I was amused with a story told me by an American gentleman: a steamboat caught fire on the Mississippi, and the passengers had to jump overboard and save themselves by swimming. One of those reckless characters, a gambler, who, was on board, having apparently a very good idea of his own merits, went aft, and before he leapt overboard, cried out, "Now, gallows, claim your own!"
The attention of the American legislature has at length been directed to the want of security in steam navigation; and in July, 1838, an act was passed to provide for the better security of the passengers. Many of the clauses are judicious, especially as far as the inspecting of them is regulated; but that of iron chains or rods for tiller ropes is not practicable on a winding river, and will be the occasion of many disasters. Had they ordered the boats to be provided with iron chains or rods, to be used as preventive wheel-ropes, it would have answered the purpose. In case of fire they could easily be hooked on; but to steer with them in tide-ways and rapid turns is almost impossible. The last clause, No. 13, (page 170, Report) is too harsh, as a flue may collapse at any time, without any want of care or skill on the part of the builders or those on board.
It is to be hoped that some good effects will be produced by this act of the legislature. At present, it certainly is more dangerous to travel one week in America than to cross the Atlantic a dozen times. The number of lives lost in one year by accidents in steam boats, rail-roads, and coaches, was estimated, in a periodical which I read in America, at _one thousand seven hundred and fifty_.
To one who has been accustomed to the extortion of the inns and hotels in England, and the old continent, nothing at first is more remarkable than to find that there are more remains of the former American purity of manners and primitive simplicity to be observed in their establishments for the entertainment of man and horse, than in any portion of public or private life. Such is the case, and the causes of the anomaly are to be explained.
I presume that the origin of hotels and inns has been much the same in all countries. At first the solitary traveller is received, welcomed, and hospitably entertained; but, as the wayfarers multiply, what was at first a pleasure becomes a tax. For instance, let us take Western Virginia, through which the first irruption to the Far West may be said to have taken place. At first every one was received and accommodated by those who had settled there; but as this gradually became inconvenient, not only from interfering with their domestic privacy, but from their not being prepared to meet the wants of the travellers, the inhabitants of any small settlement met together and agreed upon one of them keeping the house of reception; this was not done with a view of profit, the travellers being only charged the actual value of the articles consumed. Such is still the case in many places in the Far West; a friend of mine told me that he put up at the house of a widow woman; he supped, slept, had his breakfast, and his horse was also well supplied. When he was leaving, he inquired what he had to pay, the woman replied--, "Well, if I don't charge something, I suppose you will be affronted. Give me a shilling;" a sum not sufficient to pay for the horse's corn.