From Windsor, on the Canada side, we passed over to Detroit, in the State of Michigan, by a steam ferry.  But ferries in England and ferries in America are very different.  Here, on this Detroit ferry, some hundred of passengers, who were going forward from the other side without delay, at once sat down to breakfast.  I may as well explain the way in which disposition is made of one’s luggage as one takes these long journeys.  The traveler, when he starts, has his baggage checked.  He abandons his trunk—­generally a box, studded with nails, as long as a coffin and as high as a linen chest—­and, in return for this, he receives an iron ticket with a number on it.  As he approaches the end of his first installment of travel and while the engine is still working its hardest, a man comes up to him, bearing with him, suspended on a circular bar, an infinite variety of other checks.  The traveler confides to this man his wishes, and, if he be going farther without delay, surrenders his check and receives a counter-check in return.  Then, while the train is still in motion, the new destiny of the trunk is imparted to it.  But another man, with another set of checks, also comes the way, walking leisurely through the train as he performs his work.  This is the minister of the hotel-omnibus institution.  His business is with those who do not travel beyond the next terminus.  To him, if such be your intention, you make your confidence, giving up your tallies, and taking other tallies by way of receipt; and your luggage is afterward found by you in the hall of your hotel.  There is undoubtedly very much of comfort in this; and the mind of the traveler is lost in amazement as he thinks of the futile efforts with which he would struggle to regain his luggage were there no such arrangement.  Enormous piles of boxes are disclosed on the platform at all the larger stations, the numbers of which are roared forth with quick voice by some two or three railway denizens at once.  A modest English voyager, with six or seven small packages, would stand no chance of getting anything if he were left to his own devices.  As it is, I am bound to say that the thing is well done.  I have had my desk with all my money in it lost for a day, and my black leather bag was on one occasion sent back over the line.  They, however, were recovered; and, on the whole, I feel grateful to the check system of the American railways.  And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage.  Of weight they are quite regardless.  On two or three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those “light fixings” might have been made up into one.  And when I came to understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re-entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that she ought to do without a bonnet box.  The ten, however, went on, and were always duly protected.  I must add, however, that articles requiring tender treatment will sometimes reappear a little the worse from the hardships of their journey.