ure in the
American character.

Having enjoyed a very pleasant evening, and employed the night in
sleeping off the fumes of sociability, I awoke, for the first time, in
one of the splendid American hotels; and here, perhaps, it may be as
well to say a few words about them, as their enormous size makes them
almost a national peculiarity.

The largest hotel in New York, when I arrived, was the Metropolitan, in
the centre of which is a theatre; since then, the St. Nicholas has been
built, which is about a hundred yards square, five stories high, and
will accommodate, when completed, about a thousand people. Generally
speaking, a large hotel has a ladies' entrance on one side, which is
quite indispensable, as the hall entrance is invariably filled with
smokers; all the ground floor front, except this hall and a
reading-room, is let out as shops: there are two dining-saloons, one of
which is set apart for ladies and their friends, and to this the vagrant
bachelor is not admitted, except he be acquainted with some of the
ladies, or receive permission from the master of the house. The great
entrance is liberally supplied with an abundance of chairs, benches,
&c., and decorated with capacious spittoons, and a stove which glows
red-hot in the winter. Newspapers, of the thinnest substance and the
most microscopic type, and from every part of the Union, are scattered
about in profusion; the human species of every kind may be seen
variously occupied--groups talking, others roasting over the stove, many
cracking peanuts, many more smoking, and making the pavement, by their
united labours, an uncouth mosaic of expectoration and nutshells, varied
occasionally with cigar ashes and discarded stumps. Here and there you
see a pair of Wellington-booted legs dangling over the back of one
chair, while the owner thereof is supporting his centre of gravity on
another. One feature is common to them all--busy-ness; whether they are
talking, or reading, or cracking nuts, a peculiar energy shows the mind
is working. Further inside is the counter for the clerks who appoint the
rooms to the travellers, as they enter their names in a book; on long
stools close by is the corps of servants, while in full sight of all
stands the "Annunciator," that invaluable specimen of American
mechanical ingenuity, by which, if any bell is pulled in any room, one
loud stroke is heard, and the number of the room disclosed, in which
state it remains until replaced; s