RUBIO ' S RAMBLES IN THE UNITED STATES AND

C AN Al) A.

RUBIO is evidently a none de guerre; its assumer is a middle-aged per- son, who has seen a good deal of the world, having visited all our co- lonies and made the old grand tour at least. His status does not appear; but he has the straightforward bluntness mingled with a sort of courtesy that characterizes the old soldier; or he may be one of those shrew hard-headed men, who knock about the world all their lives, capable of business, sometimes doing it, but who either from philosophy or content, or love of laziness, independence, or free observation, never acquire a po- sition or make a fortune, though apparently possessing the requisites for both successes. About Rubio's nation there is no doubt whatever; he is English to the back-bone. The Scotch he dislikes ; the Irish he de- spises almost too much to mention them, except when they thrust them- selves upon him ; his "rambles in the United States" have impressed him with the most wretched opinion of that country and its inhabitants. The climate is execrable, the worst without exception in the temperate zones; varying upwards of one hundred degrees, and that not merely in the course of a year, but in many places within a month in spring. The mortality at New York and other places is thrice what it ought to be ; in many spots of the South death can only be escaped at certain seasons by escaping from the place ; and there are few old people to be seen, at least Rubio saw very few. The raw material of common victuals is good, but the cookery most execrable; and in "what may be called the cruet department of an American dinner-table, an Englishman feels greatly disappointed: the mustard, pepper, vinegar, &c., form the most detest- able collection of nastiness ever put upon a tablecloth, and perfectly ha- possible for an Englishman to touch." The only American production of which he records undisguised approbation was some pale ale at Buffalo, the best he ever drank. Of the river steamers he speaks well—they are better than the English ; but our waters do not admit of such boats being used. Of the people this writer's judgment is as bad as can be; and after noting various unfavourable traits as he encountered them, he thus sums up. " The Americans are truly a vulgar, ignorant, bragging, spitting, melancholy, sick- ly. people. Passing their lives in a high state of mental excitement, some kill them- selves with drink, and some with tobacco; some are hurried to the ever-yawning gates of their cemeteries by excesses in religion or excesses in politics, excesses in commerce or excesses in speculations, or tribulations of mind induced by a combination of these causes. But calamity is not of very long life in America; for the men are soon dead, and soon forgotten. Duels and assassinations also help to thin their ranks; for, strange as it may appear, it can be proved, that famous as Italy, Sicily, and Spain are for the stiletto, there are many more assassinations and stabbings in the Slave States of America than in all those countries put together. This is a melancholy truth; but, as the minds of the masters in the Southern States insensibly become degraded by the mere contact, not to say association, with beings so degraded as their slaves, the moral sense becomes blunted, they care little for assassination or for murder, and nothing for stabbing and maiming."

Their " bragging " no Englishman can escape : he is "known in- stantly by his healthy looks, and is therefore immediately fastened upon to convince him of the greatness of the Union, the everlasting power and importance of the greatest people the sun ever shone upon." Rubio did not find their questioning so disagreeable as it has been represented (perhaps he was able to take it out in kind) ; and he bears testimony to the truth of their boast that better English is spoken in the States than in England,—by which he seems to mean a more uniform pronunciation. His remarks also contain proofs of the personal friendliness and good- nature of the Americans ; but he seems too prejudiced to mark this con- clusion himself: Measured by the size of the States, the rambles of Rubio were not ex- tensive. He landed at New York in the spring of this year, by some vessel from the Tropics ; ascended the Hudson ; passed on to the Lakes; paid a short visit to Canada, which country he strongly recommends ; and then ran through the Western settlements, lirincipally by steaming on the Ohio and Mississippi; St. Louis forming his extreme point. Nar- rative is less the characteristic of this volume than observation. The writer cares less about telling where he went than what be 'saw, and his opinions thereupon. This makes his book short compared with other travels of the same extent, and renders it readable, because the whole is vigorous and racy. The subjects selected for remark are the reverse of sentimental, and smack of that attention to creature comforts or worldly wellbeing which characterizes the travelling gentleman turned of fifty. The worser points of the American are pounced upon for censure, and what is estimable left out of sight: but the judgments are shrewdly formed, forcibly expressed, and thrown off spontaneously with- out reference to bookmaking. Hence the volume, although dogmatic and oracular, is amusing. There comes a time in life when the mind grows more critical upon all things on which it exercises itself; and though its powers of pleasantry may be greater those of adaptibility are len. Hence, new modes and new manners are always offensive to the .elderly, because they judge them by a different standard ; they bring to the examination a more sharpened acumen ; and those things, being ever present in a visible form, overshadow the existence of higher qualities, (if any such there be,) that can only be displayed on great occasions, or seen as it were in the essence. Such, we take it, is the case with the author of Rambles in the United States. He saw the coarse- ness of the Americans, their want of manners, their want of finish in everything from literature down to cookery, and all the worst and most obvious evils of Democracy, at a time of life when such things would be most sharply judged and most clearly perceived ; whilst their good quali- ties were overlooked, unless they came in such a tangible shape as a good steam-boat or a cheap fare. The censure, too, is nothing softened by the form in which it is couched. As blunt and perhaps as coarse as Cobbett, there is no mincing of words in the mouth of Rubio ; and he pours out his opinion of men and things with a straightforwardness which if it exaggerates the truth gives vigour to the style, though it renders his statements, or at least the conclusions they contain, not very reliable.

