FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 49 



even with efficient signalling, a single track is a 

 fruitful source of collision. On the far western 

 tracks, we also read of occasional cases of 

 brigandage. Where these are not the offspring 

 of journalistic brains, fertile in picturesque copy, 

 they are the inevitable result of the difficulty of 

 adequately policing these sparsely-inhabited regions, 

 as well as of the cheapness in that country of 

 accurate firearms and poisonous whisky. 



The difference on the railroads most likely to 

 impress the Englishman is in the vernacular. We 

 have recently been informed by our good friends 

 in the West that we do not know how to spell 

 English, but an hour on one of their railroads 

 should suffice to impress on us that we do not even 

 know how to speak it. When is a station not a 

 station ? When it is a depot^ with a strong accent 

 on the e. Similarly, in that enlightened country, 

 luggage is baggage, trunks are grips, clerks are 

 operators, carriages are cars, accommodation is 

 reservation ; everything is something else. In the 

 best trains, there is a high degree of comfort, 

 almost luxury, to which we at home are unac- 

 customed. The " Congressional Limited," on 

 which I travelled from New York to Washington, 

 is one of these. The fares are, on the whole, 

 lower than at home ; indeed, so immense are the 

 distances that, if they were not, few could afford 

 to travel at all. In the fittings of the cars, and 

 also in the excellent dinner served in transit for a 

 dollar (only eightpence more than they charge at 

 home for an assortment of tepid garbage), this 

 "Congressional Limited" is a little better than 

 our best, and I believe that it is not by any 



