if a lady,
unattended, walks abroad in the streets of London, even at noonday, she
will be pretty likely to be accosted and insulted--and not by drunken
sailors, but by men who carry the look and wear the dress of gentlemen.
It is maintained that these people are not gentlemen, but are a lower
sort, disguised as gentlemen. The case of Colonel Valentine Baker
obstructs that argument, for a man cannot become an officer in the
British army except he hold the rank of gentleman. This person, finding
himself alone in a railway compartment with an unprotected girl--but
it is an atrocious story, and doubtless the reader remembers it well
enough. London must have been more or less accustomed to Bakers, and the
ways of Bakers, else London would have been offended and excited. Baker
was "imprisoned"--in a parlor; and he could not have been more visited,
or more overwhelmed with attentions, if he had committed six murders and
then--while the gallows was preparing--"got religion"--after the manner
of the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory. Arkansaw--it seems a
little indelicate to be trumpeting forth our own superiorities, and
comparisons are always odious, but still--Arkansaw would certainly have
hanged Baker. I do not say she would have tried him first, but she would
have hanged him, anyway.

Even the most degraded woman can walk our streets unmolested, her sex
and her weakness being her sufficient protection. She will encounter
less polish than she would in the old world, but she will run across
enough humanity to make up for it.

The music of a donkey awoke us early in the morning, and we rose up and
made ready for a pretty formidable walk--to Italy; but the road was so
level that we took the train.. We lost a good deal of time by this, but
it was no matter, we were not in a hurry. We were four hours going to
Chamb`ery. The Swiss trains go upward of three miles an hour, in places,
but they are quite safe.

That aged French town of Chambery was as quaint and crooked as
Heilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back streets which
made strolling through them very pleasant, barring the almost unbearable
heat of the sun. In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide,
gracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses, I saw
three fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep) taking care of
them.

From queer old-fashioned windows along the curve projected boxes of
bright flowers, and over the edge