deeply injured when he finds himself deliberately locked | comfort, and security! How often has he yearned for a into a prison on wheels. He cannot stretch his limbs. stretch in the direction of the platform! How often has Ice-water there is none. To bathe his temples or flirt he wished for a gossip with the ever-courteous and with his mustache through the medium of a mirror and thoroughly posted conductor! The nuisance of having a comb is out of the question. The friendly and well- books, periodicals and newspapers flung into his lap every posted conductor is non est. There are no information- five minutes would have proved a boon, and the crack of giving officials passing through, no books presented or the shell of the homely peanut, delicious music. newspapers flang into his lap, no candies or bananas, no The day-journey will be gotten through, somehow or cough-drops or cigars. He is dropped into a seat, pro- other. vided he can get one, with haughty and frozen-mannered Be the day weary, be the day long, womankind, and silent and abstracted men. If his luck At last it ringeth to evensong." be good he may meet very pleasant, well-bred people; but then he must be in luck, and fortune must be in a propitious mood. He is hemmed in without even the luxury of a chance of stretching his limbs, since the slightest movement in that direction might lead to the disarrangement of the draperies of the opposite lady. If he is the happy possessor of a newspaper, and offers it to his neighbor, the chances are that the civility will be received with a frigid “Thanks," and then he must endeavor to amuse himself as best he may, cramped, with the uneasy feeling upon his mind of being a prisoner until the train slows into a station, when a muchly-bearded guard will politely but sternly inform him that he must not descend, as the train will start in a "couple o' seconds, sir.". If the traveler is in need of refreshment he must restrain the inner cravings until the train arrives at a station possessing a refreshment counter. To this counter he must plunge with the most frantic haste, to be snubbed by the pretty, pert barmaids in attendance. If he is lucky enough to secure a plate of soup he must swallow it in hot haste; if he has annexed a portion of the carcass of a lean fowl, he is constrained to recollect that fingers were constructed before knives and forks. A bell rings, the guard, bearded like a pard, growls something in a hoarse and unintelligible voice, and the traveler, despoiled of half a crown, for which he has in turn received a Barmecidal feast, rushes back to the carriage, mistaking his compartment, and finally, as the train is in motion, is bundled by the bearded guard into his prison cell-flung over the foot of some gouty countess, or into the arms of a spiteful elderly spinster, who talks at him about American barbarians for the remainder of the journey. Arrived at his destination, instead of quietly proceeding to his hotel, his baggage-check reposing in his waistcoat pocket, he has to hustle and force his way into a throng of eager, rude and excited people, all clamoring and clambering for their luggage; all yelling at the porters, claiming trunks and portmanteaus they had never laid eyes on before, while the most acrobatic, disdaining the slow process of being waited on by wooded headed employés, leap into the middle of the valice-laden arena, and bear away in triumph their impedimenta-ay, and not unfrequently the impedimenta of other people as well, for this miserable baggage muddle is a rich mine to a certain class of "gentlemen of the road." Our American, having by dint of "skinning his eyes" and a leviathan bribe to a porter, at last secured his bag'gage, boholds it flung on to the top of a growler, alias a four-wheeler, or a hansom, the fare being an unknown quantity; or if he decline to ride in solitary grandeur, the hotel omnibus is yawning to receive him-and still with a sense of insecurity in regard to his luggage hanging over him like a black cloud, he is driven to his hotel, again to worry and skirmish over his trunks; nor is he happy until he beholds them deposited in his bedroom. How often during that fatiguing ride has he longed for the short, sharp but welcome cry of "Bazgage checked! Want your baggage checked?" so significant of ease, Be the journey ever so dusty, ever so hot, ever so tedious, the terminus at last comes in sight, and should the American's companions have proved unsociable or worse, he has at least had the satisfaction of gazing out of the windows, and of filling his eyes with "bits" of the country as the iron horse sped upon its way. There are many distractions, and pleasing ones, to boot, in a day journey, but at night-ye gods! Where, oh, where is the sleeping-car? where the ebony attendant, all smiles and white teeth? where the cozy little smoking-compartment, where one can whiff the best Henry Clay, and partake of a "modest quencher" in the shape of a nightcap? Our helpless countryman is conveyed to an ill-lighted, fearfully stifling compartment, containing eight divided seats, seven of which are already occupied. A wheezy old lady refuses to have the window opened. The floor is littered with handbags, wraps, etc., while the netting overhead threatens to burst and brain the luckless individuals reposing beneath it, a rap on the cranium from a heavy dressing-case being somewhat dangerous in consequences. The American finds the netting full, the floor packed. Where will he put his grip-sack, his hand-valise, his "hard-shell" hat? He begs for a little space, addressing a ghostly company in the dim religious light. Room is begrudgingly doled to him with the remark, "These railway companies ought to be ashamed of themselves, cramming people like sheep into their beastly carriages!" A dead silence falls upon the prisoners as the black van moves out into the dark night. Sleep! Absurd! Who could sleep seated in one position, the legs at a right angle, the head being bumped against the dirty and fusty and musty