the moment
its ligaments of red tape were in the slightest degree relaxed. Their
strength lay in the fact that they represented an innate tendency in the
nation, or at any rate in the dominant class at the period of which
Dickens wrote. In America there is no such innate tendency. The Tite
Barnacles do not imagine or pretend that they are saving the Republic;
they simply make use of a convenient political machinery to serve their
private ends. Therefore their position, however strong it may seem for
the moment, is insecurely founded. It rests upon no moral basis, it
finds no stronghold in the national character. Outsiders may think the
average American citizen strangely tolerant of abuses, and indeed I find
him smiling with placid amusement at things which, were I in his place,
would make my blood boil. But he is under no illusion as to the real
nature of these things. An abuse remains an abuse in his eyes, though he
may not for the moment see his way to rectifying it. The red tape which
is used to embarrass justice or "tie up" reform commands no reverence
even from the party that employs it. Cynicism may endure for the night,
but indignation ariseth in the morning.

The American character, in a word, does not naturally run to red tape.
Observe, for instance, the system of transit in New York: it is
admirably successful in grappling with a very difficult problem, and its
success proceeds from the absence of by-laws and restrictions, the
omnipresence of good-nature and common-sense. The problem is rendered
difficult, not only by the enormous numbers to be conveyed, but by the
stocking-like configuration of Manhattan Island. The business quarter of
New York is in the foot, the residential quarters in the calf and knee.
Therefore there is a great rush of people down to the foot in the
morning and up to the knee in the afternoon. The business quarter of
London is like the hub of a wheel, from which the railway and omnibus
lines radiate like spokes. In New York there is very little radiation or
dispersion of the multitude. Practically the whole tide sets down a
narrow channel in the morning, and up again in the evening. At the time,
then, of these tidal waves, it is a flat impossibility that transit can
be altogether comfortable. The "elevated" trains and electric trolleys
are overcrowded, certainly; but you can always find a place in them, and
they carry you so rapidly that the discomfort is rendered as little
irksome as po