that he "never yet saw anyone, in the presence of ladies, violate with the practice the decorum of a drawing-room."

In his journey Mr. Mackay at length reached the Susquehanna River, over which the passengers were ferried from one railroad to the other in a steamboat, and where he was struck with the beauty of the scenery. The train sped on and he arrived at Canton, which he describes as a suburb of Baltimore, and a "melancholy instance of misguided enterprise" where "the streets are all nicely laid out, paved, and macadamized; and where you have everything to make a fine town but the houses." As the train rolled into the station at Baltimore "it was like Pandemonium let loose," on account of the colored men touting for the hotels to which they Lelonged.

"Barnum's, gen'lemen-Barnum's-now for Barnum's-only house in town-rest all sham-skin but no 'possum-yhaw, yhaw-Barnum's, Barnum's!" "'Cause Eagle eaten all de 'possum up, and left nuffin but de skin -de Eagle's de house, gen'lemen-hurra for de Eagle!"

It is no wonder that the poor English travelers thought this a strange country.

Mr. Mackay went to "Barnum's" and "found the hotel one of the most admirably managed establishments of the kind on the continent." He speaks of the fine harbor of the city, "crowded with shipping," of the Baltimore Clippers, and of the city's large foreign and Western trade. Baltimore street was, he says, "one of the finest streets in the Union," and the Baltimore women were finer still. He had never seen "in so large a population

so small a proportion of un

attractive faces," and "this characteristic extends more or less to the whole State of Maryland."

Mr. Mackay left Baltimore for Washington on the "late night-train," and when about ten miles from Washington discovered for the first time what a "cow-ketcher" was. The train was brought to a stop by running into a cow on the track, and our inquiring Englishman walked to the front of the engine where he made his dis

covery.

In Maryland during the first half of the nineteenth century social life in one respect resembled that of earlier days: it was not entirely a society of towns and cities as in the more northern States. While much of the social life was centered in Baltimore and Annapolis, on Country Life. the other hand quite as much of it was in the country between the families of those who owned large plantations, and was, with greater freedom and more open hospitality, not unlike country life in England.

One of the chief faults of Americans in those years, if we are to believe what foreign visitors wrote about them, was their boastfulness about their country, its resources, and its institutions. But its material resources were in fact almost greater than any boast; and when we consider that the Americans were just beginning to see the success of what was, perhaps, the greatest experiment in government that the world had ever seen, it is not strange that their pride in this success led to frank and open talk about it. This peculiarity is not so noticeable in the Marylander as in the New Englander or the Western man he is more apt to boast of his State than of his country.

Many duels were fought in America in these years, and a Marylander of renown lost his life in one. Commodore Stephen Decatur was killed in 1820, near Bladensburg, by Commodore James Barron, in a duel which grew out of the affair between the Chesapeake and the Leopard.

CHAPTER X.

NEW POLITICAL PARTIES; THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

New Political

The period after the war with Mexico, which ended in 1848, and in which the Maryland soldiers served with their usual bravery, was marked by the rise of several new political parties. Not that they came into being all at once; in fact, they had been gradually forming; but at about this time they became more or less prominent. Of these the Free-soil, or Anti-slavery party Parties: the was by far the most important, and we shall Know-nothings. have more to say of it later. Another was the American, or as it is oftener called, the Knownothing party. This was a secret political society which for a few years had considerable influence on politics in Baltimore as well as in other parts of the State, and in the whole country. The main object of this party was to exclude all foreign-born citizens, and more especially all Catholics, from any office under the National, State or city governments. Its second aim was to change the naturalization laws so that the immigrant could not have the rights of citizenship until after a long residence of fifteen or twenty years in the country. Riots between the Know-nothings and the Irish Catholics occurred in many places, both during elections and at other times. Such riots occurred in Baltimore at the elections which were held in October and November, 1856. Muskets even were used, and a number of persons were killed. Thomas Swann, the Know-nothing candidate, was elected Mayor

of Baltimore, and the presidential electors of this party received a majority of the votes cast. Thus the eight electoral votes of Maryland were cast for Millard Fillmore, the Know-nothing candidate for President. He received no others, however. Scenes of violence and fraud at the elections continued for several years, until at length, in 1860, the Know-nothing party was defeated by the election of all the opposition candidates, headed by George William Brown for Mayor, in an election that was quiet and without disorder.

Free-soilers and
Abolitionists.

A far more important party, and one whose doctrines had much more far-reaching effects, was the Antislavery, or Free-soil party; and later, the Abolitionists. These were not large parties like the Democratic and Republican, but they made up in energy what they lacked in numbers. They were opposed to the holding of slaves in general, and in particular they believed that slavery should not be permitted in the new parts of the country that were being made into States. For the most part the slaves were owned in the South; although there were some in almost all the States, and at first a few even in New England. Their number was so much greater in the Southern States because in that portion of the country the soil was rich and fertile, and adapted to the raising of crops, such as rice, sugar, and cotton, to which slave labor is suited; while in New England the soil is more sterile. Then, too, in the South large plantations were owned by a single man; while in the North each farm was so small that a man and his sons, with perhaps the help of a "hired man" or two, could do all the work upon it.