January 3d, 1854. — Night before last there was a fall of snow, about three or four inches, and, following it, a pretty hard frost. On the river, the vessels at anchor showed the snow along their yards, and on every ledge where it could lie. A blue sky and sunshine overhead, and apparently a clear atmosphere close at hand; but in the distance a mistiness became perceptible, obscuring the shores of the river, and making the vessels look dim and uncertain. The steamers were ploughing along, smoking their pipes through the frosty air. On the landing stage and in the streets, hard-trodden snow, looking more like my New England Home than anything I have yet seen. Last night the thermometer fell as low as 13 degrees, nor probably is it above 20 degrees to-day. No such frost has been known in England these forty years! and Mr. Wilding tells me that he never saw so much snow before.
January 6th. — I saw, yesterday, stopping at a cabinet-maker’s shop in Church Street, a coach with four beautiful white horses, and a postilion on each near-horse; behind, in the dicky, a footman; and on the box a coachman, all dressed in livery. The coach-panel bore a coat-of-arms with a coronet, and I presume it must have been the equipage of the Earl of Derby. A crowd of people stood round, gazing at the coach and horses; and when any of them spoke, it was in a lower tone than usual. I doubt not they all had a kind of enjoyment of the spectacle, for these English are strangely proud of having a class above them.
Every Englishman runs to “The Times” with his little grievance, as a child runs to his mother.
I was sent for to the police court the other morning, in the case of an American sailor accused of robbing a shipmate at sea. A large room, with a great coal-fire burning on one side, and above it the portrait of Mr. Rushton, deceased, a magistrate of many years’ continuance. A long table, with chairs, and a witness-box. One of the borough magistrates, a merchant of the city, sat at the head of the table, with paper and pen and ink before him; but the real judge was the clerk of the court, whose professional knowledge and experience governed all the proceedings. In the short time while I was waiting, two cases were tried, in the first of which the prisoner was discharged. The second case was of a woman, — a thin, sallow, hard-looking, careworn, rather young woman, — for stealing a pair of slippers out of a shop: The trial occupied five minutes or less, and she was sentenced to twenty-one days’ imprisonment, — whereupon, without speaking, she looked up wildly first into one policeman’s face, then into another’s, at the same time wringing her hands with no theatric gesture, but because her torment took this outward shape, — and was led away. The Yankee sailor was then brought up, — an intelligent, but ruffian-like fellow, — and as the case was out of the jurisdiction of the English magistrates, and as it was not worth while to get him sent over to America for trial, he was forthwith discharged. He stole a comforter.
If mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. The great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years’ standing are as effective as ever.
Monday, February 20th. — At the police court on Saturday, I attended the case of the second mate and four seamen of the John and Albert, for assaulting, beating, and stabbing the chief mate. The chief mate has been in the hospital ever since the assault, and was brought into the court to-day to give evidence, — a man of thirty, black hair, black eyes, a dark complexion, disagreeable expression; sallow, emaciated, feeble, apparently in pain, one arm disabled. He sat bent and drawn upward, and had evidently been severely hurt, and was not yet fit to be out of bed. He had some brandy-and-water to enable him to sustain himself. He gave his evidence very clearly, beginning (sailor-like) with telling in what quarter the wind was at the time of the assault, and which sail was taken in. His testimony bore on one man only, at whom he cast a vindictive look; but I think he told the truth as far as he knew and remembered it. Of the prisoners the second mate was a mere youth, with long sandy hair, and an intelligent and not unprepossessing face, dressed as neatly as a three or four weeks’ captive, with small, or no means, could well allow, in a frock-coat, and with clean linen, — the only linen or cotton shirt in the company. The other four were rude, brutish sailors, in flannel or red-baize shirts. Three of them appeared to give themselves little concern; but the fourth, a red-haired and red-bearded man, — Paraman, by name, — evidently felt the pressure of the case upon himself. He was the one whom the mate swore to have given him the first blow; and there was other evidence of his having been stabbed with a knife. The captain of the ship, the pilot, the cook, and the steward, all gave their evidence; and the general bearing of it was, that the chief mate had a devilish temper, and had misused the second mate and crew, — that the four seamen had attacked him, and that Paraman had stabbed him; while all but the steward concurred in saying that the second mate had taken no part in the affray. The steward, however, swore to having seen him strike the chief mate with a wooden marlinspike, which was broken by the blow. The magistrate dismissed all but Paraman, whom I am to send to America for trial. In my opinion the chief mate got pretty nearly what he deserved, under the code of natural justice. While business was going forward, the magistrate, Mr. Mansfield, talked about a fancy ball at which he had been present the evening before, and of other matters grave and gay. It was very informal; we sat at the table, or stood with our backs to the fire; policemen came and went; witnesses were sworn on the greasiest copy of the Gospels I ever saw, polluted by hundreds and thousands of perjured kisses; and for hours the prisoners were kept standing at the foot of the table, interested to the full extent of their capacity, while all others were indifferent. At the close of the case, the police officers and witnesses applied to me about their expenses.
Yesterday I took a walk with my wife and two children to Bebbington Church. A beautifully sunny morning. My wife and U. attended church, J. and I continued our walk. When we were at a little distance from the church, the bells suddenly chimed out with a most cheerful sound, and sunny as the morning. It is a pity we have no chimes of bells, to give the churchward summons, at home. People were standing about the ancient church-porch and among the tombstones. In the course of our walk, we passed many old thatched cottages, built of stone, and with what looked like a cow-house or pigsty at one end, making part of the cottage; also an old stone farmhouse, which may have been a residence of gentility in its day. We passed, too, a small Methodist chapel, making one of a row of low brick edifices. There was a sound of prayer within. I never saw a more unbeautiful place of worship; and it had not even a separate existence for itself, the adjoining tenement being an alehouse.
The grass along the wayside was green, with a few daisies. There was green holly in the hedges, and we passed through a wood, up some of the tree-trunks of which ran clustering ivy.
February 23d. — There came to see me the other day a young gentleman with a mustache and a blue cloak, who announced himself as William Allingham, and handed me a copy of his poems, a thin volume, with paper covers, published by Routledge. I thought I remembered hearing his name, but had never seen any of his works. His face was intelligent, dark, pleasing, and not at all John-Bullish. He said that he had been employed in the Customs in Ireland, and was now going to London to live by literature, — to be connected with some newspaper, I imagine. He had been in London before, and was acquainted with some of the principal literary people, — among others, Tennyson and Carlyle. He seemed to have been on rather intimate terms with Tennyson. We talked awhile in my dingy and dusky Consulate, and he then took leave. His manners are good,