not soon be forgotten; as it
showed more plainly than I had before an opportunity of observing, the
state to which the laboring classes of England are reduced. Hearing
singing in the street, under my window, one morning, I looked out and
saw a body of men, apparently of the lower class, but decent and sober
looking, who were singing in a rude and plaintive strain some ballad,
the purport of which I could not understand. On making inquiry, I
discovered it was part of a body of miners, who, about eighteen weeks
before, in consequence of not being able to support their families with
the small pittance allowed them, had "struck" for higher wages. This
their employers refused to give them, and sent to Wales, where they
obtained workmen at the former price. The houses these laborers had
occupied were all taken from them, and for eighteen weeks they had no
other means of subsistence than the casual charity given them for
singing the story of their wrongs. It made my blood boil to bear those
tones, wrung from the heart of poverty by the hand of tyranny. The
ignorance, permitted by the government, causes an unheard amount of
misery and degradation. We heard afterwards in the streets, another
company who played on musical instruments. Beneath the proud swell of
England's martial airs, there sounded to my ears a tone whose gathering
murmur will make itself heard ere long by the dull cars of Power.

At last at the appointed time, we found ourselves on board the "London
Merchant," in the muddy Tyne, waiting for the tide to rise high enough
to permit us to descend the river. There is great competition among the
steamboats this summer, and the price of passage to London is reduced to
five and ten shillings. The second cabin, however, is a place of
tolerable comfort, and as the steward had promised to keep berths for
us, we engaged passage. Following the windings of the narrow river, we
passed Sunderland and Tynemouth, where it expands into the German Ocean.
The water was barely stirred by a gentle wind, and little resembled the
stormy sea I expected to find it. We glided over the smooth surface,
watching the blue line of the distant shore till dark, when I went below
expecting to enjoy a few hours' oblivion. But the faithless steward had
given up the promised berth to another, and it was only with difficulty
that I secured a seat by the cabin table, where I dozed half the night
with my head on my arms. It grew at last too close and wea