Page:Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women - autobiographical sketches (IA b28145227).pdf/115



presented a most curious spectacle, for it was market day, and the workmen from all the country round, having received their wages, were come in with their wives and children to make their weekly purchases. The streets were crammed with people, and our carriage made its way through a living mass that hardly opened to let it through. I examined the people, as I have constantly done since I entered the country, with great curiosity. I could not see one handsome face in the whole multitude—indeed, the English appear to me a very common-looking people—but neither was I struck by the misery I expected to see. In Liverpool I had peered into all the back alleys and odd corners I could find; I have done the same in Dudley. There is great cleanliness observed everywhere, that compares most favourably with American cities, and the inhabitants of those districts, though miserable, of course, according to a true standard of human life, were neither more numerous nor more wretched than I have been accustomed to see in America. I have very rarely seen a beggar, and in no instance one that has particularly excited my compassion. This district is one of the most thickly peopled in England, and certainly presents an average view of the mining districts, and the poor labourers seem far more comfortable and intelligent than I had supposed. The manufacturing districts, I have no doubt, would present a different spectacle. I have had no opportunity of judging them. I have just learned to my great satisfaction that Mr. Charles Plevins, an old friend of my cousin, is going to London for a few days, and will escort me there and remain during my stay. I can hardly tell you what a relief this is, for the idea of going to that great city an entire stranger, and wandering about it utterly alone, was a most desolate, oppressive thought, and entirely destroyed all the pleasure of the anticipation,