The last evening I spent at Baltimore I found a very lively and agreeable party at Mr. R's house; the people rather American in their style, but very pleasant for all that.

I have picked up here a good many ideas and opinions as regards the Southern States. It remains to be seen how far I shall verify them when I get there.

WASHINGTON.

Next morning I started for Washington-a little more than an hour's run from Baltimore. I hope to come back to Washington at the time that Congress meets; meantime I have only gone there for two or three days on my way South. At the Baltimore station (or depôt, as the Americans always call it) I found that the President and Mrs. Hayes were passengers by the same train. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to them, and travelled with them to Washington, thus having the opportunity of a good deal of talk with the President. He travelled without any show, like any other passenger, but an ordinary passenger-carriage was reserved for him and his party, and a little attention was paid to them by the railway officials. There was no crowd and no demonstration. Whatever may be said of the President's political character, I think that all who come in contact with him are agreed that he is what we should recognise in England as a gentleman, and that his wife is very much a lady. Socially they are certainly exceedingly well fitted to fill the position in which they are placed. I have heard the President spoken of as politically weak, but I am inclined to think that this opinion comes more from the members of his own party, who disapprove his measures of compromise, than from anyone else. It is not for me to express an opinion on this subject, and I should not like to retail all he said; but this I will say, that I have not met in America a man more pleasant to talk to.

He

The Baltimore papers contained accounts of his Southern policy, said to have been obtained from him in interviews, and I ventured to ask whether these accounts are authentic. said that for the most part the statements to which I alluded were true enough in one way, but that the accounts of alleged interviews were not true. The newspaper people interview those who have come out from the President, pick up something, put into his mouth what they think he may probably

have said, and so make up their stories. He was reported to have said that until quite recently there had been, under the present régime, very little violence and outrage in the South; and I could not help calling his attention to some very serious outrages which had been reported within the last week or two. He says that my experience in that respect has been exceptionally unfortunate: this is election-time, and the most is made of what occurs.

The President takes a very favourable view of the position and prospects of the negro. He thinks the present race of negroes are not equal to white men; but then, according to his views, the qualities of mankind are very much a matter of climate. Whether white or black, he thinks men are inferior in hot climates. The American blacks have not yet had time to develop the higher human qualities nor to acquire much land, but he hopes they will. As showing how improvable they are, he tells a story of a number of blacks who, in the last century, followed the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, when the latter got grants in Ohio, which is the President's own State. Eventually Ohio was declared to be free territory, and these negroes settled down as free men-they and their descendants have become farmers, and good ones-they are at this day liked and respected by their neighbours, and are in every way good and prosperous citizens. He hopes that the Southern blacks will do likewise in the course of two or three generations. As regards the misconduct and outrages sometimes attributed to blacks, he says that their character cannot be so bad as some would now paint it; and as proof of that he points to the fact that during the war the Southern whites left their families and their property, and everything that was dear to them, in charge of and at the mercy of the blacks. Yet these blacks never rose against their masters' families, and, as a rule, never did any harm whatever, in spite of all the opportunities they had during a protracted war. I have since heard this statement repeated in the Southern States-sometimes, no doubt, with a view to showing how good the masters had been. But at any rate there seems to be no doubt of the fact that the blacks, generally speaking, never did rise for plunder and outrage till they were raised by the actual presence of the Northern armies. This reminds me of what I was told by Mr. Mat Baltimore, when I appealed to his experience to explain why the negroes of the United States had

settled down so easily to labour, while we had so much trouble in Jamaica and elsewhere. He said that the United States negroes are long domesticated, tamed, civilised, trained to regular work, and no longer savages from Africa. Some of the West Indian negroes are much more savage and uncivilised and, he believes, more difficult to manage. At some work at the Isthmus of Panama, where different classes of blacks were working together, the Jamaica blacks were notoriously troublesome. Also he says that the situation is vastly different in a country where, after all, the blacks are in the minority. There they learn to behave well; but their conduct may be very different when they are in the great majority, with comparatively few white men. It will be remembered that Mr. M. is a Southerner; and my subsequent experience of parts of the South where the negro population is very greatly in the majority hardly bore out this view.

