As for the matter, it is not of the
slightest consequence. Anybody may make an after-dinner speech who will
be content to talk onward without saying anything. My speech was not
more than two or three inches long; and, considering that I did not know
a soul there, except the Mayor himself, and that I am wholly unpractised
in all sorts of oratory, and that I had nothing to say, it was quite
successful. I hardly thought it was in me, but, being once started, I
felt no embarrassment, and went through it as coolly as if I were going
to be hanged.
Yesterday, after dinner, I took a walk with my family. We went through
by-ways and private roads, and saw more of rural England, with its
hedge-rows, its grassy fields, and its whitewashed old stone cottages,
than we have before seen since our arrival.
August 20th.--This being Saturday, there early commenced a throng of
visitants to Rock Ferry. The boat in which I came over brought from the
city a multitude of factory-people. They had bands of music, and banners
inscribed with the names of the mills they belong to, and other devices:
pale-looking people, but not looking exactly as if they were underfed.
They are brought on reduced terms by the railways and steamers, and come
from great distances in the interior. These, I believe, were from
Preston. I have not yet had an opportunity of observing how they amuse
themselves during these excursions.
At the dock, the other day, the steamer arrived from Rock Ferry with a
countless multitude of little girls, in coarse blue gowns, who, as they
landed, formed in procession, and walked up the dock.
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