the acquaintance of three of the greatest men in the United States—­Calhoun, Webster, and Clay—­Calhoun of Carolina, the impassioned Southerner; Webster, the eloquent representative of New England Puritanism; and Clay of Kentucky, with his angular face and powerful frame, and a curious mixture of extreme gentleness and energy in his manner and ways—­the very type of the Western population, the advance-guard of civilization.  I was present at several sittings of the Senate, and heard these gentlemen speak with an authority which seemed to fascinate their auditors.  Washington as a city, did not interest me at all—­bits of town, scattered about in an ocean of dust, which later on I knew as an ocean of mud; hotels crowded with

[Illustration with caption:  southern scout]

canvassers, all devouring so hurriedly at table d’hote time, that the first arrivals were rising from table when the last ones were sitting down, and all this amidst a noise of jaws that reminded me of the dogs being fed in a kennel; the whole population, whether politicians or canvassers, chewing and spitting everywhere; little society or none at all, save that formed by the foreign diplomats, most of them clever men, but bored by their isolation, and consequently disposed to see everything around them with unfavouring eyes.  One of the chief members of this society at the time of my sojourn was the British Minister, Mr. Fox, a diplomatist of the old school, past master in forms, and proprieties, and social refinements—­everything that the English sum up in the word “proper.”  I was told that one day as he was leaning against the chimney-piece in a drawing-room where dancing was going on, in deep conversation with I know not what other personage, an American couple came and stood just in front of him in a country-dance.  Soon the young man began to show signs of anxiety; his voice grew thick, his cheeks swelled alternately, and he cast anxious glances at the chimney-piece.  At last he could hold on no longer, and with the most admirable precision, he shot all the juice of his quid into the fireplace just between Mr. Fox and his interlocutor.  “Fine shot, sir!” the old diplomat contented himself with saying, with a bow.  It may have been that little incidents of this kind cast a chill on international relations!

Philadelphia delighted me.  It is a cheerful town, with streets planted with fine trees.  The prison there, the first built on the solitary system, occupied me for a whole day.  I went over every corner of it, in the company of the directors, and of any other officials who could inform me on the subject.  It will be known to my readers that the system in this prison, at the time of which I write, was that of absolute seclusion in cells—­complete isolation in fact—­during the whole term of sentence.  Soon afterwards I visited Auburn Prison, in New York State, where the condemned person was subjected to a different regime,—­cells at night, but work in common, though in silence, during