wall-cushions? Some one goes off-a loud snore proclaims that Sleep has taken a scalp. A general snorting ensues. Bodies become limp and roll to one side. The man or woman who but a few brief minutes before would scarcely vouchsafe a reply to the disgusted American's query now lean upon him as though he were a brother. In vain he nudges and fends them off; they return to their first love; they are true as steel. Sleep! Oh, for that colored porter, and the ice-water, and the stretch on the platform! Why, the curtained lane between the berths would be scenery surpassing that so rapturously described by Claude Melnotte, and the stockinged foot of the gentleman in the upper berth a thing of beauty. Even the ordinary car, crammed with passengers in every form of acrobatic position, were a paradise on earth compared to the stifling first-class compartment on a night-journey-in Europe. Some railway companies in England have put on sleeping-cars, notably the "Wild Irishman," between Holyhead and London, and the "Scotch Limited Mail," from London to Edinburgh. In France, too, there are sleepingcars between Paris and Bordeaux, and also on two of the other lines; but to compare these cars with a Pullman or a Wagner would be equivalent to comparing a grocer's wagon to Mrs. Van Spuyten Durgole's victoria. They are, however, a move in the right direction, but as yet the traveling public has not taken to them, and while the first-class carriages will be full of suffering humanity, the sleepers will have many berths to let. Diligence-traveling is rapidly dying out, since mountains are being tunneled and the iron road laid everywhere. The diligence for a mountain day trip is very delightful traveling; for a night journey it is a horror. The discomforts of the "good old coaching days," so rapturously referred to by our grandfathers, are still preserved in diligence travel, and a night in the wheezy, bone-setting, "leathern conveniency " will live long in the memory. I have done two consecutive nights in Mexico, sixteen mules being the team, the driver yelling at the top of his lungs, his assistant pelting the leading files with stones, and if I wasn't as sore as Mickey Free's father, I know nothing of contusions, abrasions and partial dislocations. I have crossed the Pyrenees from Perpignan to Gerona. To say that I was stiff as the mummy of one of the Ptolemies at the end of the journey is a close approximation to my condition. The Irish jaunting-car is a delightful conveyance, and has to be experienced in order to be appreciated. With a chosen companion, a good horse, a cheerful driver, and a "drop o' the crayture" in the well, the jaunting-car "bangs Banagher." Many a glorious spin I have had on Killarney, through the wilds of Connemara, and in the lovely valleys of Wicklow, and a more agreeable mode of conveyance it is impossible to conceive. I would never care to sit on a jaunting-car outside of "Ould Ireland," for, somehow or other, the vehicle seems to adapt itself to the country and to the people. In Connemara and the West of Ireland elongated jaunting-ears are run, each side capable of containing from eight to ten passengers. They | are worked with four horses, usually garrons, or miserable animals, only fit for the Knacker's Yard, or the Corrida de Toros in sunny Spain. The covered car which confronts the American tourist at Queenstown is a relic of the dark ages, and ought to have disappeared with the sedanchairs. An Irishman, upon being asked what was the difference between an inside and an outside car, promptly replied: "Shure, thin, the outside car has its wheels inside, an' the inside car has its wheels outside." The omnibuses of the world would form a not uninteresting article. By far the most comfortable and most elegant in my experience are those plying in Vienna-the horse-cars also taking the palm. Paris, too, is admirably and comfortably omnibused. The stages in this country are a little behind the age. They are lumbrous, cumbrous vehicles, uncomfortable to the last degree, and the system of packing people into them like figs in a drum is as reprehensible as it is abominable. ductor is of no avail; he is powerless; and her chance of emancipation lies in a stout heart and a pair of sharp elbows. The light-fingered gentry approve highly of this system of packing street-cars, especially since the wearing of watches and jewelry has become so fashionable. The basket nuisance in a street-car is one with which we are all tolerably familiar. There is a vast stride toward improvement in the waitingrooms of our large railway depots, and from being great gloomy, depressing square ball-alleys, they are assuming shape and color and form, with groined roofs, and paneled walls, and stained-glass windows. As a natural sequence the country stations will follow suit, and the waiting-room in the near future will be a tasteful apartment, papered in perhaps-and why not?-sunflowers, with a dado and medieval window. The great art-wave which is breaking over this vast continent will not only beautify our abodes, but our trysting-places as well, and the traveler will find the loss of train or boat less painful, since he or she can wait for the next that is to follow, in a room which will savor more of a humanized habitation than of an enlarged cattle-pen. There ought to be a large reward in store for the noble being with mental capacity to organize some method for ticket-checking once only. "Tickets ready!" are words that raise feelings of no very amiable nature in To be wakened from the breast of the ordinary traveler. a nap by an implacable employé, whose punch is pointed at your unoffending head like a weapon of destruction, is, to say the least of it, a singularly disagreeable sensation. To know that you carry about your person that which may be called for at any moment, and must be produced One is perpetually instanter, is a "turn on the nerves.' on the rack. Every time the door opens, every appearance of a uniformed official, every stoppage of the