When this book was first published, I was given to
understand, by some authorities, that the Watertoast
Association and eloquence were beyond all bounds of
belief. Therefore I record the fact that all that
portion of Martin Chuzzlewit’s experiences is
a literal paraphrase of some reports of public proceedings
in the United States (especially of the proceedings
of a certain Brandywine Association), which were printed
in the Times Newspaper in June and July, 1843—at
about the time when I was engaged in writing those
parts of the book; and which remain on the file of
the Times Newspaper, of course.
In all my writings, I hope I have taken every available
opportunity of showing the want of sanitary improvements
in the neglected dwellings of the poor. Mrs Sarah
Gamp was, four-and-twenty years ago, a fair representation
of the hired attendant on the poor in sickness.
The hospitals of London were, in many respects, noble
Institutions; in others, very defective. I think
it not the least among the instances of their mismanagement,
that Mrs Betsey Prig was a fair specimen of a Hospital
Nurse; and that the Hospitals, with their means and
funds, should have left it to private humanity and
enterprise, to enter on an attempt to improve that
class of persons—since, greatly improved
through the agency of good women.
POSTSCRIPT
At a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th
of April, 1868, in the city of New York, by two hundred
representatives of the Press of the United States
of America, I made the following observations, among
others:—
“So much of my voice has lately been heard in
the land, that I might have been contented with troubling
you no further from my present standing-point, were
it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself,
not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever
and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense
of my second reception in America, and to bear my
honest testimony to the national generosity and magnanimity.
Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the
amazing changes I have seen around me on every side—changes
moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land
subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new
cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost
out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities
of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement
no advancement can take place anywhere. Nor am
I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty
years there have been no changes in me, and that I
had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to
correct when I was here first. And this brings
me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed
in the United States last November, observed a strict
silence, though sometimes tempted to break it, but
in reference to which I will, with your good leave,
take you into my confidence now. Even the Press,
being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed,
Copyrights
Martin Chuzzlewit from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
