is the American name for them) in a new district, the inhabitants of which were glad to get them on almost any terms.  Hence the cheap and provisional nature of many of the lines, and the numerous deadly level crossings.  The land grants and other privileges accorded to the railway companies may be fairly compared to the road tax which we willingly submit to in England as the just price of an invaluable boon.  This reflection, however, need not be carried so far as to cover with a mantle of justice all the railway concessions of America!

Two things in the American parlour-car system struck me as evils that were not only unnecessary, but easily avoidable.  The first of these is that most illiberal regulation which compels the porter to let down the upper berth even when it is not occupied.  The object of this is apparently to induce the occupant of the lower berth to hire the whole “section” of two berths, so as to have more ventilation and more room for dressing and undressing.  Presumably the parlour-car companies know their own business best; but it would seem to the average “Britisher” that such a petty spirit of annoyance would be likely to do more harm than good, even in a financial way.  The custom would be more excusable if it were confined to those cases in which two people shared the lower berth.  The custom is so unlike the usual spirit of the United Stales, where the practice is to charge a liberal round sum and then relieve you of all minor annoyances and exactions, that its persistence is somewhat of a mystery.

The continuance of the other evil I allude to is still less comprehensible.  The United States is proverbially the paradise of what it is, perhaps, now behind the times to term the gentler sex.  The path of woman, old or new, in America is made smooth in all directions, and as a rule she has the best of the accommodation and the lion’s share of the attention wherever she goes.  But this is emphatically not the case on the parlour car.  No attempt is made there to divide the sexes or to respect the privacy of a lady.  If there are twelve men and four women on the car, the latter are not grouped by themselves, but are scattered among the men, either in lower or upper berths, as the number of their tickets or the courtesy of the men dictates.  The lavatory and dressing-room for men at one end of the car has two or more “set bowls” (fixed in basins), and can be used by several dressers at once.  The parallel accommodation for ladies barely holds one, and its door is provided with a lock, which enables a selfish bang-frizzler and rouge-layer to occupy it for an hour while a queue of her unhappy sisters remains outside.  It is difficult to see why a small portion at one end of the car should not be reserved for ladies, and separated at night from the rest of the car by a curtain across the central aisle.  Of course the passage of the railway officials could not be hindered, but the masculine passengers might very well be confined for the night to entrance and egress at their own end of the car.  An improvement in the toilette accommodation for ladies also seems a not unreasonable demand.