been into the manufacturing districts, nor into the dark lanes and holes of London, where poverty hides itself; but I do not remember, in five weeks in England, with my eyes pretty wide open, ever to have seen a ragged or dirty dress. Dirt and rags are the only things that come under a rigid sumptuary law in England.
Order is England's, as it is Heaven's, first law. Coming from our head-over-heels land, it is striking and beautiful to see the precise order that prevails here. In the public institutions, in private houses, in the streets and thoroughfares, you enjoy the security and comfort of this Heaven-born principle. It raises your ideas of the capacities of human nature to see such masses of bongs as there are in London kept, without any visitation of the liberty, within the bounds of order. I am told the police system of London has nearly attained perfection. I should think so from the results. It is said that women may go into the street at any hour of the night without fear or danger; and I know that Mrs. —— has often left us after ten o'clock, refusing the attendance of our servant as superfluous, to go alone through several streets to the omnibus that takes her to her own home.[1]
- ↑ When we had been in London some weeks, one of my party asked me if I had not missed the New-York stacks of bricks and mortar, and if I had observed that we had not once heard a cry of "fire!" In these respects the contrast to our building and burning city is striking. In fifteen months' absence I never heard the cry of fire.
