Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
86 LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
" I stopped but a little while in London, the
greatest city, with the greatest population in the
world, a population which is just double what it
was forty-two years ago. It was two and a half
millions then; it is five millions now. I was
there long enough to revisit St. Paul's, the National
Gallery, the British Museum, Westminster
Abbey, the Tower, Madam Tausaud's, and to
visit Buffalo Bill's show,—for this is the latest
addition to London life,—and you would be astonished
to see the hundreds of thousands that flock
day after day to see this wonder of the Wild
West.
" If any American wants to have a vivid impression
of human progress, and to shudder at the
cruelty and barbarism of England a few centuries
ago, he has only to go to the Tower of London,
and look upon the terrible things he will see there
—torture and death are written all over that
ancient prison. But I must not stop here with
England, otherwise I shall hardly reach in my
narrative any one of the other great counties it
was my good fortune to visit during my stay
abroad. Even as the matter now stands, I must
postpone to another occasion remarks upon other
features of my tour. On leaving London we
went directly to Paris and spent several weeks
there. We hardly felt ourselves in a strange land
and among strangers till we reached this wonder-