A gentleman who travelled with us remarked that there is a curious clashing between the United States laws and the laws of the particular States, especially in South Carolina, where there has been a riotous interference with the United States laws. United States officers have arrested the ringleaders, upon which the local authorities have arrested the Republican leaders, on accusation of offences against the laws of the State. There is, he says, a good deal of friction, not only on account of the difficulty of executing the electoral laws in the South, but also on account of the internal revenue laws; and the difficulty is increased for this reason, that, owing to protection and bad trade, the customs revenue has been very much reduced, and the United States Treasury is more and more driven to depend upon the internal revenues.

Judge A gives almost as bad an account of the Carpetbaggers as the democrats do. After the war, he says, all the Union soldiers who had property, or homes, or sweethearts went home; the bad ones, who had none of these ties, remained and undertook the government of the country. It really was necessary to take the Southern States out of such hands.

I asked the President as to the extent to which the white people of the Northern States had suffered during the late bad times from want of work, remarking that I had not seen so many signs of distress as I had expected. He said that things are better now that people thrown out of work have been

absorbed, partly by going to agriculture, and partly because there really has been a turn for the better in business; but during the worst times there was a great deal of distress even among some of the better class of mechanics, who actually could not get employment. I gather, however, from many quarters that most of the people who were very conspicuous for want of employment, and who appeared about the country as tramps of a very troublesome and dangerous character, were not so much honest workmen as a sort of people who, during the times of war and high prices, were able to get employment of a light and easy character. In these days people can only live by really hard work, and that is just what the tramp class wholly object to; consequently very many of them have been thrown upon the country.

I had a good deal of talk with the President on the Silver question. He says that the American production is now greater than ever, not only on account of the discovery of new lodes, but because people have learnt to extract the ore so much better than they did. It is found that immense quantities of inferior ore which had been heaped up as refuse can now be worked so as to extract silver at a profit. Labour is also very much cheaper than it was; and the New South-Pacific railway lines, going right into the heart of the metalliferous regions, will probably open up a good deal of new production. Altogether he thinks this year's production will be larger than it ever has been, and that the production will continue to be large. Mr. Hayes favours the plan of putting more silver into the dollar-this is the way to give honest money, without sacrificing their production of silver. Much gold is also produced in America, yet it is a fact that at this moment gold is coming from Europe.

I asked the President whether he shared Mr. McCulloch's views as to the want of good farming in America. He said there was, no doubt, something in them, but at the same time he added (and I think very truly) that it may, under certain circumstances, be better and more profitable to half-farm two hundred acres than to farm very well thirty acres. All depends upon the abundance or otherwise of land and the, circumstances of the case. As it is, he says, in parts of Pennsylvania the farmers manure quite plentifully, and their agriculture is as good as could be desired. He says that they have very fine breeds of cattle in Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio,

and that beef promises to be a very important product and export. He mentioned a curious, and to me unexpected fact, that the most valuable produce of the United States is hay. After hay comes Indian corn, then cotton, then wheat and tobacco. As regards the complaints I had heard respecting education rates and the system of free education, he says I must necessarily come across grumblers. The well-to-do people, who can educate their children privately, do not like the heavy taxes they have to pay for education; but the poor people would tell a different tale.

We spoke of the yellow fever now raging in the South, and of which such terrible accounts are in all the papers. I remarked that, though the mortality was very sad, still, used as I had been to reckon great calamities by millions, the total loss by yellow fever in the United States-now stated at about 10,000-did not seem so great in so large a population. He admitted this to be true; but then, he says, the yellow fever is principally a disease of towns, and it has struck with tremendous severity some particular places, such as Memphis and a few other places which he named. There has not been a great mortality in the country districts.

I remarked to Mr. Hayes that I had noticed the quietness. of American meetings, the absence of interruptions, and the contrast in that respect to a good many meetings which I had lately seen in England. Neither the President nor Mrs. Hayes have ever been in Europe; but Mr. Hayes had been in Canada, and he said that there he had remarked that the style of political meetings resembled what I told him of our English meetings. The Canadians seem to have copied us in that respect. He noticed that in Canada a great deal of noise and interruption took place, and that some of the speakers were unable to get a hearing.

The country between Baltimore and Washington seemed poor and uninteresting; in fact, they say it is one of the poorest parts of the United States. The entrance to Washington is through a poor part of the town. The Capitol is very conspicuous; from a distance it looks like St. Peter's at Rome. When we get well into the town it improves very much indeed; very fine, wide avenues have been laid out, radiating from central points; and there are some fine streets. The place was laid out by Washington himself in his capacity of engineer and surveyor. It seems that he had great ideas