BALTIMORE. 161 was in Baltimore that Abraham Lincoln was renominated for President in 1864, with Andrew Johnson as Vice-President. Perhaps it was the meeting of these quadrennial assemblages, their exciting debates, and the extreme personal animosities to which they gave rise, which made Baltimore the seat and centre of such persistent opposition to the Government when the war finally took place. In all these conflicts Zenos Barnum was never a partisan. He was the prince of good fellows, warmly welcoming his friends and making no enemies. I suspect he was an Old-line Whig in the days of Webster and Clay, but when the South resolved to take issue with the North, in 1861, it was natural that he should sympathize with his own people; yet, if he did, it was always with due regard to the feelings of others. As the war progressed, Baltimore became more than ever an important point to the Government, and the responsibilities of a hotel-keeper like Barnum, in the midst of an inflammable community, were painfully increased. On one occasion the general in command of the Department closed the hotel, and Mr. Barnum came to Washington to ask me to intercede for him, which I did promptly and effectively, by appealing to President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. After the doors of the old hotel were reopened, I received from my good friend a letter abounding in grateful expressions. He regarded it as an unusual obligation, and I revive the circumstance now, not because I had a hand in relieving an innocent man from the follies of one or two of his youthful employés, but to show that the humane and gentle spirit which induced him to interfere to protect Charles Sumner from the cruelty of the proslavery mob was not forgotten in darker or more exciting times, either by himself or by the men in command of the Government at Washington. [August 21, 1871.] XXXIII. STEAM is your real revolutionist. It has altered the physical geography of the civilized world. It has bridged the seas, partially annihilated space and time, opened new highways into and redeemed the wilderness, neighbored far-distant States, converted old cities into new ones, changed deserted villages into thriving towns, leveled the forest, crossed chasms and connected mountains, and elevated skilled labor into a science. Imagination is baffled by its present, and vainly attempts to anticipate its future triumphs. But in nothing has steam so transformed the face of the country and the habits of the people as in the substitution of railroads for turnpikes. While I was preparing my last sketch, in which I recalled the genial Zenos Barnum, of Baltimore, to the thousands who knew him in bygone days, the famous hotel and inn keepers of the past rose before me, with the stage-coach, the Conestoga wagon, and the ancient system of land transportation. Where are they now? Who that has passed his half-century does not remember them with pleasure? In my young manhood their decay had begun, but it requires no strong effort to revive the long train of canvas-covered wagons passing through my native town on their way to and from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, carrying the produce of the West in exchange for the merchandise of the East, with their hale, rough drivers, and their long leather whips, the coronal of bells on their horses, and their stoppage at the old taverns for food and water. They were to the more ostentatious stage-coach what the baggage train is to the lightning express of the present day. And when these coaches dashed into Lancaster, and rushed down the streets, the driver winding a merry air on his horn, accompanied by the crack of his long whip, women, children, and dogs rushed out to greet the meteoric chariot as it drew up OLD-FASHIONED TRAVEL. 163 with its foaming steeds at Slaymaker's old hotel, on East King Street, and began to throw off the mails, while the passengers alighted, thirsty, hungry, and covered with dust. It was the event of the day. Repeated at every other station and in every other town, it was one of a thousand similar pictures in other States and countries. Old England's great highways were made jocund with post-chaises, fast horses, daring drivers, uniformed guards, and jolly passengers. It was a favorite amusement for the nobility to mount the box and hold the reins with four in hand, and to course along the level roads, excelling in feats of daring drivership. They were as ambitious to lead in this sort of exercise as their descendants are in boat and foot races, in pugilistic encounters, and general gymnastics. Of these scenes the central figure was always the inn-keeper, who did not hold it beneath his dignity to stand in his doorway, engirthed in his white apron, to "welcome the coming and speed the parting guest." That class is