for about $8.  Or a man setting out for a journey of 100 miles buys a through ticket to the terminus of the line, which may be 400 miles distant.  On this through ticket he pays a proportionally lower rate for the distance he actually travels, and sells the balance of his ticket to a scalper.  Or if a man wishes to go from A to B and finds that a special excursion ticket there and back is being sold at a single fare ($10), he may use the half of this ticket and sell the other half to a scalper in B. It is obvious that anything he can get for it will be a gain to him, while the scalper could afford to give up to about $7 for it, though he probably will not give more than $4.  The profession of scalper may, however, very probably prove an evanescent one, as vigorous efforts are being made to suppress him by legislative enactment.

Americans often claim that the ordinary railway-fare in the United States is less than in England, amounting only to 2 cents (1_d._) per mile.  My experience, however, leads me to say that this assertion cannot be accepted without considerable deduction.  It is true that in many States (including all the Eastern ones) there is a statutory fare of 2 cents per mile, but this (so far as I know) is not always granted for ordinary single or double tickets, but only on season, “commutation,” or mileage tickets.  The “commutation” tickets are good for a certain number of trips.  The mileage tickets are books of small coupons, each of which represents a mile; the conductor tears out as many coupons as the passenger has travelled miles.  This mileage system is an extremely convenient one for (say) a family, as the books are good until exhausted, and the coupons are available on any train (with possibly one or two exceptions) on any part of the system of the company issuing the ticket.  Which of our enlightened British companies is going to be the first to win the hearts of its patrons by the adoption of this neat and easy device?  Out West and down South the fares for ordinary tickets purchased at the station are often much higher than 2 cents a mile; on one short and very inferior line I traversed the rate was 7 cents (3-1/2_d._) per mile.  I find that Mr. W.M.  Acworth calculates the average fare in the United States as 1-1/4_d._ per mile as against 1-1/6_d._ in Great Britain.  Professor Hadley, an American authority, gives the rates as 2.35 cents and 2 cents respectively.

British critics would, perhaps, be more lenient in their animadversions on American railways, if they would more persistently bear in mind the great difference in the conditions under which railways have been constructed in the Old and the New World.  In England, for example, the railway came after the thick settlement of a district, and has naturally had to pay dearly for its privileges, and to submit to stringent conditions in regard to construction and maintenance.  In the United States, on the other hand, the railways were often the first roads (hence rail_road_