ERRORS OF RAILWAY TRAVEL. 415 



nothing more of the cantankerous fellow who it seemed to 

 me, and greatly to the annoyance of his female compan 

 ion, would have quarrelled with his own shadow. 



Since this event I have heard from American gentlemen 

 that these sorts of disgraceful scenes are frequent on the 

 American rail, as, indeed, they must be when society is 

 so improperly mixed up, and tobacco, to some exciting, 

 and not of sedative properties, so fervently and so fever 

 ishly indulged in. I had hoped to have run through the 

 United States without any " difficulty" arising between 

 me and a decently-dressed man OBoh-hoys I count as 

 nothing ; but in this, the very last stage of railway travel 

 ling, I was doomed to be disappointed. In the morning 

 previous to this row a window, set open by a man having 

 a just command over it, did inconvenience me, and two 

 kind and agreeable friends of mine then in the train asked 

 me " if I would have it shut." I replied, No; I had no 

 right to demand it, and, as I could not insist on compli 

 ance, I would not make the application. They, however, 

 in their kindness to me, asked the man to shut the win 

 dow, but they met with a flat refusal. All this tends to 

 show the grave mistake in the American railway compa 

 nies in not having a first, and second, and third-class car 

 riage. I am told that, in their present ill-arranged state, 

 but few of the rails are remunerative ; why not, then, try 

 a different plan? In England, in a first-class carriage 

 holding six or eight people, there is never any dispute, 

 the two windows being considered, as to their opening or 

 shutting, as at the command of those sitting with their 

 face to the engine, and where the current of air has the 

 most power. If all sorts of people are promiscuously hud 

 dled together, in a carriage where there are a multitude 



