n brain had to
concern itself with the problem, he saw the topsy-turvyness of this
arrangement. Hence in his ferry-boats there are no "underground"
cabins, no exasperating flights of steps. We enter the ferry-house and
wait comfortably under shelter till the boat approaches its "slip,"
which it does end on. The disembarking passengers depart by one
passage, and as soon as they have all left the boat we enter by
another. A roadway and two side-walks correspond to these divisions on
the boat, which we enter on the level we are to retain for the
passage. In the middle is the gangway for vehicles, to the right and
left are the cabins for "ladies" and "gentlemen," each running almost
the whole length of the boat. There is a small piece of open deck at
each end, and those who wish may ascend to an upper deck. These
long-drawn-out cabins are simply but suitably furnished with seats
like those in a tramway-car or American railway-carriage. The boat
retraces its course without turning round, as it is a "double-ender."
On reaching the other side of the river we simply walk out of the boat
as we should out of a house on the street-level. The tidal difficulty
is met by making the landing-stage a floating one, and of such length
that the angle it forms with terra firma is never inconvenient.

A Swiss friend of mine, whose ocean steamer landed him on the New
Jersey shore of the North River, actually entered the cabin of the
ferry-boat under the impression that it was a waiting-room on shore.
The boat slipped away so quietly that he did not discover his mistake
until he had reached the New York side of the river; and then there
was no more astonished man on the whole continent!

The transition from travelling facilities to the telegraphic and
postal services is natural. The telegraphs of the United States are
not in the hands of the government, but are controlled by private
companies, of which the Western Union, with its headquarters in New
York, is _facile princeps_. This company possesses the largest
telegraph system in the world, having 21,000 offices and 750,000 miles
of wire. It also leases or uses seven Atlantic cables. In this,
however, as in many other cases, size does not necessarily connote
quality. My experiences _may_ (like the weather) have been
exceptional, and the attempt to judge of this Hercules by the foot I
saw may be wide of the mark; but here are three instances which are at
any rate suspicious:

I was living