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AN OCTOBER ABROAD 



next morning or the next week. Instead of that petty 

 tyrant the hotel-clerk, a young woman sits in the office 

 with her sewing or other needlework, and quietly re- 

 ceives you. She gives you your number on a card, 

 rings for a chambermaid to show you to your room, 

 and directs your luggage to be sent up ; and there is 

 something in the look of things, and the way they are 

 done, that goes to the right spot at once. 



At the hotel in London where I stopped, the daugh- 

 ters of the landlord, three fresh, comely young women, 

 did the duties of the office ; and their presence, so 

 quiet and domestic, gave the prevailing hue and tone 

 to the whole house. I wonder how long a young 

 woman could preserve her self-respect and sensibility 

 in such a position in New York or Washington ? 



The English regard us as a wonderfully patient peo- 

 ple, and there can be no doubt but we put up with 

 abuses unknown elsewhere. If we have no big tyrant, 

 we have ten thousand little ones, who tread upon our 

 toes at every turn. The tyranny of corporations and 

 of public servants of one kind and another, as the 

 ticket-man, the railroad-conductor, or even of the 

 country stage-driver, seem to be features peculiar to 

 American democracy. In England, the traveller is 

 never snubbed, or made to feel that it is by somebody's 

 sufferance that he is allowed aboard or to pass on his 

 way. 



If you get into an omnibus or a railroad or tramway 

 carriage in London, you are sure of a seat. Not an- 



