ll find the same ceaseless motion. On all sides you will hear the
click, click of telephone and telegram. On all sides you will see
eager citizens scanning the tape, which brings them messages of ruin
or success. Nowhere, save in a secluded bar or a stately club, will you
find a single man content to be alive and to squander the leisure that
God has given him.

And with all her undying haste New York is not content. She must still
find other means of saving time. And to save time she has strained
all the resources of civilisation. In that rather dismal thing called
"material progress" she is easily ahead of the world. Never was the
apparatus of life so skilfully turned and handled as in New York.
There are no two fixed points which are not easily connected by iron
lines. There seems no reason why a citizen of New York should ever walk.
If stairs exist, he need not use them, for an express lift, warranted
not to stop before the fifteenth floor, will carry him in a few seconds
to the top of the highest building. If he open a cupboard door, the mere
opening of it lights an electric lamp, and he need not grope after a
coat by the dim light of a guttering candle. At his bed-head stands a
telephone, and, if he will, he may speak to a friend a thousand miles
away without moving from his pillow. But time is saved--of that there is
no doubt. The only doubt is, whether it be worth saving. When New York
has saved her time, what does she do with it? She merely squanders it
in riotous movement and reckless "transportation." Thus she lives in a
vicious circle--saving time that she may spend it, and spending it
that again she may save it. Nor can this material progress be achieved
without a loss of what the Old World prizes most highly. To win all the
benefits which civilisation affords, you must lose peace and you must
sacrifice privacy. The many appliances which save our useless time may
be enjoyed only by crowds. The citizens of New York travel, live,
and talk in public. They have made their choice, and are proud of it
Englishmen are still reckless enough to waste their time in pursuit of
individualism, and I think they are wise. For my part, I would rather
lose my time than save it, and the one open conveyance of New York which
in pace and conduct suits my inclination is the Fifth Avenue Stage.

But New York is unique. It baffles the understanding and defies
observation. In vain you search for a standard of comparison. France and