train, mentally sends the hand to the pocket-book for the béte noir that harasses from the commencement of the journey to the end; and with what a sigh of relief one delivers up the punched and tattered ticket for the last time! One feels inclined to give the conductor something for himself for having taken it off one's hands. Something should be done, if possible, some system devised by which the traveler will be relieved from this nightmare-one punching at the beginning of the journey, when the ticket will be taken up for good and all-and a boon will be conferred on millions. On the New York elevated railroads the passengers, until a comparatively recent date, were compelled to carry their tickets and deliver them up at the end of their respective trips. So many mistakes occurred, and so much grumbling arose, that now the ticket is dropped into a box while it is still warm with the digital pressure of the delivery clerk. The system works well, and millions are all the happier. Our street-cars are eminently useful and that is all. There is little or no attempt at either comfort or adornment, while in the principal cities of Europe the street The days of the bobtail-car have been too long in the car is a perfect model of both. The vehicles are roomy, land. It is an accommodation, but a nuisance. The elegantly gotten up, and exquisitely clean, while no overcrowding is permitted, and every woman is sure of a seat. anguish of having one's pet corns trampled upon while a The conductors and drivers wear uniforms, and are as pre-heavy man or woman wobbles to the change-window is sentable as Austrian Life-guardsmen. With us the greater the load the greater the praise to driver and conductor. The former is about as ragged and disreputable-looking a personage as the heavy villain in the melodrama; the latter, as a rule, wears a uniform cap, sadly at variance with the remainder of his raiment. Our illustration of the agonies of the rear platform tells a piteous but o'er true tale. Fancy a lady having, to fight her way through that closely packed mass of perspiring humanity. "How am I to get out?" is the idea that weighs upon the mind of some delicate woman during the entire ride. The con The jerk which sends the too dreadful to dwell upon. change flying all over the car; the catapultic upheaval that flings the newcomer into a seat or into the repelling arms of an already seated passenger; the terrible anxiety when the bell rings, announcing a defaulter lest you be suspected; the frownings and scowlings of the uncongenial-looking driver as he counts his heads preparatory to pouncing upon the assumed swindler; the dangers arising from the accumulation of small boys on the steps-all these are the discomforts attaching themselves to the "bobtail," and I say, "Away with it." What he comes to disturb the articles in question? indignation and terror do you not experience as he coldly informs you that the dresses must be appraised, and what a flow of language comes to your rosy lips in disparagement of articles which you selected in Paris as being the most chic in the "Bon Marché" or in the Magazin du Louvre. Here is a discomfort in travel that must be done away with. No matter how innocent we may be, the thought of the dreaded Customhouse officer is a shadow upon the sunniest and smoothest voyage. con It is, however, due to the Customs employés to say that they do their spiriting very gently, and that they meet with "hard cases", goes without saying; ladies with elastic sciences and gentlemen without any consciences at all. Their treatment, however, of the ordinary passenger, subject to the ordinary weaknesses of human да ture, is, so far as official nature will permit, highly considerate. a few words. As a rule, there is either too much heat or too little. You are suffocated or you are shivering. Cold is not so difficult to bear as heat, for you can warm yourself, but to cool yourself is another matter. The thermometer is far below freezing-point; the conductor of the car being a chilly mortal himself, or being very goodnatured, resolves that the passengers shall, at all events, have nothing to complain of on the score of heat. He turns on all at his command, piles coal into the stove, and ENGLISH IDEA OF COMFORT. IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. "Beautiful Snow" has been SO gracefully sung in song and story that it needs no rhapsodizing here. A snowdrift in a deep cutting, blocking the, track, may be a thing of beauty, but it is scarcely a joy for ever. Nor is it a comfortable feeling for the traveler by rail to hear torpedoes exploding as the train rushes through a blinding, bewildering snowstorm. Snow, save for sleighing purposes, is one of the discomforts of travel. It disarranges the timetable, it breaks appointments, it spoils dinner, it compels one to wear gum-shoes-it's a nuisance. dry, suffo cating feel, that knows of no relief save one, that of flinging open the window or door, and letting in a knife-like air that cuts to the very mar row. Of course, there are some passen gers who partake of the nature of Salamander, for whom no heat is too much, and who would flirt with the stove in the dog-days; but the aver age ger passen. dislikes to be stifled or dry-baked, and he undergoes both in a long Winter railway journey. Some plan should be devised by which our cars could be heated to a certain temperature, warm enough Let the Salaman to prove agreeable, yet not too warm. ders put on overcoats and wraps, as is done in English railway carriages, where they have no artificial heat at all save in the first-class, where long jars covered with flannel and filled with hot water are placed beneath your feet at certain stations along the line. That feeling of asphyxiation that one endures, consequent upon the overheating of the cars, is about the most unendurable one can experience. The flushed cheek, the pink hand, the incipient The heating of cars and boats is a question that demands headache, the unquenchable thirst, all arise from an |