A mug-wump! I should like to ask you, sir—not as Editor, not even as English gentleman, but simply as vertebrate animal—what you would do if a stranger were all of a sudden to call your intimate friends “mug-wumps,” not obscurely hinting that you yourself laboured under whatever imputation that term may convey? I don’t know what the effect might have been in my own case, but that the story of O’Connell, as a boy, shutting up the voluble old Dublin applewoman by calling her a “parallelopiped,” rushed into my head, and set me off laughing. I haven’t been able to learn more of the etymology of the word than that it is said over here to have been first used in a sermon (?) by Mr. Ward Beecher, and now denotes “bolters” or “scratchers,” as they were called last autumn, or in other words, the Independents, who broke away from the party machine of Republicanism and carried Cleveland. More power to the “mug-wump’s” elbow, say I; and I only wish we may catch the “mugwumps,” “mug-wumpism,” or whatever the name for the disease may be, in England before long. One of the groups on the deck of the liner, amongst whom I first heard the phrase, was a good specimen of the machine-politician, a democrat of the Tammany Hall type. “You bet” I stuck to him till I got at his candid account of the campaign of last autumn, most interesting to me, but I fear not so to the general English reader, so I will only give you his concluding sentence:—“Well,” with a long suck at the big cigar he was half-eating, half-smoking, “I tell you it was about the thinnest ice you ever saw before we were over,—but, I got to land!” From what I heard on board and since, I believe the President is doing splendidly; witness his peremptory order for the great ranche-men to clear out of the Reserves which they had leased from the Indians, and fenced to the extent of some millions of acres; the righteousness of which presidential action is proved (were proof needed) by the threatened resistance of General B. Butler, one of the largest lessees. I can see too clearly looming up a determined opposition to the President’s Civil Service reform from politicians of both parties, mainly on the ground that he is “establishing a class” in these U.S.—a policy which “the Fathers” abhorred and guarded against, and which their only legitimate heirs, the machine politicians, will fight to the death. You may gauge the worth of this opposition by contrasting their two principal arguments—(1) Nine-tenths of the work of the Departments (Post Office, Customs, etc.) can be learnt just as well in three months as in ten years; and (2) the other tenth, requiring skilled and experienced officers, has never been interfered with by either side. But, if argument two is sound, cadit quostio, as there is ex hypothesi already a permanent class of civil servants, I conclude that were I an American I would accept “mug-wump” as a title of honour instead of resenting it, and help to get up a “Mug-wump” club in every great city.

We had a splendid crossing, deck crowded all the way, and the company gloriously cosmopolitan and communicative during the short intervals between the orthodox four full meals a day. There is surely no place in the world where that universal instinct, the desire to get behind the scenes of one’s neighbours’ lives, is so easily and abundantly gratified. Here is one of my rather odd discoveries. On reaching the deck, after my bath on the first morning, for the tramp before breakfast, I was joined by a fine specimen of an old Yorkshireman. It seems we had met years ago, at some political or social gathering, and as he looked in superb health and fit to fight for his life, I congratulated. Yes, he said, it was all owing to his having discovered how to pass his holiday. He used to go to some northern seaside place, one as bad as the other, for “whenever the wind blew on shore you might as well be living in a sewer.” So he saved enough one year to buy a return-ticket on a Cunard liner, calculating that whatever way the wind blew he must be getting sea-air all the time. He has done it every year since, having found that besides sea-air he gets better food and company than he could ever command at home. My next “find” was a pleasant soldierly-looking man who called to me from the upper deck to come up and see a sword-fish chasing a whale. Alas! I arrived too late. The uncivil brutes had both disappeared by the time I got up; but I was much consoled by the talk which ensued with my new acquaintance. He was a Lieutenant of Marines in the Admiral’s flag-ship off Palermo in King Bomba’s last days, and was sent ashore to arrest and bring on board all sailors found with the Garibaldini. He seems to have found it necessary to be present himself at the battle of Metazzo (I think that was the name) and at the storming of the town afterwards, in which the Garibaldini suffered severely. The dead were all laid out before the gate after the town was taken, and he counted no less than seventy bluejackets amongst them! They used to drop over the sides of the ships and swim ashore, or smuggle themselves into the bum-boats which came off to the fleet with provisions. No wonder that we have been popular in Italy ever since.

