There is plenty and to spare of all things, save of art. The kitchen is indeed no cuisine. The cook is not "abroad" in these parts. He is coming, doubtless, in "the good time," but has not yet arrived. Still there is, here and there, a pioneer from Paris, come out to try his 'prentice hand, and "rough it." There was one such in my hotel; but both his dishes and his French were execrable. He daily served up such figures of speech as "Calf's head à la Financire," "Lamb chop santees,' 9966 Haricot of Mutton," "Fillets of beef," "Veal tenderloin, à la Macedonia," and "Macaroni, à la Italienare." These mistakes one might be disposed to attribute to the printer, a "devil" on whom is heaped a multitude of sins not his own; but the dishes themselves forbade it. Evidently these and their printed names were by the same master, and were worthy each of the other. However, 'twas all Greek to the majority of the "customers." The gods on Olympus did not know French, and the western traveller finds ambrosia in every platter, spite of the misspelling. He goes for the patés-finds them good, and doesn't trouble his head about the patois. Still there are those-Connecticut men, no doubt, by origin--who will not eat of any dish that has not a plain Old Testament name to it. They admit of but one exception. "I'll trouble you," said such a one, at my side, "to pass me that platter of shoat and beans." He felt his native partialities melting in his mouth, and could neither wait his turn nor be withstood. "I'll just thank you, stranger, for that platter," he repeated, in a beseeching tone of voice, which quickly moved my pity, at the same time pointing and beckoning with both his hands. After he had " gone the whole hog," he asked the waiter if he had any doughnuts. "Doo-noots," replied Pat, completely at his wit's end, "I'm a thinkin' them noots don't grow in this counthry, sir." Upon my word, it was the only thing I ever heard asked for at that table which was not to be had. To console my neighbor, I told him that doughnuts were plentiful in Dunkirk, for I had seen them, a few days before, piled up there in tall pyramids, or after the fashion of children's cob-houses. Whereupon he informed me that he was going to Buffalo that evening, and would stop a day at Dunkirk on his return. I advised him by all means to do so.

But the best part of the dinner remains to be discussed-'tis the waiters. I took more pleasure in these than in anything they brought me. Of all places in this country, I had always supposed that New York was the one for seeing Paddy in his truest and most emerald colors. But 'tis a mistake. He is imported in still more native purity into Chicago. It is said that the hotelkeepers here send out a practised hunter from the plains, who catches Patrick in his wildest state by means of the lasso, and forwards him " express," by way of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, so that he is landed at Chicago without change of cloth or color. Then he is put into cast-off clothes-not a particularly good fit-is instructed to subdue his rebellious locks with pomatum, and is set to serve tables. He pretty soon learns what a beefsteak is, for he eats three a day himself. At the same time he learns, experimentally, the difference between wheat rolls and potatoes. In the course of a week or two he gets pretty familiar with the necessaries of life; and then begins to beat his brains to learn the names of the luxuries of the table. makes some progress until he gets to the French dishes. These confound him. He don't know French at all, at all. If at this stage of his novitiate you call upon him for a "fricassée," he brings you the "fricandeau;" if you demand "if “vol-au-vent,” he runs the whole length of the table for the pigeon pie; if you wish for a meringue glacée, he thinks 'tis a plate of ice; and if you you order crême fouettée," he asks if you will have it boiled. When you decide upon roast beef, his question is, "Done, sir, or not done?" Should you tell him, in selecting turkey, to bring the drumstick, he would inquire if you meant the stick he beats the gong with. His ideas are all as wild as prairie colts.

a

He

Still this is Patrick's palmy condition. and best estate as a waiter. For by the time he has served out his apprenticeship he is ruined for his trade. It takes a certain number of months for him to get it well into his head that he is in a free country; and this idea, once fully comprehended, is enough to spoil the best waiter that ever came from Ireland. Having got a few shillings a rattling in his pocket, he realizes the fact that he is his own man. Then he begins to put on airs not in keeping with table-waiting and bottle-washing. While serving at meals he hangs carelessly by your

