rugs, sticks, dressing-cases, bundles, and umbrellas, of the party to the quaint old carriages à la Queen Anne's time, and then, scattering groups of interviewers, we set out for our quarters. Our rooms had been taken at the Brevoort House, and we were expected with impatience. The purlieus on the riverside between the landing-place and the streets in which the fashionable hotels are situated are at least as bad as those of other great cities; but in New York the horrors of bad pavements and filthy ways are aggravated by the ribs of the tram-car ways, which cross the roads in every direction. However, our first impressions were effaced by the trimness and neatness of the better parts of the city, the brightness, and even grandeur, of the Fifth Avenue, and by the wealth and display of Broadway. The characteristics of hotels on the American system are well known, but the Brevoort House is not one of these. Instead of a fixed charge per diem, to include bed and board in all its wonderful profusion of meals and of dishes, the Brevoort House has a varied tariff for apartments, and meals à la carte. There is an old-fashioned air about the house, combined with a great degree of comfort and a full attainment of all the objects which American travellers desire in baths, barber's shop, reading-room, bar, and the like. An excellent cook and a large and well-chosen cellar leave little to be desired in the way of eating and drinking. But as the kitchens are far away and dishes are not cooked until the order for them is given, the service, although plentifully armed, is necessarily slow.

Friends, railway authorities, and representatives of the press received the travellers on their arrival, and the process of interviewing commenced at once with great severity. As it would be inconvenient for all the gentlemen of the press to interview the same individual at once, a distribution of duties was made, and very soon after our appearance at the Brevoort House each member of the party had a little private confidence with the representative of some leading journal. The peculiar views of the interviewers themselves were reflected in their reports next day. Some attributed importance to personal details; others desired to ascertain our political opinions; some were anxious to be instructed on English social questions; others were curious to know our views respecting the municipal government of New York and the condition of the city, founded on what we gleaned from our inspection of the streets from the windows of the carriages in which we were carried to the hotel. But as even in so small a party there was diversity of opinions, the accounts of the general impressions of the whole body were rather contradictory and confused. It is a novel experience to English people to be accosted in the most familiar way by persons whom they have never seen in their lives, and to be subjected to an examination, even to minute particulars, respecting their views in relation to all manner of things, knowing all the while that their answers will be given with more or less accuracy in print in a few hours. But it is nevertheless an ordeal to which public men and notabilities in the United States submit generally without a struggle; and it would be considered a mark of "aristocratic exclusiveness" if titled people from England refused to acquiesce in the general custom.

The effect produced on the party by the first sight of the city was not agreeable. The unwonted look of the Elevated Railway, of the forest of crooked telegraph poles, and cobweb-like wires along the sideways, combined to give an unpleasant sensation to the eye. We had occasion, subsequently, to recognise the utility of the Elevated Railway, just as we had to admit the advantages of tramcar railways for the million; but no device can redeem the ugliness of the one, and nothing but a fine spirit of self-sacrifice can reconcile a resident of New York to the devastation caused in the streets, and to the misery of travelling over the iron ruts which run through most of the thoroughfares of the city, with the exception of Broadway. It is only fair to state that the Elevated Railway is not commended by any one from an æsthetic point of view, and there is a theory afloat that the telegraph wires will, some fine day, be laid underground; but, all said and done, there is reason to doubt whether they manage these things in New York much better than they do in some of the decayed old capitals of the Eastern World.

In some respects I found the old parts of New York but little changed since 1861. The words in which I recorded my first impressions then would not inaptly describe what one sees, in 1881, on landing at one of the wharves and driving to the Fifth Avenue, barring the change of seasons, for there was no snow in April, but the condition of the streets was accounted for by the late and severe winter, of which the effects had not yet disappeared.

I wrote on 16th March, 1861:—"We were rattling over a most abominable pavement, plunging into mud-holes, squashing through snow-heaps, in ill-lighted, narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses, of which an unusual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whisky-shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments. The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stranger would be likely to see in a very bad part of London, Antwerp, or Hamburg, with a dash of the noisy exuberance which proceeds from the high animal spirits that defy police regulations and are superior to police force, called 'rowdyism.' The drive was long and tortuous; but by degrees the character of the thoroughfares and streets improved. At last we turned into a wide street with very tall houses, alternating with far humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay with shop-windows, thronged in spite of the mud with well-dressed people, and pervaded by strings of omnibuses—Oxford Street was nothing to it for length. At intervals there towered up a block of brickwork and stucco with long rows of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a swarming crowd passing in and out of the portals, which was recognised as the barrack-like glory of American civilisation—a Broadway monster hotel. More oyster-shops, lager-bier saloons—concert-rooms of astounding denominations, with external decorations very much in the style of the booths at Bartholomew Fair—churches, restaurants, confectioners, private houses! again another series—they cannot go on expanding for ever! This is the west-end of London—its Belgravia and Grosvenoria represented in one long street, with offshoots of inferior dignity at right angles to it. Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater number have a compressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulsory narrowness of frontage in proportion to the height of the building, and all of them are bright and new, as if they were just finished to order,—a most astonishing proof of the rapid development of the city. As the hall door is made an important feature in the residence, the front parlour is generally a narrow, lanky apartment, struggling for existence between the hall and the partition of the next house. The outer door, which is always provided with fine carved panels and mouldings, is of some rich varnished wood, and looks much better than our painted doors. It is generously thrown open so as to show an inner door with curtains and plate glass. The windows, which are double on account of the climate, are frequently of plate glass also. Some of the doors are on the same level as the street, with a basement story beneath; others are approached by flights of steps, the basement for servants having the entrance below the steps, and this, I believe, is the old Dutch fashion, and the name of 'stoop' is still retained for it."