542 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



else, " steady all right." Brother Jonathan, " clear the coast gc 

 ahead !" Still, as our most philosophical writer has said, it is only 

 boys and savages who scream men learn to control themselves 

 we hope to see the time when our people shall find out the advan- 

 tages of possessing power without making a noise about it. 



If we may take a lesson from the English in the management of 

 railways, they might learn vastly more from us in the accommodation 

 of passengers. What are called " first-class carriages" on the Eng- 

 lish rails, are thoroughly comfortable, in the English sense of the 

 word. They have seats for six each double-cushioned, padded, and 

 set-off from the rest, like the easy chair of an alderman, in which 

 you can intrench yourself and imagine that the world was made 

 for you alone. But only a small part of the travel in England is in 

 first-class cars, for it is a luxury that must be paid for in hard gold 

 costing four or five times as much as the most comfortable travel- 

 ling by railroad in the United States. And the second-class cars 

 in which the great majority of the British people really travel 

 what are they ? Neat boxes, in which you may sit down on a per- 

 fectly smooth board, and find out all the softness that lies in the 

 grain of deal or good English oak for they are guiltless of all 

 cushions. Our neighbors of this side of the Atlantic have been so 

 long accustomed to catering for the upper class in this country, that 

 the fact that the railroad is the most democratic institution of the 

 day, has not yet dawned upon them in all its breadth. An American 

 rail-car, built to carry a large number in luxurious comfort, at a 

 price that seems fabulous in England, pays better profits by the im- 

 mense travel it begets, than the ill-devised first and second-class car- 

 riages of the English railways. 



But what finish and nicety in these English roads ! The grades 

 all covered with turf, kept as nice as a lawn, quite down to the rails, 

 and the divisions between the road and the lands adjoining, made 

 by nicely trimmed hedges. The larger stations are erected in so ex- 

 pensive and solid a manner as to have greatly impaired the profits 

 of some of the roads. But the smaller ones are almost always built 

 in the style of the cottage ornee and, indeed, are some of the pret- 

 tiest and most picturesque rural buildings that I have seen in Eng- 

 land. They all have their little flower-gardens, generally a parterre 