The first thing, of course, to be done at New York was to land ; and the author found the celebrated Battery Point as bad as our Blackfriars Puddle Dock for filth and nastiness. His next step was to look for lodg- ings; which he could not find, though he found some of the dirtiest streets he bad ever seen in his life. He was therefore driven to a boarding- house ; of whose cookery he gives a deplorable account.

• NEW YORK BREAKFASTS.

I went to several boarding-houses before finally making a selection. In answer

-to inquiries for the terms, they were generally reasonable enough: the highest two dollars a day, about 8s. 6d. sterling; and the lowest one dollar. At these last I inquired their hours. Breakfast at six o'clock and half-past: hot beef- steaks, mush and milk, hommaney, rice and molasses, mackerel, salmon, shad, hot cakes, and rolls of every description; tea and coffee. Dinner at twelve o'clock, and supper. at six. The bill of fare on reading, looks abundant enough; but really, on Inspection, this well-covered table offers to an Englishman vet' little that is even eatable, much less palatable. Though every one must admire the early hours and temperance of the Americans, yet only imagine a Londoner, and an old hand not used to anything much worse than the shady side of Pall Mall, assembling at six o'clock at the noise of a great bell—washed and shaved, mind, by six o'clock—to look at an immense rump steak at the head of the table swim- ming in fat, not half cooked; then lower down a dish of enormous salt mackerel, one of which would make two of our English mackerel; then some Halifax sal- mon just as taken from the barrel, and as salt as brine; then two or three smaller dishes, some with mush, a food for pigs, and others with hommaney, only differ- ing from mush in that this last is white maize ground and boiled in water, whilst mush is yellow corn ground and boiled. As this sort of food is not known in England, thank God, except in the penitentiaries, I have been rather particular in describing it. No caution is required to my countryman to avoid it, because the very sight of it will be enough to make him sick. 1 he remainder of the table was filled up with some warmed-up tough old hen, called chicken fixings, all washed down with the most execrable coffee in the whole world. I used to think that England might defy all creation for bad coffee; but the Americans beat us hollow.

We were some thirty or forty at breakfast. The men ate like wolves; and, cheap as it was, I reckoned it cost them a shilling per minute. Little children, who also assemble at these tables, were permitted by their foolish Mothers to be guzzling raw ramp-steaks swimming in fat at six o'clock in the morning !

AMERICAN MARKETS.

Let us take a walk through the boasted markets of New York; which amount in number to fifteen, conveniently distributed throughout the city. A public market is a sort of epitome of a country, and may very safely be taken as a crite- rion of its productions. It is true that, at some seasons of the year, they are much better furnished than they are at others; but, having always made the markets in all countries a favourite lounge, I may say that I have visited them at all seasons. The Fulton and Washington are two of the best supplied and largest; but, beyond the show of beef and potatoes, there was a plentiful lack of every- thing. In the fish way there was little worth having but halibut and bass, (salmon very scarce and dear,) and a very abundant and coarse kind of cockle called clams. But the lobsters and oysters are magnificent, plentiful, and cheap. The vegetable-market is almost a blank, with the exception of potatoes and peas: but if I were to make out a list of what they have not got, it would be as long as any arm. The lowest neighbourhoods in London, to say nothing of her over- whelming markets, but such localities as Whitecross Street, Tottenham Court

• Road, the New Cut, and Spitalfields, exhibit things for sale in the vegetable way that would astonish a New Yorker. With the exception of peaches and apples, which are deservedly celebrated, the American fruit is very scarce and very bad. CHEAPNESS OF TRAVELLING.

