XXXIV 



WOULD that the times still were when one might cross 

 the Channel dry-shod! Why did the sea ever encroach 

 on that invaluable neck of dry land I If there is an un- 

 certainty of travel in any part of the commonly trotted 

 universe, it is that nasty bit of water. Nasty is said not to 

 be a nice word, but it literally describes man and the ele- 

 ments on the Channel. Yet if we Americans, easily first in 

 travelling conveniences, should have that water between our 

 two biggest cities (not to mention the two capitals of the 

 world), we would put a ferry there which would make the 

 transit a pleasure in lieu of a dread. The Club train runs 

 from London with its five millions of souls to Paris with 

 half the number once a day, costs about six cents a mile, 

 and is rather a petty affair for the fuss they make over it. 

 From little provincial Boston, with its scant half million 

 population, you have some twenty trains a day, giving 

 you more speed, more comfort, and vastly more elegance 

 for two and a half cents a mile, and you are not limited 

 to a paltry sixty pounds of impedimenta, or atrociously 

 taxed if your wife happens to have brought along a few 

 extra Saratogas to swell the weight. Our baggage is 

 rarely subjected to delays or impost ; English luggage is 



not so luckv. It takes thirtv- eight hours to run from 



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Paris to Rome, some eleven hundred miles, if my memory 

 serves me ; and you practically have no comfort whatever 

 for the five cents a mile you pay. You run from Xew 

 York to Chicago, nearly the same distance, in twenty-two 



