uppose) than when I was
here before. We were beaten about yesterday, as if we had been aboard
the Cuba. Two rivers have to be crossed, and each time the whole train
is banged aboard a big steamer. The steamer rises and falls with the
river, which the railroad don't do; and the train is either banged up
hill or banged down hill. In coming off the steamer at one of these
crossings yesterday, we were banged up such a height that the rope
broke, and one carriage rushed back with a run down-hill into the boat
again. I whisked out in a moment, and two or three others after me; but
nobody else seemed to care about it. The treatment of the luggage is
perfectly outrageous. Nearly every case I have is already broken. When
we started from Boston yesterday, I beheld, to my unspeakable amazement,
Scott, my dresser, leaning a flushed countenance against the wall of the
car, and _weeping bitterly_. It was over my smashed writing-desk. Yet
the arrangements for luggage are excellent, if the porters would not be
beyond description reckless." The same excellence of provision, and
flinging away of its advantages, are observed in connection with another
subject in the same letter. "The halls are excellent. Imagine one
holding two thousand people, seated with exact equality for every one of
them, and every one seated separately. I have nowhere, at home or
abroad, seen so fine a police as the police of New York; and their
bearing in the streets is above all praise. On the other hand, the laws
for regulation of public vehicles, clearing of streets, and removal of
obstructions, are wildly outraged by the people for whose benefit they
are intended. Yet there is undoubtedly improvement in every direction,
and I am taking time to make up my mind on things in general. Let me add
that I have been tempted out at three in the morning to visit one of the
large police station-houses, and was so fascinated by the study of a
horrible photograph-book of thieves' portraits that I couldn't shut it
up."

A letter of the same date (22nd) to his sister-in-law told of personal
attentions awaiting him on his return to Boston by which he was greatly
touched. He found his rooms garnished with flowers and holly, with real
red berries, and with festoons of moss; and the homely Christmas look of
the place quite affected him. "There is a certain Captain Dolliver
belonging to the Boston custom-house, who came off in the little steamer
that brought me ashore from the Cub