other culinary atrocities are almost
forced upon him at every stopping-place. In France, England, and
Germany, the railroad cars are perfectly ventilated; the feet are kept
warm by flat cases filled with hot water and covered with carpet, and
answering the double purpose of warming the feet and diffusing an
agreeable temperature through the car, without burning away the
vitality of the air; while the arrangements at the refreshment-rooms
provide for the passenger as wholesome and well-served a meal of
healthy, nutritious food as could be obtained in any home circle.

What are we to infer concerning the home habits of a nation of men who
so resignedly allow their bodies to be poisoned and maltreated in
traveling over such an extent of territory as is covered by our
railroad lines? Does it not show that foul air and improper food are
too much matters of course to excite attention? As a writer in "The
Nation" has lately remarked, it is simply and only because the
American nation like to have unventilated cars, and to be fed on pie
and coffee at stopping-places, that nothing better is known to our
travelers; if there were any marked dislike of such a state of things
on the part of the people, it would not exist. We have wealth enough,
and enterprise enough, and ingenuity enough, in our American nation,
to compass with wonderful rapidity any end that really seems to us
desirable. An army was improvised when an army was wanted,--and an
army more perfectly equipped, more bountifully fed, than so great a
body of men ever was before. Hospitals, Sanitary Commissions, and
Christian Commissions all arose out of the simple conviction of the
American people that they must arise. If the American people were
equally convinced that foul air was a poison,--that to have cold feet
and hot heads was to invite an attack of illness,--that maple-sugar,
popcorn, peppermint candy, pie, doughnuts, and peanuts are not diet
for reasonable beings,--they would have railroad accommodations very
different from those now in existence.

We have spoken of the foul air of court-rooms. What better illustration
could be given of the utter contempt with which the laws of bodily
health are treated, than the condition of these places? Our lawyers
are our highly educated men. They have been through high-school and
college training, they have learned the properties of oxygen,
nitrogen, and carbonic-acid gas, and have seen a mouse die under an
exhausted receive