hair-back, with greasy fingers, so that every day, after dinner, you have to send your coat to the cleaner's, to get the marks of the beast rubbed out of it. He now knows fat from lean, tough from tender, and where the meat is sweetest; but unless you fee him every second or third morning, you will be none the better for his increase of knowledge. He is disposed to be short and crisp, as if belonging himself to the upper crust of society. He laughs behind your back, with Jimmy, at every small practical joke that may be enacted at the tables. If a farmer asks for a bowl of bread and milk for his supper, and then peppers it, first black, then red, he laughs at that. Or if a gentleman, not being able to swallow water without brandy to it, puts a glass of it into his soup, he laughs at that. Every leisure moment he gathers Jimmy and Dick together to chatter with them. Then, if you call him, he is suddenly deaf as an adder. He can neither hear nor see. And when the guests gradually leave the table, and work slackens, I have seen him lounge out on to the balcony, settle himself in an arm-chair, cock his feet up over the railing, and quietly smoke his cigar. Patrick is now ready for a strike for higher wages. At the first word of reprimand he will throw up his place. He is too independent to be drilled into line, and always takes the covers off out of time. Look out for him when he comes in with his platters, his very importance will run you down. He is still ignorant, still awkward; but with ten dollars in his pocket, he is abashed by nothing in heaven, earth, or Chicago; and unless he can have four beefsteaks a day, he threatens to go back to Ireland. The truth is, that the sense of freedom is so strong at the West, it spoils all men for service. Our naturalization laws are annually the ruin of a great many excellent scullions and shoe-blacks. struggles hard on their side, but our republican institutions prevail.

Nature

The society one meets in a Chicago hotel consists principally of the gentlemem of the road. I mean the railroadmen, so called-road-builders and road owners. There are also the men of real estate, who deal in prairie and river bottoms. There are grain and lumber merchants. There are speculators of every kind. But all have only one thought in their minds. To buy, sell,

and get gain--this is the spirit that pervades this house and the country. The chances of making fortunes in business or speculation are so great, that everybody throws the dice. Five years hence, every man expects to be a nabob. Í saw in the West, no signs of quiet enjoyment of life as it passes, but only of a haste to get rich. Here, are no idlers. The poor, if any such there be, and the wealthy are all equally hard at work. Beyond the Alleghanies, the day has no siesta in it. Life is a race, with no chance of repose except beyond the goal. The higher arts which adorn human existence-elegant letters, divine philosophy-these have not yet reached the Mississippi. They are far off. There are neither gods nor graces on the prairies yet. One sees only the sower sowing his seed. No poets inhabit the savannas of Iowa, or the banks of the Yellow Stone. These are the emigrants' homes. Life in the valley of the Mississippi is, in fact, but pioneering, and has a beavy pack to its back. At present, the inhabitants are hewing wood and drawing water-laying the foundations of a civilization which is yet to be, and such as never hath been before. This, they are doing with an energy superior to that which built Carthage or Ilium. Though men do not write books there, or paint pictures, there is no lack, in our western world, of mind. The genius of this new country is necessarily mechanical. Our greatest thinkers are not in the library, nor the capitol, but in the machine shop. The American people is intent on studying not the beautiful records of a past civilization, not the hieroglyphic monuments of ancient genius, but how best to subdue and till the soil of its boundless territories; how to build roads and ships; how to apply the powers of nature to the work of manufacturing its rich materials into forms of utility and enjoyment. The youth of this country are learning the sciences, not as theories, but with reference to their applications to the arts. Our education is no genial culture of letters, but simply learning the use of tools. Even literature is cultivated for its jobs; and the fine arts are followed as a trade. The prayer of this young country is, Give us this day, our daily bread; and for the other petitions of the Pater Noster it has no time. So must it be for the present. We must be content with little literature, less art, and only

Nature in perfection. We are to be busy, not happy. For we live for futurity, and are doing the work of two generations yet unborn.

Everything is beautiful in its season. What is now wanted in this country is, that all learned blacksmiths stick to their anvils. No fields of usefulness can be cultivated by them to so great advantage as the floor of their own smithy. In good time, the western bottom lands will spontaneously grow poets. The American mind will be brought to maturity along the chain of the great lakes, the banks of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and their tributaries in the far northwest. There, on the rolling plains, will be formed a republic of letters which, not governed like that on our seaboard, by the great literary powers of Europe, shall be free, indeed. For there character is growing up with a breadth equal to the sweep of the great valleys; dwarfed by no factitious ceremonies or usages, no precedents or written statutes, no old superstition or tyranny. The winds sweep unhindered, from the Lakes to the Gulf, from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains: and so do the thoughts of the lord of the prairies. He is beholden to no man, being bound neither head nor foot. He is an independent world himself, and speaks his own mind. Some day he will make his own books as well as his own laws. He will not send to Europe for either pictures or opinions. He will remain on his prairie, and all the arts of the world will come and make obeisance to him like the sheaves in his fields. He will be the American man, and beside him there will be none else.

