No one who has not tried both can appreciate the immense difference in comfort given by the opportunity to move about in the train.  No matter how pleasant one’s companions are in an English first-class compartment, their enforced proximity makes one heartily sick of them before many hours have elapsed; while a conversation with Daisy Miller in the American parlour car is rendered doubly delightful by the consciousness that you may at any moment transfer yourself and your bons mots to Lydia Blood at the other end of the car, or retire with Gilead P. Beck to the snug little smoking-room.  The great size and weight of the American cars make them very steady on well-laid tracks like those of the Pennsylvania Railway, and thus letter-writing need not be a lost art on a railway journey.  Even when the permanent way is inferior, the same cause often makes the vibration less than on the admirable road-beds of England.

Theoretically, there is no distinction of classes on an American railway; practically, there is whenever the line is important enough or the journey long enough to make it worth while.  The parlour car corresponds to our first class; and its use has this advantage (rather curious in a democratic country), that the increased fare for its admirable comforts is relatively very low, usually (in my experience) not exceeding 1/2_d._ a mile.  The ordinary fare from New York to Boston (220 to 250 miles) is $5 (L1); a seat in a parlour car costs $1 (4_s._), and a sleeping-berth $1.50 (6_s._).  Thus the ordinary passenger pays at the rate of about 1-1/4_d._ per mile, while the luxury of the Pullman may be obtained for an additional expenditure of just about 1/2_d._ a mile.  The extra fare on even the Chicago Vestibuled Limited is only $8 (32_s._) for 912 miles, or considerably less than 1/2_d._ a mile.  These rates are not only less than the difference between first-class and third-class fares in Europe, but also compare very advantageously with the rates for sleeping-berths on European lines, being usually 50 to 75 per cent. lower.  The parlour-car rates, however, increase considerably as we go on towards the West and get into regions where competition is less active.  A good instance of this is afforded by the parlour-car fares of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which I select because it spans the continent with its own rails from the Atlantic to the Pacific; the principle on the United States lines is similar.  The price of a “sleeper” ticket from Montreal to Fort William (998 miles) is $6, or about 3/5_d._ per mile; that from Banff to Vancouver (560 miles) is the same, or at the rate of about 14/15_d._ per mile.  The rate for the whole journey from Halifax to Vancouver (3,362 miles) is about 2/3_d._ per mile.