THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

 

Letters from Europe.

 

BY D. W. BARTLETT.

 

Art Sra, Juty, 1850.

HEN a man writes a book, he
generally has a preface; and
now, young readers of the Cas-

inzT, as I am commencing a

series of letters to you, 1 want to say a
word or two about myself, and what I
mean to do. I am young, myself, and
with a young cousin of mine, am crossing
the Atlantic Ocean, on purpose to see and
tell other folks all about what I see. Be-
ing half a boy myself, I shall talk like a
boy; and when I see anything which
pleases me, or excites my curiosity, I shall
tell you of it, as I would my young brother
at home in the chimney-corner, on a win-
ter’s night. I hope you will not get dull
over what I write, for I shall not tell you
of anything which I don’t look at with
my own eyes, so you may know it is true.
When we started away from New York,

I was in very good spirits, and so were we
all; ‘but in a few hours all of us were very
sea-sick. A man in New York, whois a
friend of our captain, put his little boy,
who is only six years old, under the cap-
tain’s care, to make a sailor of him. He
did not cry at all, when he bade his father
“ good-bye,” though I saw the tears falling
down the father’s cheeks, I suppose he
did not really think he was going so far
away. But when the night came on,
when the sun had gone down behind the
trees, he began to think of home, and the
supper at his father’s table, and I found
him on the deck of the ship, crying pretty
hard. I asked him what was the matter,
and he said, “I want-to see my father.”
The next day he was very sea-sick, but

soon got over it, and is now quite at
home.

We have a large number of passengers,
and many are people who were born in
Scotland, or Ireland, or England, and _all
returning to see their fathers and mothers,
or brothers and sisters. Among them,
there are some curious persons. One man
has come all the way from Illinois, where
he has a log-cabin and a small farm, and
he is going to see his friends in Ireland.
He has got a tame raccoon with him, and
half the time he carries it in his bosom,
under his thick, double-breasted vest. One
is a large, heavy man, rather ignorant, but
quite shrewd, whom we all call Judge.
These men are all among the steerage
passengers—that is, they have a berth to
sleep in, but do not come into the cabin,
and they furnish their own provisions and
cook them. This large man, who is called
Judge, got the name from being appointed
judge one day to decide upon a case of
theft. One of the steerage passengers
cheated a poor woman out of some money,
and the captain told the passengers to
choose six men for a jury, and one for a
judge, and try him. So they did, and
found him “guilty.” And what do you
suppose the verdict was? It was this—
“that he pay back to the poor woman the
money, or if he refused, be put under the
pump, and cold water be pumped upon
him, once an hour, until he paid back the
money.” This old fellow who was judge,
got quite proud of his name; but I am
sorry to tell you the sequel. The very
next day he got drunk with poisonous
liquor, and whipped his brother very bad-