The air of the apartment had been warmed up to such a pitch by the hot-pipe apparatus of the building that prolonged life to me would, I should have thought, be out of the question in such an atmosphere.  “Do you always have it as hot as this?” I asked.  The young man swore that it was so, and with considerable energy expressed his opinion that all his health, and spirits, and vitality were being baked out of him.  He seemed to have a strong opinion on the matter, for which I respected him; but it had never occurred to him, and did not then occur to him, that anything could be done to moderate that deathly flow of hot air which came up to him from the neighboring infernal regions.  He was pale in the face, and all the lads there were pale.  American lads and lasses are all pale.  Men at thirty and women at twenty-five have had all semblance of youth baked out of them.  Infants even are not rosy, and the only shades known on the cheeks of children are those composed of brown, yellow, and white.  All this comes of those damnable hot-air pipes with which every tenement in America is infested.  “We cannot do without them,” they say.  “Our cold is so intense that we must heat our houses throughout.  Open fire-places in a few rooms would not keep our toes and fingers from the frost.”  There is much in this.  The assertion is no doubt true, and thereby a great difficulty is created.  It is no doubt quite within the power of American ingenuity to moderate the heat of these stoves, and to produce such an atmosphere as may be most conducive to health.  In hospitals no doubt this will be done; perhaps is done at present—­though even in hospitals I have thought the air hotter than it should be.  But hot-air drinking is like dram-drinking.  There is the machine within the house capable of supplying any quantity, and those who consume it unconsciously increase their draughts, and take their drains stronger and stronger, till a breath of fresh air is felt to be a blast direct from Boreas.

West Point is at all points a military colony, and, as such, belongs exclusively to the Federal government as separate from the government of any individual State.  It is the purchased property of the United States as a whole, and is devoted to the necessities of a military college.  No man could take a house there, or succeed in getting even permanent lodgings, unless he belonged to or were employed by the establishment.  There is no intercourse by road between West Point and other towns or villages on the river side, and any such intercourse even by water is looked upon with jealousy by the authorities.  The wish is that West Point should be isolated and kept apart for military instruction to the exclusion of all other purposes whatever—­especially love-making purposes.  The coming over from the other side of the water of young ladies by the ferry is regarded as a great hinderance.  They will come, and then the military students will talk to them.  We all know to what