e water that height. Another had
on it, "243 feet. Beat that!" the Americans being very laconic in all
their public communications. The regular plan on which most of the
American towns are built and the division into wards, give great
facilities for showing where a fire takes place; balls are shown from
the top of a high tower to direct the engines where to go, the number of
balls pointing out the ward where the fire exists.

Another grand invention, which we found here as well as everywhere else,
is their sewing machine. These sewing machines wearied us very much when
we landed at New York, for they seemed to be the one idea of the whole
country; and I am afraid we formed some secret intentions to have
nothing to do with them. I had seen them in a shop window in the City,
in London, but knowing nothing of their merits, almost settled in my own
mind they had none. At last I found how blind I had been, and what
wonderful machines they are. There are numbers of them of various
degrees of excellence. They are so rapid in their work, that if a dress
without flounces is tacked together, it can be made easily by the
machine in a morning: a lady here showed me how the machine is used; she
told me it is so fascinating that she should like to sit at it all day.
She works for her family, consisting of a husband and nine sons, and
takes the greatest pleasure in making all their under clothing; and
working as she does, not very constantly, she can easily do as much as
six sempstresses, while the machine, constantly worked, could do as much
as twelve. The work is most true and beautiful and rapid, and the
machine must be an invaluable aid where there is a large family. It is
much used also by tailors and shoemakers, for it can be used with all
qualities of materials, whether fine or thick. The price of one is from
15_l._ to 25_l._ It requires a little practice to work at it, but most
American ladies who have large families possess one, and dressmakers use
them a great deal.

_November 4th._--To return to this town of mud and mire, we have been
nearly up to our knees in both to-day, and went on board one of the
large steamers, but found it was not nearly so grandly fitted up as the
one in which we went from New York to Newport. There is an enormous
fleet of steamers here, but the Mississippi still looked most dingy,
muddy, and melancholy. We were given tickets this evening, to hear a
recitation by a poet named Saxe, of a poem of his