Travelling in America is just as cheap as stopping at home. As the people are all, more or less, anti-renters, they live in boarding-houses; and as soon as they leave the expense ceases, and they begin boarding in a steam-boat instead of on shore.

For instance, the steamers at Buffalo, the best of them, go twice a day to

• Chicago, 1,050 miles up the Lakes, for IL 12s.; and three meals a day, good sub-

stantial meals, and an excellent roomy cabin to yourself to sleep in, besides a splendid saloon and promenade. This is less than one halfpenny per mile, board and lodging included. And as the voyage occupies five days, the total expense is about 6s. 6c1. per day in a steamer, more like a ship of the line than our steamers. The railroad fare is one penny a mile, first class.

WATER COMMUNICATION BY THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE LAKES. Rapid as the rise of Buffalo has been, it is nothing to the great town at the

other extremity of the lake, called Chicago; which in a few years, and before the people in Europe had ever heard of it, contains 30,000 people, and bids fair to be one of the most important cities of the Union. It is situate in the state of Illinois, at the bottom of Lake Michigan, and commands a very short and easy water- communication to the river Mississippi, by means of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, exactly a hundred miles long, and now in course of finishing. For, not- withstanding the bankruptcy of the State of Illinois, the London capitalists have recently advanced the requisite funds to complete the canal; which, if any canal in the world could be expected to pay, it is this. The steamers from New Orleans to the South, and from Buffalo to the North and East, meet, all but this hundred miles; so that it would have been almost an act of suicide, having gone so fax with thew loans, not to go a little further and endeavour to make this one work at least productive, which it is sure to be as soon as finished. So that, by the summer of next year, a person may leave New Orleans for St. Louis on the Mississippi, by steam 1,800 miles—then join a smaller steamer for Peru, at the bead of the Illinois river, 300 miles more—then by a packet-boat through the canal, 100 miles, to Chicago—when be goes all the way to New York by steam, 2,600 smiles further; making the entire distance about 4,800 miles of uninterrup- ted water-travelling through the interior of a continent, a greater distance than exists even in India or China. With the Duke of Wellington at the head of the Army and in the Cabinet, we presume the American Lakes have not escaped notice, and that a plan has been matured for rendering the British power superior on these waters, so as not to fail, as during the last war, from insufficiency of means. The whole of these lakes are important, but Lake Erie is perhaps the vulnerable point of the West. Blockading the mouths of the Missis- sippi, the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake, weuld check the foreign commerce of the States, but would interfere little with their internal trado, as the cotton, &c. of the South could bear laud-carriage. But the mastery of Lake Erie would stop the communication between the West and the great commercial entrepots and manufactories of the Eastern States ; preventing the West from getting rid of its raw produce or receiving payment in return, except by an expensive land-carriage route. It is not, however, as merely intercepting the internal trade of the country that the Lakes are important : whoever is master of these waters is master of the war. No matter what the superiority of the land force may be, it cannot act on the offensive with freedom or with safety if the enemy is superior on the Lakes ; because its communications and sup- plies must be always liable to be intercepted, its line of retreat threatened, and in case of reverse probably cut off. If the British be superior on the waters, the whole of the American cities and settlements on their banks may be destroyed or ravaged : if the Americans be most power- ful, the settled peninsula of Upper Canada, lying between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, may be swept by the irregular troops of the enemy, even if their land army should be inferior, unless we garrison the whole country. The mishaps on these waters during the last war have been attributed to the neglect of the Admiralty : but that department had then much to do, and the public attention was fixed upon Napoleon. Should a war unhappily now take place, the public mind will be undivided, and except in frigate and privateering affairs the real fighting will most pro- bably take place along the Canadian frontiers. Any failure here, as it will be the most conspicuous, and to us the most vital, will be the most closely scrutinized ; and disgraceful expulsion from office would be a very slight punishment for men who had not strained every nerve to render us sufficient both by land and water on the most important line of attack and defence.