Of course, one does not go to the West to study fashions or manners. The guests of a Western hotel would not bear being transported to Almack's without some previous instruction in bowing and scraping, or some important changes of apparel. Foreign critics travelling in pursuit of the comical, do not fail of finding it here in dress, in conversation, in conduct. For men here show all their idiosyncracies. There are no disguises. Speech is plump, hearty, aimed at the bull's eye; and without elegant phrase or compliment. On the road one may meet the good Samaritan, but not Beau Brummell. Anything a Western man can do for you, he will do with all his heart; only he cannot flatter you with unmeaning promises. You shall be welcome at his

cabin; but he cannot dispense his hospitality in black coat and white cravat. His work is too serious to be done in patent leathers. He is in outward appearance, as gnarled as his oaks, but brave, strong, humane, with the oak's great heart and pith. The prairie man is a six-foot animal, broad shouldered, and broad foreheaded, better suited to cutting up corn than cutting a figure in a dance, to throwing the bowie-knife than to thrumming the guitar. In Europe a man always betrays a consciousness of the quality of the person in whose presence he is standing. If he face a lord, it is with submission; if a tradesman, with haughtiness; if a servant, with authority; if a beggar, with indifference. At Chicago, two persons. meeting, stand over against each other like two door-posts. Neither gives signs of superiority or inferiority. They have no intention of either flattering or imposing upon each other. Words are not wasted. So is the cut of each other's coat a matter of perfect indifference. Probably the man who is "up for Congress wears the shabbier one of the two. If disposed to make a show at all, the Western gent is more apt to be proud of his horses than his broadcloth. His tread may occasionally have something in it indicative of the lord of the prairie; but he has little or no small nonsense about him. The only exception is, perhaps, a rather large-sized diamondpin in his shirt bosom.

His

The Chicago cockney differs considerHe has ably from him of New York. more of the "ready-made clothing" appearance about him, and wears his hat drawn closer down over his left eye. Sometimes his cigar is in his button-hole, and sometimes in his cheek. He chews tobacco. He vibrates between sherry-coblers and mint juleps. stick is no slight ratan, but a thick hickory or buckeye, and has a handle large enough to allow of its being carried suspended from his shoulder. His watch-chain is very heavy-lead inside and gold out. He is learned in politics; and boasts that a United States senator from his State, once put his arm around his neck, and slapped him familiarly between the shoulders. When he was in Washington, he messed with the Illinois members of the House; and, as Botts did with President Tyler, he slept with them. He knows, personally, all the Western judges and generals in in Congress; bets at all the elections;

and makes money out of them, let whichever party conquer. He also goes in the steamboats whenever there is to be a race; plays "poker" on board; and lives on the profits. He has a small capital in wild lands, likewise; and owns a few corner lots in Cairo, and other cities laid down in his maps. These he will sell cheap for cash. He affects the man of business, and ignores ladies' society. His evenings are spent at a club house, having the name of "Young America" blazoned on its front in large gilt letters. He dines at the crack hotel of the town; and, having free passes over all railroads, he keeps up his importance in the world, by going to and fro, and putting on the airs of a man owning half the Western country.

As to the ladies-God bless them all the world over-I did not see them at the West, and have not a word to say respecting the beauty of their persons or the tenderness of their hearts. The only remark which could be hazarded, touching the few who passed under my observation would be, that they were either fat or lean. I did not have the opportunity of noting any other differ

ence.

