ould not see the statue of
Liberty Enlightening the World, though we passed close under it. The
same American passenger had expatiated to me during the voyage on the
merits of the American express service. "You have no trouble with
porters and cabs, as in the Old World; you simply point out your
trunks to an express agent, give him your address, take his receipt,
and you will probably find your trunks at the house when you arrive."
We reached New York on a Saturday; I confidently handed over my trunk
to a representative of the Transfer Company about 9 A.M., hied to my
friend's house in Brooklyn, and saw and heard nothing more of my trunk
till Monday morning!

Such was the way in which two of my most cherished beliefs about
America were dissipated almost before I set foot upon her free and
sacred soil! It is, however, only fair to say that if I had assumed
these experiences to be really characteristic, I should have made a
grievous mistake. It is true that I afterwards experienced a good many
stormy days in the United States, and found that the predominant
weather in all parts of the country was, to judge from my apologetic
hosts, the "exceptional;" but none the less I revelled in the bright
blue, clear, sunny days with which America is so abundantly blessed,
and came to sympathise very deeply with the depression that sometimes
overtakes the American exile during his sojourn on our fog-bound
coasts. So, too, I found the express system on the whole what our
friend Artemus Ward calls "a sweet boon." Certainly it is as a rule
necessary, in starting from a private house, to have one's luggage
ready an hour or so before one starts one's self, and this is hardly
so convenient as a hansom with you inside and your portmanteau on top;
and it is also true that there is sometimes (especially in New York) a
certain delay in the delivery of one's belongings. In nine cases out
of ten, however, it was a great relief to get rid of the trouble of
taking your luggage to or from the station, and feel yourself free to
meet it at your own time and will. It was not often that I was reduced
to such straits as on one occasion in Brooklyn, when, at the last
moment, I had to charter a green-grocer's van and drive down to the
station in it, triumphantly seated on my portmanteau.

The check system on the railway itself deserves almost unmitigated
praise, and only needs to be understood to be appreciated. On arrival
at the station the traveller ha