542 LETTERS PKOM ENGLAND. j 



else, "sWadyT— all right." Bjrother Jonafhan, "clear the coast — gc 

 ahead!" 'Still, as our most phibsophioaj 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 advanr 

 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 " flrsb-class , carriages" on the Engr 

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

 word. They have, seats for. sjx-r-eaoh double-cushioned, padded, and 

 aet-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 alonfe. 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 ip 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-whicji the great njajority of tl;e, 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 hasa so- 

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

 the fact that the railroad is the most democratip institution; of the 

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

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

 price that seems f^buloua in England, pays better profitsi, by the^ im-; 

 mense travel it begets, than the iltde'vised first and seoond-class: caj- 

 ri^gesof the English railways. \ 



But what finish and nicety in these English roads 1 The grades 

 all covered with, turf, kept as nice as a laiwn, quite dpwn to thg i;ail8, 

 and the divisions bet'vyeen the road and the lands adjoining, madft 

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

 pensive and Solid a manner as to have greatly impaired thg profits 

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

 in the style of the cottage omSe — and, indeed, are some of the p;retr 

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

 land. Tbey all have their litfle flower-gardensj generally a parterre 



