Miscellany: Professor Wright's Letters From England

London, Sept. 3, 1844. Dear Leavitt, - Time, which tarries not for mortals, has brought me to the close of my look at England. It is very awkward to sum up and generalize when one has only began to observe; therefore understand me as giving generalizations of things as they seem to me - what a fly, that lights upon England for a twinkling and is off, thinks of it. As to the bounties of Providence - substantial blessings and beauties - I cannot conceive how more could well have been granted in the same space, than is the lot of this, so far as nature has made it, "merrie England." After seeing the golden harvests of the rich eastern counties and Yorkshire, the meadows of the Thames, above all, the garden valley of the Tweed; the mines of Derbyshire, and of another region to which the wise do not carry coals; the bens and lochs of Scotland; the pikes and fells, and dales and meres of Westmoreland; the springs of Malven; the valleys of the Severn and the Wye - even taking a nap on the brow of the Wyndecliffe - surely I have a right to say, "Avaunt, all geography; this island is the very spot where the human race ought to develope itself in all its power and glory." But truly, the race, as a mass, is far and painfully below what a nurseling of republicanism, slightingon the Wyndecliffe, and drinking in the beauties of the wide landscape, and knowing nothing more of England, would expect to find it. There is ignorance, and coarse brutality, and sullen hopelessness, and haggard wretchedness, far beyond what there ought to be in the midst of such beauties and blessings. Yet there is not a little, but a great deal among the human inhabitants, that is, like the landscape, noble, and lovely, and glorious - and that, not in one class, but in all classes, from the highest to the lowest. And a peep at history will convince one, too, that the race is here making a progress that is truly encouraging and sublime. - Indeed, history writes this upon the landscape. The old feudal castles, now possessed by ivy and owls; the ruinous abbeys, the dimly-remembered battle fields and "Smithfields," are way-marks that show how the race has gone forward. The Alfreds, the Shakespears, the Hampdens, the Newtons, the Miltons, the Howards, the Wesleys, the Hogarths, have not lived in vain. Their mantles are worn worthily by men whom it might be invidious to mention now, but who will shine as the stars by and by; men who are doing what Cromwell did in a wiser way. - They have approached in fact, nearer than in form, to the desired goal. In enumerating the governing powers of England, you have not done when you have mentioned kings, lords, and commons. The press is to be named, and that not at the tail of the list. The press has outgrown the power of what is called the government, to control it either by fear or favor. Look at the Times newspaper, with a net revenue equal to that of a third-rate European potentate. Ministers have bribed it till it is beyond the reach of their bribery. They look up to it with fear and trembling, and a degree of humble obedience. It is the voice of the most vigorous intellect of England, saying what will be most likely to find an echo in the breast of one hundred thousand independent Englishmen as they swallow their buttered toast and boiled eggs. Look at Punch too, with wit and wisdom" enough to insure him a hundred patents of immortality. He governs a great part of England, very much for its good. The Pecksniffs of the land take hints from him, much to the benefit of their dupes. Hence one may conclude that England is growing, and has grown, wiser, and, of course, happier. Yet if one were to task himself to write down the folly, and humbug, and unhappiness of England, it would be difficult to decide where to begin, and quite impossible to end.

England may be said to live under a trinity of evil, kingcraft, priestcraft and beercraft. In this let me not be misunderstood to speak disrespectfully of that interesting daughter of Eve, the queen, who with such exemplary patience obeys the command imposed upon her aforesaid mother, nor of the reverend clergy, nor yet of the noble brewers, many of whom write sir before and bart, after their names. They are all honorable persons I hope and trust; but the craft to which they were born or bred does I am sure cost England immeasurable woes. O that I had the eye of a prophet and could say that there was, visible in the dimes distance of the future, any thorough relief. As it is, sanguine hope, without seeing any thing, guesses the deliverance must come, some how & at some time or other. The order in which the evils press upon the country seem to me to be, first beercraft, second priestcraft, third kingcraft. Till the beercraft is removed - ill the people get clear heads and strong hearts which pure water gives - in vain you lift at the others. Suppose you abolish the taxes and tithes, and give Engand a cheap government, & free church and full suffrage, to what will it amount, so far as the masses are concerned - Precisely to more beer and consequences of beer! I may be mistaken; truly I have found warm and zealous promoters of thorough temperance. but they seem to be regarded as the maddest of fanatics. Nine men out of ten among the laboring classes, so far as I have been able to observe, and I have been quite inquisitive, have not the slightest barrier between themselves and stupidity and drunkenness, but their inability to get enough beer. It is their undoubted creed that beer is a blessing, and one of their deepest sorrows hat their wages will not allow them to jet plenty of it, with a drop or two of gin y way of luxury. Look at poor chartism befogged in beer! fighting as often as any way against itself, and selling to its worst enemies even the little suffrage it commands! If the masses of England could be roused to enter upon the career so gloriously begun by those of Ireland, they would soon take a position which would settle many of the knottiest questions of politics, and the crafts of the priest and the king would be swept away like the meshes of the spider. The state and the church would then take their places as servants of the people - not masters. Yet with all this, which to an American mind is so evident, staring them in the face, there are plenty of sincere philanthropists here, enemies of slavery, of corn laws, of church tyranny, of a vampire aristocracy, who will pity you for not drinking wine with them! who will raise the cup of Circe to their own lips, and then lament the oppression and degradation of England's poor! Put the brewers of England in the same condition with her feudal castles and monasteries, and her poor will soon take care of other vampyres.

There is one sign of the times, however, which is hopeful. The discovery in Germany of the wonderful sanatory properties of cold water, is making a deep impression upon the higher and middle classes here. The doctors are not able to laugh it down. After spending fortunes on physicians in vain, invalids go to Grafenburg and are healed. A child with the scarlet fever is wrapped in a wet sheet and gets well. Men rummage their libraries and find that just such cures have been performed at Malvern a hundred years ago, and the water when analiyzed is the purest possible. And they find cases in which patients with raging fever and delirium have broken loose from their nurses and jumped into the Thames or some horsepond, and their madness has proved better than the wisdom of the doctors. Many are coming to the conclusion that disease is chiefly some mysterious modification of that great poison, diet, with which we are sent into this world to battle, and this redounds greatly to the advantage of pure water. Setting poisons to catch poisons is growing into disrepute with these people, and consequently they may by and by be expected to see the absurdity of sending one dram of alcohol into the stomach to cure the disease made by its predecessor. The multitude of experiments which have now put the matter fairly to the test, seem to demonstrate that coldness combined with pure water, is the best means that has ever been tried to quench human inflammation, and when properly applied will cure any patient who has strength to be cured in any way. This being true, the occupation - I do not say of the doctors, for it will require science and wisdom to apply cold water - but of the druggists - of all medical poison manufacturers, is gone. And shall not alcohol be included? From the hold this subject has taken of the most intelligent here, I look for a great pathological reform, which I think cannot fail to set the principle of total abstinence upon a more commanding foundation than it has hitherto occupied. If you can get the wine out of the heads of the philanthropic of the higher class, then will they see clearly the effects of beer upon the lower. Both once delivered the nation would not be long in discovering the folly of working itself to death to support a class of grand and idle hereditary pickpockets, nor long in devising means of relief, See if the new vision bestowed upon the Irish people does not work out such results. England wants an oculist like Father Mathew.