March 1858
Charles Mackay (1812–1889), much admired in his own day, thought of himself as a poet. Although not formally educated, he was proficient in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, as well as being a self-taught authority on Celtic—he was a native Scot—and a prolific writer in a variety of fields. For example, by thirty, he had published a novel, three volumes of essays, three volumes of poetry, a history of London, a guide to the River Thames, and many popular songs. His creative work was, however, mediocre, though popular. Politically, “the Poet of the People,” was a Liberal, contributing to and editing several Scottish and English Liberal periodicals in which he spoke for the working man, advocating democracy, equality, self-help, and temperance. He was a Celtic nationalist, of sorts, writing on the Celtic language in both English and French.
In 1857 and 1858, Mackay toured the United States and Canada lecturing on “Songs National, Historical, and Popular,” as well as meeting with national figures, including contemporary luminaries such as Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, and Prescott.
Mackay returned to the United States from early 1862 to late 1865 to serve as the New York correspondent for the London Times. He associated with important people, met Lincoln—and later, at the end of the decade, escorted Jefferson Davis on a tour of the Scottish highlands.
Charles Mackay, Life and Liberty in America: or, Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857–8, (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1859), 185–186.
Montgomery is capital of the State of Alabama, and carries on a considerable business in the forwarding of cotton and other produce to Mobile. Its population is under 10,000. It offers nothing to detain the traveler, and has nothing remarkable about it except the badness of its principal hotel. Among the numerous eccentricities of this establishment may be mentioned the fact that it contains no bells in its rooms. By this economy the traveler is compelled, if he want any thing, to go to the top of the stairs and use his lungs, or, if that be disagreeable or unavailing, to help himself, which is, perhaps, his most advisable mode of getting out of the difficulty. Another peculiarity of this remarkable hostelry is (or was) that nothing is (or was) to be had on a Sunday evening after six o’clock. Having dined by compulsion of the custom of the place at one o’clock, I sought out a negro waiter about nine o’clock, and asked for some refreshment. There was nothing to be had—no tea, no milk, no meat, not even a crust of bread. “Is the bar open?” I inquired, with a faint hope that that department might prove more hospitable, and afford a hungry traveler a “cracker” (the American name for a biscuit, and for a Southern rustic) and a glass of beer or wine. The hope was vain; the bar-keeper had shut up at six o’clock. It was a case of starvation in a land of plenty; and, to make the matter more provoking, it was starvation charged in the bill at the rate of two dollars and a half per diem. I made a friend of the negro, however, and he borrowed a crust of bread for me out of doors somewhere, and managed to procure me a lump or two of sugar; a worthy Scotchman at Mobile had, when I left that city, filled me a pocket-flask with genuine
from the “Old Country;” and, with these abundant resources, and a tea-kettle, I was enabled to be independent of the landlord of the bell-less, comfortless, foodless hotel of Montgomery, Alabama.