A flounce or two more; a deeper shade of red or yellow in the silk; longer ringlets; short-sleeve dresses, cut higher in the neck; a little fresher look of the country and the band-box; an air more independent and self-relying, or more awkward and abashed at the sight of men-these minor differences might be detected, but the only distinct impression remaining on my mind is, that the few ladies whom I chanced to see, were either fat or lean. I will not venture any remark beyond that. But the most interesting sight I saw in my hotel, was from its windows. Even had I " gone West for the question was frequently asked me at Chicago, "Going West, sir?" I could have seen nothing more striking and significant. Niagara, the Mississippi, the Lakes, are not after all the great spectacle to be witnessed in this country. Nor is the sight the most characteristic and American, that of the Yankee whittling on a rail, or the Virginian talking politics over his saddle-bags; not the Arkansas citizen playing at bowie-knives, or the Kentuckian offering to bet upon his rifle; not the New Yorker living in carved brown stone in the Fifth Avenue, or the negro swiltering in the rice-fields of South Carolina. It is

a sight simple, still. It is the passing by of the emigrant, bound for the prairies. A family of Germans going by the hotel one morning, as I sat by the window, struck me as the most remarkable show I had seen in the West. It was, indeed, nothing new or uncommon; it was no pageant. No trumpets were blown to announce the coming of this small detachment of the army general. Probably not a soul in the city noticed the passage of this poor family, save myself. Yet in it was wrapped up the great American fact of the present day-the coming in of European immigrants to take possession of our western plains. If these States did not have lands for sale at low prices to attract the desires of the poor and the oppressed in all the earth, they would be of little importance among the nations. For centuries, the Swiss have had liberty, but no land; and have been a nullity. But we hold a homestead for every poor man in Europe; and, therefore gathering his pennies together, he is setting out for America as the world's land of promise, and the only Eden now extant.

The father strode down the middle of the street. Unaccustomed to the convenience of sidewalks in his own country, he shared the way with the beasts of burden, no less heavily laden than they. His back bent beneath its pack. In it was, probably, the better part of his goods and chattels, at least the materials for a night bivouac by the road-side. By one hand he held his pack, and in the other he carried a large tea-kettle. His gude-wife followed in his tracks, at barely speaking distance behind. A babe at the breast was her only burden. Both looked straight forward, intent only upon putting one foot before the other. În a direct line, but still further behind, trudged on, with unequal footsteps, and eyes staring on either side, their firstborn son, or one who seemed such. There were well towards a dozen summers glowing in his face. A big tin pail, containing, probably, the day's provisions, and slung to his young shoulders, did not seem to weigh too heavily upon his spirit. He travelled on bravely, and was evidently trained to bear his load. A younger brother brought up, at a few paces distance, the rear, carrying, astride his neck, one more of the parental hopes. It was the most precious pack in the party, and, judging from the size of the little one's legs, not so very much the lightest. It was a sister, I fancy, that

the little fellow was bearing off so gallantly; and very comfortably did she appear to be making the journey.

I watched this single file of marchers westward, until they disappeared at the end of the avenue. They would not stop or turn aside, save for needful food and shelter, until they crossed the Mississippi. On the rolling prairies beyond, the foot-worn travellers would reach their journey's end, and, throwing their weary limbs upon the flowery grass, would rest in their new home, roofed by the sky of Iowa. Before the frosts of autumn should set in, the log-hut would be reared, and their small household gods set up in it. In due season the sod will be turned, the seed cast in, and later, the harvest would make glad all hearts. Years rolling by, the boys will grow up freemen, and will make the surrounding acres tributary in wheat and corn as far as the eye can reach. Forgetting their uncouth patois, the children will learn the softer Anglo-Saxon accents of liberty, and take their place among their equal fellows, in a society where none are bondsmen. The daughters, relieved of

the hard necessity of toiling in the fields, will gradually grow up in the delicacy of native American beauty, retaining only the blue eyes and golden hair of their German nativity. In the evening of their days, the brave grandparents will sit in the shadow of vines, sprung from the seeds piously brought by them from the Neckar or the Rhine; and their sons, and their son's sons, in the enjoyment of plenty, happiness, and human rights, will remember, with blessings, the original immigrants, and founders of their

name.

"All aboard! All aboard! Omnibus ready for the Michigan Central cars." I crawled out of the hotel, and took my seat in the carriage, resolved not to stop until I had regained New York. I felt almost as well acquainted with the country, as if I had spent my forty days in going to and fro in it. The men of the West had come to me in my hotel, though I had not gone out to them. In one "All Western prairie I had seen all. men and prairies are alike," said I to myself, in stepping into the train; "how I wish I were walking down Broadway."