t is a
mistake, the error is one of misapprehension on my part. The hollow
brick is a far less perfect conductor of heat and cold than the solid
one; consequently, a house built of the former is much cooler in Summer
and warmer in Winter. It is confidently and reasonably hoped here that
very signal improvements, in the dwellings especially of the Poor, are
to be secured by means of this invention. Prince Albert has caused two
Model Cottages of this material to be erected at his cost in Hyde Park
near the Great Exhibition in order to attract general attention to the
subject.

The _Streets_ of London are generally better paved, cleaner and better
lighted than those of New-York. Instead of our round or cobble stone,
the material mainly used for paving here is a hard flint rock, split and
dressed into uniform pieces about the size of two bricks united by their
edges, so as to form a surface of some eight inches square with a
thickness of two inches. This of course wears much more evenly and lasts
longer than cobble-stone pavements. I do not know that we could easily
procure an equally serviceable material, even if we were willing to pay
for it. One reason of the greater cleanness of the streets here is the
more universal prevalence of sewerage; another is the positive value of
street-offal here for fertilizing purposes. And as Gas is supplied here
to citizens at 4s. 6d. ($1.10) per thousand feet, while the good people
of New-York must bend to the necessity of paying $3.50, or more than
thrice as much for the like quantity, certainly of no better quality, it
is but reasonable to infer that the Londoners can afford to light their
streets better than the New-Yorkers.

But there are other aspects in which _our_ streets have a decided
superiority. There are half a dozen streets and places here having the
same name, and only distinguished by appending the name of a neighboring
street, as "St. James-place, St. James-st.," to distinguish it from
several other St. James-places, and so on. This subjects strangers to
great loss of time and vexation of spirit. I have not yet delivered half
the letters of introduction which were given me at home to friends of
the writers in this city, and can't guess when I shall do it. Then the
numbering of the streets is absurdly vicious--generally 1, 2, 3, 4, &c.,
up one side and down the other side, so that 320 will be opposite 140,
and 412 opposite 1, and so throughout. Of course, if any street so