tlemen's car in which smoking was allowed,
a ladies' car in which no one smoked, and "a negro car," which the
author describes as a "great, blundering, clumsy chest, such as Gulliver
put to sea in from the kingdom of Brobdingnag." Where is now the negro
car? It is gone to rejoin its elder brother, the negro pew. The white
people's cars he describes as "large, shabby omnibuses," with a red-hot
stove in the middle, and the air insufferably close.

He happened to arrive at his first factory in Lowell just as the dinner
hour was over, and the girls were trooping up the stairs as he himself
ascended. How strange his comments now appear to us! If we read them by
the light of to-day, we find them patronizing and snobbish; but at that
day they were far in advance of the feelings and opinions of the
comfortable class. He observed that the girls were all well-dressed,
extremely clean, with serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks and shawls,
and their feet well protected both against wet and cold. He felt it
necessary, as he was writing for English readers, to _apologize_ for
their pleasant appearance.

"To my thinking," he remarks, "they were not dressed above their
condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful of
their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated with
such little trinkets as come within the compass of their means."

He alluded to the "Lowell Offering," a monthly magazine, "written,
edited, and published," as its cover informed the public, "by female
operatives employed in the mills." Mr. Dickens praised this magazine in
an extremely ingenious manner. He could not claim that the literature of
the work was of a very high order, because that would not have been
true. He said:--

"Its merits will compare advantageously with a great many English
Annuals."

That is really an exquisite touch of satire. He went on to say:--

"Many of its tales inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and
teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the
beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have left
at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome village air.... It
has very scant allusion to fine clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or
fine life."

I am so happy as to possess a number of the "Lowell Offering," for
August, 1844. It begins with a pretty little story called "A Flower
Dream," which confirms Mr. Dickens's remarks. There are two