GLIMPSES OF WESTERN EUROPE. 
To the Executive Committee of the State Agricultural Society: 
Gentlemen: —Finding it'convenient, while in Europe, as your delegate and 
as State Commissioner to the London International Exhibition of 1862, to 
spend a little time in making a succession of rapid tours through portions of 
Western Europe, I have the honor so far to comply with your request for a 
report of observations made as to submit, from my notes of travel and ex¬ 
periences at London, such portions as are likely to interest you because of 
their bearing upon industrial, educational and social questions in which I 
know we feel a common interest: 
LIVERPOOL TO LONDON. 
AfRiL 28, 1862. 
At last, I stand, once more, on te^'ra Jirma—t'hQ five days of furious storm 
and the no less relentless demon of sea-sickness behind me. This, then, is 
the Old World, whence my ancestors went out more than two hundred years 
ago, little dreaming that they were the destined founders of an empire which, 
before the year of our Lord 1900, would be mightier than any the world had 
hitherto seen. And this is Liverpool, famous for its commerce with all the 
countries on the globe. Off, in the morning, for London. 
Morning’s here. The railway depot and train are the only essentially for¬ 
eign objects yet seen. Each coach is divided into three apartments. In each 
apartment there are two seats facing each other like the front and back seats 
of a stage coach, and long enough to accommodate four persons each. There 
are no moveable windows except in the doors on either side, in which there 
is a pane of glass, let up or down by a strap, stage-coach fashion. Of course 
ventilation is more difficult and the getting up and moving about to rest one’s 
self, or to look up a friend on the train is out of the question. In some of 
the coaches—perhaps in all—the middle apartment is used for baggage; in 
which particular the arrangement is quite convenient, as one’s luggage can 
be more easily looked after. True to the English idea of caste, the coaches 
are labelled “First Class, ” “ Second Class,” and “ Third Class.” First class 
coaches are comfortably cushioned, second class coaches favored with a kind 
of half cushion of leather, extending about half the width of the seat from 
the front, with leather at the back, and third class coaches are furnished with 
bare benches. The fare in the first class is one third to one-half higher than 
the regular fare in the United States, in the second class about equal to regu¬ 
lar U. S. fare, in the third class about one third less. The engines are plain, 
bungling looking things, in strong contrast with the fine locomotives of 
America, But when I come to speak of the road itself, I have none but 
words of commendation. Substantial in construction, and excellent in all 
its appointments. 
The route to London presents a succession of charming pictures—even all 
the more pleasing and grateful because of the snow and ice but so recently 
8 Ag. Tbans. 
