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But the progress, which has never been arrested since the period of my first acquaintance with the Empire City, is attested by statistics; it has grown, and it is growing steadily in size, population, trade, and wealth.

In the evening the Duke and some of the party went to the Madison Square Theatre to see "Hazel Kirke," which has had a wonderful run: but, truth to say, I was more struck by the commodiousness and charming arrangements of the theatre, which are perfect, than by the situations of the highly strained drama, which was rendered, however, by a very effective company, and moved many of those near us to tears.

The day after our arrival (April 26th) the conviction dawned on certain of us that we must be up and stirring, if certain articles of baggage were to be rescued from some unknown limbo and restored to our personal use. (I hope my readers will bear with me if I ask them to accept a few pages now and then of my diary as the best account I can offer them of our tour.) The worthy Briton who had borne up manfully against the unaccustomed trials of sea-sickness, and had valiantly kept watch and ward over the Duke's baggage and that of his friends on board ship, had been fairly overwhelmed by the novitas regni on landing, and he maintained undefeatedly that all the things—his own certainly—were in the hotel, but "that they would not give them up!" There was nothing for it but an expedition to the Cunard dock. Lord Stafford and I drove over to the river side, and there we found the missing portmanteaux, bags, and bundles, quite safe, in a large shed, open apparently to all the world, and returning to the Brevoort were once more entangled in the meshes of many interviewers.

It needs some reflection to appreciate the great fact called New York; some previous acquaintance to recognise the prodigious increase, within the last ten or fifteen years, in all that makes a great city. The Fifth Avenue has extended its well-ordered rows of stately mansions and handsome houses almost to the gates of the favourite recreation ground of fast trotters and well-appointed carriages. The Central Park is now a beautiful resort, of which any metropolis might be proud. "O Quirine! Rusticus tuus sumit trechedipna." If my eyes did not deceive me, I beheld cockades in the hats of honest Republican "helps," and armorial bearings on the panels of democratic broughams. Should the enterprise of a gentleman who proposes to collect particulars of Americans claiming to be sprung from the loins of kings and emperors, to be published at a price which suggests that he must believe in the possession of hereditary wealth by his distinguished subscribers, be successful, imperial and royal honours will be due to people now content with belonging to "the first families" in the States. These, however, are but spots on the face of the sun under which the American "Demos" basks so contentedly, and they may vary in size and number without affecting the purity and force of the celestial rays.

The papers contained elaborate descriptions of the Duke and of his party from the pens of the interviewers of the day before, which afforded us considerable amusement. His Grace of course was the central figure, and, judging from the accounts we read, he must certainly have assumed a variety of appearances. One paper said: "His gait is marked by a slight limp: his manner is easy, even careless, and his movements are noticeable for their restlessness." "Altogether he is the picture of a well-bred English gentleman, and would never be suspected of being the possessor of a dozen titles and an income so vast that he cannot possibly spend it all." Another paper thought he was "a jolly-looking man. He is above the middle height, of robust build, and the very picture of a thoroughly happy, healthy, well-preserved gentleman, still in the prime of life. He wears his beard, whiskers, and moustache, which are of a bright chestnut-brown, and as yet barely touched by the silver tint of time." The appreciations of another reporter were very different. He wrote "the Duke is a tall gentleman with silvery hair and a grey beard, dressed in a sack coat and grey trowsers." According to another authority "He has a look about him which would mark him for a Scotchman. He is tall, of medium size, with greyish hair and whiskers and a sandy-coloured moustache. He was dressed in a grey suit and Derby hat." He was described elsewhere as having "a passion for steam-engines of almost every kind, although the locomotive and the modern fire-engine are his favourites." We all came in for our share of fancy sketching and pen-and-ink drawing, and those who knew themselves best would have been puzzled to detect the originals. Some of the limners thought us "fair types of well-to-do, well-fed gentlemen, of the solid build and florid features which English roast beef produces." Mr. Neale was declared to have "a more elegant external appearance than the other members of the party. On the outskirts of his features grow brown whiskers." We all "talked more affectedly" than the Duke. Mr. Stephen was complimented with reason on his "magnificent physique." It was astonishing how "well posted," to use the Transatlantic idiom, the papers were in Burke and Debrett. They gave full accounts of the ducal house of Sutherland—of its history and possessions, expatiated on the grandeurs of Trentham, Stafford House, and Dunrobin, the treasures of their picture-galleries, the vast acreage of the estates, the richness of the mines, the wealth of the salmon rivers, deer forests, and grouse moors, with most un-Republican enthusiasm.

To millions of Americans the exact status of a Duke is as great a mystery as the rank of a Jam or of a Thakoor is to the mass of Englishmen out of India; but millions of Americans had heard of the Duke of Sutherland. Stafford House is a name familiar to those who remember the times when "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and the anti-slavery agitation which emanated from Exeter Hall made noise in the world. Still, the great gulf which the Revolution and the Act of Independence made between the social systems of the New World and the Old is only passed by the travelled American, except in rare instances. The colonel who informed Martin Chuzzlewit that "your Queen, sir, lives in the Tower of London," was scarcely an exaggeration of popular American ignorance on such subjects. But, after all, how many Englishmen are there who could give an exact account of the working of the Electoral College in the election of one of the most potential of sovereigns, or who could define the differences between a Republican and a Democrat? An old lady on board the "Gallia" who insisted that "the Duke of Sutherland was a cousin of the Queen of England" represents a large number of people who cannot or do not care to understand the functions and constitution of what they call "your privileged classes." The authority to whom I refer above was on her way to her home in the Far West after a tour in Europe and a visit to Great Britain, and she told her auditory that "she thought Ireland, at all events, would be a great deal better off if there were more dollars and less dukes in it," which, seeing that the Green Isle has only two peers of that rank, argued perhaps some intolerance on her part towards the ducal aristocracy. A duke who takes an active interest in the great works of national progress which Americans exhibit with a just pride to all comers is sure to be honoured in the Great Republic; and when he examines mechanical inventions, ascends elevators, descends mines, dips into graving-docks,