I think I have never seen a populace before coming to
England; but this crowd afforded a specimen of one, both male and female.
The women were the most remarkable; though they seemed not disreputable,
there was in them a coarseness, a freedom, an--I don't know what, that
was purely English. In fact, men and women here do things that would at
least make them ridiculous in America. They are not afraid to enjoy
themselves in their own way, and have no pseudo-gentility to support.
Some girls danced upon the crowded deck, to the miserable music of a
little fragment of a band which goes up and down the river on each trip
of the boat. Just before the termination of the voyage a man goes round
with a bugle turned upwards to receive the eleemosynary pence and
half-pence of the passengers. I gave one of them, the other day, a
silver fourpence, which fell into the vitals of the instrument, and
compelled the man to take it to pieces.
At Rock Ferry there was a great throng, forming a scene not unlike one of
our muster-days or a Fourth of July, and there were bands of music and
banners, and small processions after them, and a school of charity
children, I believe, enjoying a festival. And there was a club of
respectable persons, playing at bowls on the bowling-green of the hotel,
and there were children, infants, riding on donkeys at a penny a ride,
while their mothers walked alongside to prevent a fall. Yesterday, while
we were at dinner, Mr.
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