hose in the four-wheelers.

Broad streets, sometimes, as in Bond Street, with narrow sidewalks;
_islands_ for refuge in the middle of many of them; deep areas;
lofty houses; high walls; plants in the windows; frequent open spaces;
policemen at near intervals, always polite in my experience,--such are
my recollections of the quarter I most frequented.

Are the English taller, stouter, lustier, ruddier, healthier, than our
New England people? If I gave my impression, I should say that they are.
Among the wealthier class, tall, athletic-looking men and stately,
well-developed women are more common, I am compelled to think, than with
us. I met in company at different times five gentlemen, each of whom
would be conspicuous in any crowd for his stature and proportions. We
could match their proportions, however, in the persons of well-known
Bostonians. To see how it was with other classes, I walked in the Strand
one Sunday, and noted carefully the men and women I met. I was surprised
to see how many of both sexes were of low stature. I counted in the
course of a few minutes' walk no less than twenty of these little
people. I set this experience against the other. Neither is convincing.
The anthropologists will settle the question of man in the Old and in
the New World before many decades have passed.

In walking the fashionable streets of London one can hardly fail to be
struck with the well-dressed look of gentlemen of all ages. The special
point in which the Londoner excels all other citizens I am conversant
with is the hat. I have not forgotten Beranger's

"_Quoique leurs chapeaux soient bien laids_
*** ***! moi, j'aime les Anglais;"

but in spite of it I believe in the English hat as the best thing of its
ugly kind. As for the Englishman's feeling with reference to it, a
foreigner might be pardoned for thinking it was his fetich, a North
American Indian for looking at it as taking the place of his own
medicine-bag. It is a common thing for the Englishman to say his prayers
into it, as he sits down in his pew. Can it be that this imparts a
religious character to the article? However this may be, the true
Londoner's hat is cared for as reverentially as a High-Church altar. Far
off its coming shines. I was always impressed by the fact that even with
us a well-bred gentleman in reduced circumstances never forgets to keep
his beaver well brushed, and I remember that long ago I spoke of the hat
as the _ultimum moriens_