Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GOING AWAY, AND THE PASSAGE OUT
- CHAPTER THE FIRST GOING AWAY
- CHAPTER THE SECOND THE PASSAGE OUT
- CHAPTER THE THIRD BOSTON
- CHAPTER THE FOURTH AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
- CHAPTER THE FIFTH WORCESTER. THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. HARTFORD. NEW HAVEN. NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK
- CHAPTER THE SIXTH NEW YORK
- CHAPTER THE SEVENTH PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
- CHAPTER THE EIGHTH WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE, AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE
CHAPTER THE FOURTH - AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GOING AWAY, AND THE PASSAGE OUT
- CHAPTER THE FIRST GOING AWAY
- CHAPTER THE SECOND THE PASSAGE OUT
- CHAPTER THE THIRD BOSTON
- CHAPTER THE FOURTH AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
- CHAPTER THE FIFTH WORCESTER. THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. HARTFORD. NEW HAVEN. NEW HAVEN TO NEW YORK
- CHAPTER THE SIXTH NEW YORK
- CHAPTER THE SEVENTH PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
- CHAPTER THE EIGHTH WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE, AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE
Summary
Before leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell. I assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about to describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a thing by itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the same.
I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, for the first time. As these works are pretty much alike all through the States, their general characteristics are easily described.
There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there is a gentlemen's car and a ladies' car: the main distinction between which is that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car; which is a great blundering clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of Brobdignag. There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, and a bell.
The cars are like shabby omnibusses, but larger: holding thirty, forty, fifty, people. The seats, instead of stretching from end to end, are placed crosswise. Each seat holds two persons. There is a long row of them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up the middle, and a door at both ends.
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- American Notes for General Circulation , pp. 143 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009