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11 travel Letter no.: Visiting robert Owen July 6, 1856 London, England In this second letter from abroad, Rose speaks of her visit with Robert Owen and describes his life of mental, physical, and political activity despite his advanced age of eighty-six. She reports that his efforts to convince her of his newfound embrace of spiritualism, and hers to convince him out of it, are equally futile. Yet there is a hint of fun in the contest. This would be their last visit, a fact that, in hindsight, lends poignancy to their continued comradeship and mutual fondness and respect, despite their differences. Rose goes on to describe her tour of London with William to such sites as the (then new) Tussaud Wax Museum, the British Museum, and the tunnels under the Thames. As a reformer, Rose is ever observant of social factors —the extremes of poverty and wealth, the British class system, and exclusion of women from government. Women were barred even from observation of Parliamentary debates—a challenge Rose deals with by simply walking in. This letter appeared in the Boston Investigator on August 6, 1856. n London, Stanhope Street, Park Place, Regent’s Park, (Eng.) July 6, 1856 Mr. Editor:—In my former letter, I spoke of our sea voyage with all the little disagreeables connected with it. In this, I promised to say something about the external and internal of this mighty metropolis. But what can I say in the space of a letter on a subject so vast, so immense, so teeming with glory and degradation, splendor and wretchedness, the highest cultivation and refinement, and the almost barbarian ignorance and rudeness, the immense wealth with all its pride, and the lowest depth of poverty with all its abjectness, and of the tyranny, oppression, apathy, indifference , and subservience and submission which the terrible misrule of such extremes must naturally engender? It would require more than the graphic pen of a “Trollope” to do it justice. I must therefore confine myself to a simple statement of our doings here. After our arrival, and as soon as we got comfortably settled down for a few weeks, we went to Seven Oaks, 27 miles from London, to see our dear and venerable friend, Robert Owen. We found him in excellent health and spirits. He writes, walks, and rides every day, and at intervals 1 ernestIne l.rose between his physical and mental exercise, he amuses himself with feeding the chickens which come at his call. He lives in a delightful place, and has most beautiful gardens and parks to walk in. The lady he boards with is very much attached to him, and exceedingly kind. She usually takes him out riding and accompanies him in his walks. He regretted that we had not come to London on the 14th of May, his 86th birth-day, on which he had a large meeting and made a long speech. In conversation, he exclaimed with much energy, “Since I saw you, nine years ago, I have not spent an hour without laboring for the cause of humanity.” On Spiritualism he is as earnest and enthusiastic as his truthful and warm nature has ever been on any subject that he believed to be good and true. It is needless to say, that his endeavors to convince me into it, and mine to convince him out of it, met with equal success. He is very remarkable for his age; still we could see quite a change in him. He does not come to London often now, for it is too fatiguing to him. We hope to have the pleasure of seeing him on our return before we leave for home. . . . . . . . . The Parliament House is famous for its architectural beauty. It abounds in carvings both in the inside and out. By a permit from the Lord Chancellor, visitors of both sexes are admitted into the House of Lords when not in session, perhaps at all times to the House of Commons . Men are admitted to the debates if they bring a permit from a member, but women are not admitted unless a permit is obtained through a member from the Sergeant-at-Arms, which has to be applied for in writing, and after the lapse of ten or fourteen days a permit may or may not be obtained. The gallery for ladies is so small that hardly ten persons can stand there. It is enclosed in the front by a close metal wire-work, like...

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