and useful purposes, but also for ornament.  At present the Park, to English eyes, seems to be all road.  The trees are not grown up; and the new embankments, and new lakes, and new ditches, and new paths give to the place anything but a picturesque appearance.  The Central Park is good for what it will be rather than for what it is.  The summer heat is so very great that I doubt much whether the people of New York will ever enjoy such verdure as our parks show.  But there will be a pleasant assemblage of walks and water-works, with fresh air and fine shrubs and flowers, immediately within the reach of the citizens.  All that art and energy can do will be done, and the Central Park doubtless will become one of the great glories of New York.  When I was expected to declare that St. James’s Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens altogether were nothing to it, I confess that I could only remain mute.

Those who desire to learn what are the secrets of society in New York, I would refer to the Potiphar Papers.  The Potiphar Papers are perhaps not as well known in England as they deserve to be.  They were published, I think, as much as seven or eight years ago; but are probably as true now as they were then.  What I saw of society in New York was quiet and pleasant enough; but doubtless I did not climb into that circle in which Mrs. Potiphar held so distinguished a position.  It may be true that gentlemen habitually throw fragments of their supper and remnants of their wine on to their host’s carpets; but if so I did not see it.

As I progress in my work I feel that duty will call upon me to write a separate chapter on hotels in general, and I will not, therefore, here say much about those in New York.  I am inclined to think that few towns in the world, if any, afford on the whole better accommodation, but there are many in which the accommodation is cheaper.  Of the railways also I ought to say something.  The fact respecting them, which is most remarkable, is that of their being continued into the center of the town through the streets.  The cars are not dragged through the city by locomotive engines, but by horses; the pace therefore is slow, but the convenience to travelers in being brought nearer to the center of trade must be much felt.  It is as though passengers from Liverpool and passengers from Bristol were carried on from Euston Square and Paddington along the New Road, Portland Place, and Regent Street to Pall Mall, or up the City Road to the Bank.  As a general rule, however, the railways, railway cars, and all about them are ill managed.  They are monopolies, and the public, through the press, has no restraining power upon them as it has in England.  A parcel sent by express over a distance of forty miles will not be delivered within twenty-four hours.  I once made my plaint on this subject at the bar or office of a hotel, and was told that no remonstrance was of avail.  “It is a monopoly,”