unbroken unit, having just as little
communication with any thing outside of it as in his own house.

From one of these sheltered apartments in a railroad car, he can pass to
preengaged parlors and chambers in the hotel, with his own separate
table, and all his domestic manners and peculiarities unbroken. In fact,
it is a little compact home travelling about.

Now, all this is very charming to people who know already as much about
a country as they want to know; but it follows from it that a stranger
might travel all through England, from one end to the other and not be
on conversing terms with a person in it. He may be at the same hotel, in
the same train with people able to give him all imaginable information,
yet never touch them at any practicable point of communion. This is more
especially the case if his party, as ours was, is just large enough to
fill the whole apartment.

As to the comforts of the cars, it is to be said, that for the same
price you can get far more comfortable riding in America. Their first
class cars are beyond all praise, but also beyond all price; their
second class are comfortless, cushionless, and uninviting. Agreeably
with our theory of democratic equality, we have a general car, not so
complete as the one, nor so bare as the other, where all ride together;
and if the traveller in thus riding sees things that occasionally annoy
him, when he remembers that the whole population, from the highest to
the lowest, are accommodated here together, he will certainly see
hopeful indications in the general comfort, order, and respectability
which prevail; all which we talked over most patriotically together,
while we were lamenting that there was not a seventh to our party, to
instruct us in the localities.

Every thing upon the railroad proceeds with systematic accuracy. There
is no chance for the most careless person to commit a blunder, or make a
mistake. At the proper time the conductor marches every body into their
places and locks them in, gives the word, "All right," and away we go.
Somebody has remarked, very characteristically, that the starting word
of the English is "all right," and that of the Americans "go ahead."

Away we go through Lancashire, wide awake, looking out on all sides for
any signs of antiquity. In being thus whirled through English scenery, I
became conscious of a new understanding of the spirit and phraseology of
English poetry. There are many phrases and expressions