on the less fertile sandstones and non-calcareous clays of the Portage and Chemung groups of the New York geologists-is very large and valuable. The five counties of Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Madison, and Fayette, send annually to market at least 35,000 head of fat cattle, worth £8 a-head. After I had asked my questions of the butcher, and he in return had found out, by questioning me, first how many years, and then how many months, I had been in America, “Well, sir," says he, "we live in a great country here we are a great people." I evaded what was meant as a question, and spoke pleasantly to his everyday ideas, by remarking that "I had certainly seen at Syracuse the very largest oxen I had ever beheld." So we parted very good friends, and he invited me to drop in and see him again. It is unpleasant to a stranger to be always called upon to admire and praise what he sees in a foreign country; and it is a part of the perversity of human nature to withhold, upon urgent request, what, if unasked, would be freely and spontaneously given. But highly to esteem, and value, and prefer one's native or adopted country, is a virtue which is to be commended and encouraged. It is the basis of individual mental contentment, and of that general patriotism which has in so many countries led to great and noble actions, and which has always ranked the first among political virtues. If a man does not think the country he lives in the best in the world, he had better leave it. But this does not justify or excuse either unfounded arrogance or self-esteem in a people, or the tendency to brag and swagger which one does occasionally see among individuals in the United States. Buffalo, as I have already remarked, is a very thriving town, and the causes of its success are very intelligible, though not always clearly seen or fairly GROWTH OF BUFFALO AND THE NEW STATES. 245 put by writers on the rise and growth of American towns. Situated at the end of the Erie Canal, with a large American population and the highway to Europe behind, and with boundless tracts of new land before it beyond the lakes, Buffalo, like New York, has risen from the mere force of circumstances. Every emigrant, and every package of goods, that passes through New York, Albany, and Buffalo, imparts some gain to each place in the transit. And as the city of New York increased with the western population of the state, so Buffalo has increased, and will increase, with the number of persons in the new north-western States, whose way to and from the principal markets is by the Erie Canal. So also the new States rise in numbers and wealth. The poorest of the Irish immigrants who land at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or New Orleans, bring with them some money-the greater number enough to pay the travelling expenses of their families, to buy a piece of land, and to maintain them for a year. The fare alone from New York to Chicago, in Wisconsin, is fifteen dollars a-head, which is about £10 for a man and his wife and two children. The English and Scotch and German emigrants appear to be better and more thoughtfully provided for than the Irish; but Pat's ragged coat, as the captains of steamers know well, often conceals more gold than the decenter garments of the emigrants from other countries. Taking rich and poor together, it is a very moderate assumption that the emigrants, on an average, carry out £10 a-head, which, for the 200,000 who land at New York alone, makes the sum of £2,000,000 sterling added at once to the money capital of the districts through which they pass, and in which they settle. Then a single year's labour of this 200,000, in agricultural operations upon new land, must add at least £5 a-head, or another |