Then, attracted by a crowd on the fore part of the deck, roped off to divide steerage from saloon passengers, I became one of a motley group assisting at a sort of moral “free-and-easy,” got up for the 300 steerage folk by two ecclesiastics, whom I took at first for Romish priests from their costume. I found I was mistaken, and that they were the Principal and a Brother of “the Fraternity of the Iron Cross,” an order of the American Episcopal Church, which, it seems, has taken root in several of the large cities. The Brethren are vowed to “poverty, purity, and temperance” (or obedience, I am not sure which); and these two were crossing in the steerage to comfort and help the poor folk there—no pleasant task, even in so airy a ship and such fine weather. One can imagine what power this kind of fellowship must give the Iron Cross Brethren with their rather sad fellow-passengers, to whom they could say—one of them, indeed, did say it—“We are just as poor as the poorest of you, for we own no property of any kind, and never can own any till our deaths.” This Brother (a strapping young fellow of twenty-five, who I found had been an athlete at Oxford) waxed eloquent to them on his experiences in Philadelphia, especially on the working-men Brethren there. One of these, a big, rough chap, with a badly broken nose, he had rather looked askance at, first, till he found that the broken nose had been earned in a rough-and-tumble fight with a fellow who was ill-using a woman. Now they were the closest friends, and he looked on the broken nose as more honourable than the Victoria Cross, and hoped none of the men there would fail to go in for that decoration if they ever got the same chance.

In melancholy contrast to the Iron Cross Brethren were two other diligent workers in quite another kind of business. They haunted the smoking-room from breakfast till “lights out,” officious to help to arrange the daily sweepstakes on the ship’s run; gloating over, and piling caressingly as they rattled down on the table, the dollars and half-crowns; always on the watch and ready to take a hand at cards, just to accommodate gents with whom time hung heavily. Bagmen, they were said to be; but I doubt if they travel for any industry except plucking pigeons on their own account—unmistakable Jews of a low type, who never looked any man in the face:—

In their eyes that stealthy gleam,

Was not learned of sky or stream,

But it has the hard, cold glint

Of new dollars from the mint.

Their industry was pursued cautiously, as the fine old captain is known to hold strong views about gambling, and there was less on this ship than any other I have crossed on. No baccarat-table going all day, with excited youngsters punting their silver (gold, too, now and then) over the shoulders of the players,—only a quiet hand at euchre or poker at a corner table, in the afternoon and after dinner; but even with such straitened opportunities, youngsters may be plucked to a fairly satisfactory figure. From £10 to £20 was often at stake on one deal at poker, and, I was told, not seldom much higher sums. I saw myself one mere boy inveigled into blind-hookey for a minute or two while the poker party was gathering. He won the first cut; and two minutes later I saw “Iscariot Ingots, Esq., that highly respectable man,” looking abstractedly across the room, and dreamily gathering up a large handful of silver which the boy rattled down as he flung off to take his seat at the poker-table; and so on, and so on.

It occurs to one to ask, not without some indignation, why this sort of thing is allowed on these Atlantic steamers. My own observation confirms the general belief that professionals cross on nearly every boat; and, on every boat, there are youngsters fresh from school or college, out of leading-strings for the first time, and with considerable sums in their pockets. It is a bad scandal, and might be stopped with the greatest ease. Prohibit all cards, except whist for small points in the smoking-room; and let it be the purser’s or some other officer’s duty to see the rule enforced. As things stand, I do not know of a more dangerous place for youngsters—American or English—than an Atlantic steamer.

One never gets past Sandy Hook, I think, without some new sensation. This time, for me, it was the harbour buoys, each of which carried a brilliant electric lamp. They are lighted from the shore!