Another of America’s strong points is its sense of practical comfort and convenience.  It is scarcely open to denial that the laying of too great stress on material comfort is one of the rocks ahead which the American vessel will need careful steering to avoid; and it is certain that Americans lead us in countless little points of household comfort and labour-saving ingenuity.  But here, too, the exception that proves the rule is not too coy for our discovery.  The terrible roads and the atrociously kept streets are amongst the most vociferous instances of this.  It is one of the inexplicable mysteries of American civilisation that a young municipality,—­or even, sometimes, an old one,—­with a million dollars to spend, will choose to spend it in erecting a most unnecessarily gorgeous town-hall rather than in making the street in front of it passable for the ordinarily shod pedestrian.  In New York itself the hilarious stockbroker returning at night to his palace often finds the pavement between his house and his carriage more difficult to negotiate than even the hole for his latch-key; and I have more than once been absolutely compelled to make a detour from Broadway in order to find a crossing where the icy slush would not come over the tops of my boots.[3] The American taste for luxury sometimes insists on gratification even at the expense of the ordinary decencies of life.  It was an American who said, “Give me the luxuries of life and I will not ask for the necessities;” and there is more truth in this epigram, as characteristic of the American point of view, than its author intended or would, perhaps, allow.  In private life this is seen in the preference shown for diamond earrings and Paris toilettes over neat and effective household service.  The contrast between the slatternly, unkempt maid-servant who opens the door to you and the general luxury of the house itself is sometimes of the most startling, not to say appalling, description.  It is not a sufficient answer to say that good servants are not so easily obtained in America as in England.  This is true; but a slight rearrangement of expenditure would secure much better service than is now seen.  To the English eye the cart in this matter often seems put before the horse; and the combination of excellent waiting with a modest table equipage is frequent enough in the United States to prove its perfect feasibility.

In American hotels we are often overwhelmed with “all the discomforts that money can procure,” while unable to obtain some of those things which we have been brought up to believe among the prime necessaries of existence.  It is significant that in the printed directions governing the use of the electric bell in one’s bedroom, I never found an instance in which the harmless necessary bath could be ordered with fewer than nine pressures of the button, while the fragrant cocktail or some other equally fascinating but dangerous luxury might often be summoned by three