UNITED STATES. 153 
gentleman I was the bearer of an introduction from an eminent 
English botanist ; which was met, on his part, and that of a little 
knot of literary and scientific friends, his colleagues, by the free 
and unfeigned extension of the same kindness and courtesy towards 
myself, which every Englishman, who comes duly commended 
to their good services, is certain of receiving from Americans in every 
section of their vast territory. 
These “ accommodation trains " form a branch of railway econo- 
my peculiar to America, and though intended to meet an exigency 
in that country which does not exist in our own, arising from the 
generally bad state of the high-road, will, in all likelihood, eventually 
become amongst ourselves the medium of communication betwixt 
places at moderate distances apart, as this mode of travelling gains 
more in popular estimation than it does at present. With a majority 
of the English public, the abandonment of our magnificent highways 
by the main streams of commercial and private intercourse, and the 
ascendency of the locomotive with its gigantic powers of traction 
over the well-appointed, light post-coach of former days, and its 
splendid team of thorough-bred cattle, is still a topic of never-ending 
lamentation and regret, affording free scope to the suggestions of 
ignorance, prejudice, and timidity against railroads, which we 
must not expect to have silenced, till the glorious reminiscences 
of the old coaching era have passed away with the generation that 
witnessed them. We grumble at railroads, yet go by them not- 
withstanding ; and this, not simply because the alternative is denied 
us of choosing between the old and new modes of locomotion, — 
but by the argument ad crumenam, an absolute, irresistible pocket- 
proof and conviction of the superior cheapness as well as celerity 
of the Railway system ; a conviction which, whilst we cannot stifle, — 
we are unwilling to avow as a ground of preference. But in 
America, where, to bowl along on a macadamized highway, at the - 
rate of ten miles an hour, with the command of a view not bounded 
at least by cutting or tunnel, is a luxury untasted by the many — 
and rarely enjoyed by the few; the railway and steamboat are 
substitutes for good roads, well befitting her restless and time- 
serving population. Accordingly, short single lines are often laid - 
