It is always very easy to see the cities of America; everybody expects you to see the cities; but it is much more difficult to see the country. Railways there are in abundance, and wherever there is a railway you can go, but there is an extreme want of good roads. The Americans seem to have skipped over that stage in human progress and to have gone direct from no roads to railways. If you want to hire a trap to drive ten miles into the country you will find it scarcely possible to get such a thing. But the Americans themselves have, for country use, most admirable private vehicles-infinitely lighter than our carriages, quite as lasting, and every way superior; and I cannot imagine why we don't take a leaf out of their book in this respect. Whenever you are with friends they are always ready to drive you over the country with their fast-trotting horses and light buggies-admirable both horses and buggies are. That is the only way in which you can see America. To my view no man has seen America who merely goes from town to town, and does not see the country in the way I have described, for the real backbone of the population of America consists of the small farmers who cover the country. The American Government have been exceedingly wise in the provisions which they have made against land-jobbing. Land is not appropriated in immense blocks by the early settlers, as in most of our colonies. The amount which each man is allowed to take up is restricted to that which he can beneficially farm; and under the homestead law every man who settles in the country is entitled

to a farm of this kind. I believe it is upon this system that the true greatness of America is founded.

Much, too, is due to the system of free education which has prevailed in the common schools of the North for the last two or three generations. Not only is this so in New England, but the New Englanders, taking their ideas to the West, have developed the system still more completely in the Western States. For instance, in Illinois it is required by law that there should be a school every two miles at least. A certain proportion of the land in every township is always set apart for the maintenance of schools. The State maintains not only primary schools but also high schools in number sufficient to meet the demand for higher instruction; and even, in some places, agricultural colleges and such special institutions. The universities and colleges for general education of the highest class of all are the only institutions not included in the general system of free public instruction; but there are many excellent universities, some of which have large endowments, while some have received some public aid under local arrangements. In addition to endowments the cost of public education is met, first, by a rate upon land, and, second, by a poll-tax upon the people. By these means sufficient funds are provided in the Northern States; but in the South the funds are very deficient, though the system has been more or less introduced there also. There are a good many grumblers in America, as there are with us -a good many people who complain of the highness of

the rates, and who say that they should not be taxed to teach a labourer's daughter to play upon the piano. Now, about the piano I won't say whether I agree with them-perhaps I am rather heretical on musical subjects; but I am impressed with the belief, not only that we should make education as cheap and free as possible to the poorer classes, but also that the public may fairly do something for the middle and higher education, both in view of the fact that the middle classes pay largely to the education rates, and that a ladder may be provided by which the poor may mount upwards. In America the children of the well-to-do classes, merchants and professional men and such like, habitually attend the public schools, girls as well as boys; indeed, the higher schools are much more used by girls than by boys, for the boys go early into business, while the girls continue their education. I did not find the character of the higher education to be so much reformed as I should have expected. There is still a good deal of Latin and Greek taught; and there is not so universal a system of instruction in the useful sciences as I looked for; but much is done in special colleges, and improvements are being effected which, no doubt, will soon become general.

Meantime I think it may be said that the Americans owe their great success in certain branches of mechanical manufacture to their own ingenuity and energy, rather than to any public system of technical instruction. They certainly are marvellously clever as inventors. They have a patent

law, and consider it to be much better than ours. They examine and test patents before they are passed, and have a great patent show at Washington. I am not qualified to tell you anything of their manufacturing processes, and indeed was not on this occasion long enough in the North-Eastern States and cities to see much of these things; but they are readily accessible to any of you who choose to go there. The Americans certainly show immense energy in all mercantile and manufacturing operations, and leave no stone unturned to develop the resources of the country.

the same.

I have often been asked, 'How about American rascality? Are people there worse than our directors?' I can only say that I think they are about The fact is that American law is entirely founded on English law, and the safeguards against new-fashioned rascality offered by a law designed only to meet a rascality which is not new-fashioned are about as great in America as in this country—as great, I think, but not greater. There is a great deal of mercantile rascality there as well as here; but I have heard it said that some people are rather jealous of the directors of the Glasgow Bank for having done a 'bigger thing' than they have done. As is the case with us, a great many fraudulent people escape the punishment which they merit; and there have been some great scandals, not only in joint-stock affairs but in municipal affairs. I think, however, that we must not judge of the American people by what has taken place in the New York Municipality; that is,

I believe, exceptional. Most of their towns are as well managed as ours. My impression is that when they do take fraudulent people in hand they are more thorough in their proceedings than we sometimes are, and that a more adequate punishment is sometimes dealt out.

PROTECTION AND RECIPROCITY.

In these days of commercial distress and prophecies of down-going you will probably expect me to say a word about free trade and reciprocity and such like matters; for whereas in this country we have been for a good many years the upholders of free trade, in America I have been among a people who have become the strenuous upholders of protectionist doctrines. They protect everything and everybody, and if there are any objectors they silence them by giving them protection too; so that the protection of one thing leads to a dozen others. I am no expert in commercial matters, and cannot pretend to sit in judgment where doctors disagree. I am, also, no rabid 'political economist,' if I may so express it. I do not treat the dogmas of political economists as if they were emanations from on high; and I also am not one of those people who think that when Englishmen differ from the rest of the world Englishmen must necessarily be in the right. I cannot say whether there are any circumstances in which a certain amount of protection really might be beneficial, in the sense in which a glass cover is beneficial in certain stages of a growing