Things as They are in America

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W. and R. Chambers, 1854 - Canada - 364 pages
 

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Page 241 - One copious, exhaustless fountain supplies all this abundance. It is Education, — the intellectual, moral, and religious education of the people. Having no other mines to work, Massachusetts has mined into the human intellect, and, from its limitless resources, she has won more sustaining and enduring prosperity and happiness than if she had been founded on a stratification of silver and gold, reaching deeper down than geology has yet penetrated.
Page 282 - Well, now, gentlemen,' said the auctioneer, 'here is a right prime lot. Look at this man; strong, healthy, ablebodied; could not be a better hand for field-work. He can drive a wagon, or anything. What do you say for him ? I offer the man at the low price of 800 dollars — he is well worth 1 200 dollars.
Page 352 - African descent to an inferior social status. There seems, in short, to be a fixed notion throughout the whole of the States, whether slave or free, that the colored is by nature a subordinate race ; and that, in no circumstances, can it be considered equal to the white.
Page 241 - For the support of the poor, nine-tenths of whose cost originate with foreigners, or come from one prolific vice, whose last convulsive energies she is now struggling to subdue, she annually pays more than...
Page 278 - ... having assembled, the mulatto assistant led the woman and her children to the block, which he helped her to mount. There she stood with her infant at the breast, and one of her girls at each side. The auctioneer, a handsome, gentlemanly personage, took his place, with one foot on an old deal-chair with a broken back, and the other raised on the somewhat more elevated block. It was a striking scene. 'Well, gentlemen...
Page 242 - Nor can the most superficial observer fail to be impressed with the advantages thus derived from the long and welldirected attention paid to the education of the whole people by the public school systems of the New England States and of the State of Pennsylvania. Here, where sound and systematic education has been longest and, in all probability, most perfectly carried out, the greatest manufacturing developments are to be found, and here it is also where the greatest portion of the skilled workmen...
Page 321 - Sound, no greater obstacles from snow are likely to be met with than have already been encountered and overcome on roads in the New England states and in the state of New York. It is the general...
Page 355 - ... point. From whatever cause, it was clear that a reluctance to associate with persons of negro descent was universally inculcated in infancy, and strengthened with age. The result is a singular social phenomenon. We see, in effect, two nations — one white and another black — growing up together within the same political circle, but never mingling on a principle of equality.
Page 329 - American conductor is a nondescript being, half clerk, half guard, with a dash of the gentleman. He is generally well dressed ; sometimes wears a beard ; and when off duty, he passes for a respectable personage at any of the hotels, and may be seen lounging about in the best company with a fashionable wife.
Page 276 - The three negro men were dressed in the usual manner — in gray woollen clothing. The woman, with three children, excited my peculiar attention. She was neatly attired, with a coloured handkerchief bound round her head, and wore a white apron over her gown. Her children were all girls, one of them a baby at the breast, three months old, and the others two and three years of age respectively, rigged out with dean white pinafores.

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