Next morning I went with Dr. Reuben D. Mussey, a New Englander, to see the Medical College of Ohio.  Dr. Mussey is the Professor of Surgery and Dean of the Faculty, and is highly esteemed for his professional skill and general character.  He and his son, who was my guide on the Sunday, very kindly showed and explained to me everything of interest in the institution.  The cabinet belonging to the anatomical department is supplied with all the materials necessary for acquiring a minute and perfect knowledge of the human frame.  These consist of detached bones, of wired natural skeletons, and of dried preparations to exhibit the muscles, bloodvessels, nerves, &c.  The cabinet of comparative anatomy is supposed to be more extensively supplied than any other in the United States.  Besides perfect skeletons of American and foreign birds and other animals, there is an immense number of detached crania, from the elephant and hippopotamus down to the minuter orders.  The cabinet in the surgical department has been formed at great expense, chiefly by Dr. Mussey himself, during the labour of more than forty years.  It contains a large number of rare specimens,—­600 specimens of diseased bones alone.  Other departments are equally well furnished.  The Faculty is composed of six Professorships,—­Surgery, Anatomy and Physiology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, Materia Medica, Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, and the Theory and Practice of Medicine.  The fees of tuition are only 15 dollars, or 3 guineas, to each professor, making an aggregate of 90 dollars.  There were 190 students.  It will probably be admitted that this institution, formed in a new country, has arrived at an astonishing degree of vigour and maturity.  It is only one of many instances in which the Americans are before us in the facilities afforded for professional education.

In the afternoon my wife and myself went to take tea with the coloured minister.  His dwelling, though small and humble, was neat and clean.  With his intelligence and general information we were quite delighted.  He spoke with feeling of the gross insults to which the coloured people, even in this free State, are exposed.  When they travel by railway, though they pay the same fare as other people, they are generally put in the luggage-van!  He had himself, when on board of steam-boats, often been sent to the “pantry” to eat his food.  Nor will the white people employ them but in the most menial offices; so that it is nearly impossible for them to rise to affluence and horse-and-gig respectability.  The consequence is that they are deeply and justly disaffected towards the American people and the American laws.  They clearly understand that England is their friend.  For one month all the free coloured people wore crape as mourning for Thomas Clarkson.

LETTER XX.

Stay at Cincinnati (continued)—­The New Roman Catholic Cathedral—­The Rev. C. B. Boynton and Congregationalism—­“The Herald of a New Era”—­American Nationality.