At the time of my visit the passengers were all on deck-all but seven. These were

a wondering white kitten, two canaries in a cage in the steerage, three thrushes in a large wicker cage forward, and in one of the berths a lusty infant, six weeks old, laughing and crowing and evidently in a state of profound satisfaction with the world as far as he had yet seen it.

CHAPTER II.

NEW YORK CITY.

Ir is a pity that the first consideration forced upon the attention of the foreign visitor on landing at New York is the state of the roads. As far as I know, no civilized town-certainly no capital city-has thoroughfares in such a condition as those which disgrace New York. It is urged in extenuation that the tram-cars make good roads impossible, and that, as everybody travels by cars, the state of the roads outside the rails does not much matter. But neither of these assertions will bear consideration. New York is not the only city in the world that has trams. We have them in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and most English towns. Yet the roads are kept in good condition. The tram lines in New York would of themselves make a British vestryman ́stare. In London the lines are laid with the flange on one side level with the

road, and the grove as narrow as possible, with the object of preventing wheels of cabs and carriages from locking. Here, in the centre of mechanical activity and ingenuity, are found the old open rails of the time of George Francis Train, pitfalls for the unwary hackney coaches, traps for the hapless omnibuses.

Outside the rails the roadway is in a pitiable condition. To drive from the White Star Wharf to the Windsor Hotel is a transit

more perilous than a voyage across the Atlantic. In respect of the condition of the roads there is not much to choose between up town and down town. Fifth Avenue is admittedly the principal street in New York. Yet I can see out of the window at which I write-immediately in front of the Windsor Hotel, within a stone's throw of the Vanderbilt mansion, in the middle of the thoroughfare along which the wealth and fashion of New York daily drive-a hole in the roadway two feet long, a foot broad, and from three to four inches in depth. Skibbereen does not shine in the matter of roadways; but if opposite the hotel in Main Street there were a hole of this kind, the population would turn out in a body and denounce the Saxon Government.

The whole question of street locomotion in

New York is curious and interesting. The Elevated Railroad, familiar at least by name to all Englishmen, offers the fullest facilities for getting about a city of the peculiar construction of New York. It seems at first blush a monstrous proposition that a company of private speculators should seize upon the streets of a capital, run up iron posts, sling girders across, and run a railway along the level of the first-floor windows. But the streets of New York are so bad that there is a not unnatural feeling on the part of the inhabitants that they could not be made worse. Now the railway is made and is in working order it is gratefully accepted as one of the institutions of the city. The trains run frequently to all places where men most congregate. The carriages are comfortable and airy, the roadway, benefiting by the spring of the girders, is exceptionally easy, and the price of a journey, whether long or short, is fivepence.

Whilst the trains run overhead the cars run below at half-price; and morn, noon, and night, in rain or sunshine, both are crowded. A New Yorker rarely walks. A proposal that, having a visit to pay to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, I should walk, nearly had serious consequences to the hall porter at the Windsor.

"I guess it's

"Why," he said, gasping, "I twenty blocks off!"

He could not have been more taken aback if I had proposed to accompany Sergeant Bates, who having, utterly regardless of danger, carried the American flag through England, is now about to walk through the United States with the object, as he explains, of consolidating North and South, and stamping out the last embers of an ancient feud.

Across the river, in New Jersey, there are means of locomotion more startling to the insular mind than the Elevated Railroad. Travelling to South Orange, the train winds its way at full speed through the main streets of whatever towns or villages lie in its route. From time to time there are outbursts of indignation in England because of some accident at a level crossing. Here is a level crossing miles in length, with an occasional signalman to wave the alarm where the thoroughfares bisect the track. The company think they have done enough if they adapt the ordinary cow-catcher to the exigencies of the human population, and at regular intervals of space, entreat infants in arms to "Look out for the Locomotive." In addition to these precautions the engine tolls a sepulchral bell, which just after another man or