CHAPTER VII.

ST. LOUIS.—THE FAIRY AND THE BIG LOTTERIES.

T. LOUIS, as its name denotes, was an old French settlement, named after

the patron saint of its first settlers. For over a century it continued to be little more than a small town or station on the Mississippi, but about thirty years ago it began to increase in importance, and within the last twenty immigration has flowed westward to such an extent, that it is now one of the largest cities in America, and third only in population, Brooklyn being considered as part of New York.

St. Louis numbered, in 1868, two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and vied with Chicago in its flourishing trade and commerce. This city is well built in brick and stone, and has well-paved streets-indeed, the first good pavement we had seen in America.

The roads generally, when I was in America, were something to be remembered in nightmare

dreams, for with bated breath I have looked down on the horses, plunging head foremost, with their tails perpendicular, into a gulf some eight or ten feet deep, and have watched the wheels sink up to the axles in mud; have been thrown on my nose against the splash-board by a sudden jolt, and in New York city itself, was bumped and shaken and jolted in and out -of my seat.

All this seemed very like a dream or a fiction, when riding on the well-paved streets and roads of St. Louis. Outside Savannah there is a good shell-paved road; out of New Orleans another; and outside Charleston there may have been, "before the war," a fine road, made of planks laid transversely, but I found it a fearful series of pitfalls, from the fact of a good many planks being missing. This plank-road, too, had been raised on logs, so that the absence of planks here and there made the descent into the cavity more startling than agreeable. St. Louis, however, was well paved, partly with small blocks of wood, called the "Nicholson pavement," and partly with small indented oblong blocks of iron, about six or seven inches in length, shaped like salt-cellars. The indentations receive the dirt and mud, and prevent the horses from slipping.

The town was also well drained; and the foot

paths were flagged or bricked. An immense wharf extends along the river for some five or six miles, and there several hundred steamers were always lying, receiving or discharging freights and passengers. The bank sloping down to the river was partly paved with stone, the rest horrible slush and mud. There was not even a wooden landing as good, or, rather, I should say, as bad as that on the Bosphorus. But of that narrow strip of pavement the Saint Louisians were immensely proud, and would draw attention to it with a conviction that if the visitor had seen nothing else in America to surprise him, he at least must be overwhelmed with astonishment when he saw this levée of St. Louis. They were very much annoyed when it was intimated that thirty or forty yards of mud intervened before a vessel could be reached, and that this must be rather injurious to the merchandise that had to be deposited on it, as well as to the passengers who had to traverse it. As a river landing it could not compare with either the Liffey, Mersey, or Clyde.

A large river trade was done at St. Louis, and the river here is very deep, and nearly eight hundred yards in breadth. It was in contemplation to span it with a suspension bridge. The steamers, such as described, with their three tiers of galleries, filigree tunnels, &c., have

a peculiar and striking appearance, and distinguish St. Louis from a European city, which, nevertheless, in many other respects it greatly resembles-Leeds, for example, especially in regard to the smoky atmosphere, and its general smutty appearance.

The quays, or levées, were lined with vast piles of dirty-coloured brick warehouses and storehouses, in the style of Liverpool, but on a smaller scale. The coal which is found here in great quantities, is of the sootiest kind, and St. Louis might easily rival Sheffield in that “rain of smuts which distinguishes the latter place.

There are many fine blocks of buildings-for offices, banks, and stores-but the Capitol is the only handsome edifice prominently attractive to a stranger. It is a large stone building, cruciform, and with a handsome dome rising in the centre; but there were no monuments or any buildings of real architectural merit, although the town was generally well built, and the streets wide and regular.

One-third, probably, of the population was German, and more than another third Irish, consequently the number of Catholics was larger than in any other city of the States, hence it was called "the Rome of America," though in point of appearance no city could well be less

like the Rome of Italy. The Catholics had then twenty-eight churches and chapels, a university, under the superintendence of the Jesuits, with from three to four hundred students. There were ten other establishments under the control of the "Christian Brothers." One of them, for the education of the wealthier classes, had five hundred pupils-boys. This order, as in France, teaches in all grades, from the ragged school to that of highest rank.

In St. Louis, as in the rest of America, there was a want of domestic servants. This general want is one reason that the country is so thoroughly uncomfortable to an European, accustomed to have all menial offices performed for him. He has a difficulty about getting his boots cleaned, and to have his clothes brushed is a luxury unheard of, unless he likes to hire a man on his own responsibility, when he runs the risk of not getting the clothes back.

The best cooks in the country are foreigners -French and Italian-and the best waiters negroes, for, excepting the lowest class, white men will not be waiters in America. Housemaids are universally bad, and ladies'-maids rarely to be met with. Thus, the same class of persons who in Europe would have continued drudges all their lives, rise there, in a very short time, to a position of importance, and not