nearly extinct, though happily not forgotten. The old-fashioned publican aspired to be a gentleman, and was generally the associate of gentlemen, a connoisseur of wines, a judge of horse-flesh, a critical caterer, and in politics so unexceptionally neutral that, when the probable votes of a town were estimated, it was generally "so many Whigs, so many Democrats, and so many tavern-keepers." These Sir Roger De Coverleys-for they were men of substance and hospitable to the extreme-have given way to a generation as different as the Conestoga wagon differs from the locomotive, the old stage-driver from the car-conductor, the railroad director from the stockholder of the turnpike company. They are the dilettanti of the hotels, and, like the Pontiff's robe, rarely seen and much wondered at. Living in gorgeous private residences, away from the splendid palaces which bear their names, they in fact vicariously feed, room, and care for more human beings in one day than the men of the past did in six months. One of these men was John Guy, who may be called the hero of three cities-known alike in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, though better appreciated in Baltimore. Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I believe, he was the founder of a family of unrivaled hotel-keepers. He still lives in Guy's, on Seventh Street, Philadelphia, now in course of rehabilitation, and soon to expand into an ostentatious establishment on the European plan, and in the unequaled Monument House, nearly opposite Barnum's, in Baltimore. When I think of him I think also of Dorrance and Pope Mitchell of the United States Hotel, of Joseph Head of the Mansion House on Third Street, of Dunlap of the City Hotel, of Hartwell of the Washington House, and Jones of the old Jones Hotel, in Philadelphia; of Gadsby in Washington, Stetson of the Astor House, in New York, and many, many more. There is not a State in the Union, north or south, which could not furnish anecdotes of its representative inn-keepers, of their relations to public men—to Calhoun in South Corolina, to Webster in Massachusetts, to Clay in Kentucky, to Sergeant S. Prentiss in Mississippi, to George D. Prentice in Louisville, and to the lawyers, divines, and orators who for half a century dominated in those sections. If these Bonifaces could have kept records of their experience, what anecdotes they could relate of the giants of the past, of their private troubles, their public ambitions, their contrivances and their caucuses, their friends and their foes! I knew many of them, and could relate many interesting incidents if I had space and time. Let me recall one in regard to this same John Guy, sometimes told by my friend Dougherty, when we can win him to social familiarity and make him forget professional responsibilities. Guy bore a striking resemblance to General Lewis Cass, and while he was proprietor of the National Hotel, in Washington, the Michigan Senator was among his favored guests. Guy dressed like Cass, and although not as portly, his face, including the wart, was strangely similar. One day a Western friend. LEWIS CASS AND JOHN GUY. 165 of the house came in after a long ride, dusty and tired, and, walking up to the office, encountered General Cass, who was quietly standing there. Mistaking him for Guy, he slapped him on the shoulder, and exclaimed, "Well, old fellow, here I am; the last time I hung my hat up in your shanty, one of your clerks sent me to the fourth story; but now that I have got hold of you, I insist upon a lower room." The General, a most dignified personage, taken aback by this startling salute, coldly replied: "You have committed a mistake, sir. I am not Mr. Guy; I am General Cass, of Michigan," and angrily turned away. The Western man was shocked at the unconscious outrage he had committed; but before he had recovered from his mortification, General Cass, who had passed around the office, confronted him again, when, a second time mistaking him for Guy, he faced him and said, "Here you are at last. I have just made a devil of a mistake; I met old Cass and took him for you, and I am afraid the Michigander has gone off mad." What General Cass would have said may well be imagined, if the real Guy had not approached and rescued the innocent offender from the twice-assailed and twiceangered statesman. [August 27, 1871.] XXXIV. PARALLELS or contrasts of character are the most useful of biographies. They are like studies of different pictures placed side by side. Take Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Lincoln was almost untrained in statecraft. He had been postmaster of a little town, had served four successive terms in the Legislature of Illinois, and one in Congress; was the only Whig from Illinois from 1847 to 1849, taking his seat just as Douglas |