black school for little negro children in the Southern States, taught by a young white Northern lady, whom we should think almost superior to that sort of work. I am sure our women have much to learn from the American women in the matter of helping others and helping themselves.

As to the men, I liked their style and manners. Generally speaking, there was comparatively little of the Yankee about them. I heard a story of my friend Mr. Holmes, the Member for Paisley, who made a tour in the United States, and when he got to Chicago he was very anxious to see a typical American, with his slouched hat, big boots, belt with revolver stuck it, and so on. one for a long time. At last he found a man who He could not find exactly came up to his idea; and entering into conversation with him, he said, 'Have you been long here?' 'Na,' was the answer, 'I'am jist a month frae Glasca'. Perhaps the men too have been somewhat affected by English criticism. At all events, it is now the case that in their conduct they are exceedingly quiet and orderly, and only spit to a moderate extent. In fact, as regards smoking and everything of that kind, the American rules are much more strict than ours. lower class of American men as rude and barbarous Mr. Trollope denounces the in the extreme. For my part, I can say I found them quite the contrary. Whenever I had occasion to talk to any of them I was generally impressed with their civility, intelligence, and education. One thing. particularly struck me, and that was the quiet and

orderly character of their political meetings, I may almost say the dullness of them, for I think they were somewhat too quiet. They never interrupt a speaker, but always let him say out his say without the smallest hindrance, however distasteful his ideas may be to some of them. When I said that sometimes they are very orderly, to the point of dullness, I might illustrate that by telling you of an American politician whom I met. He had been up attending a political meeting at a country town. I said, 'How did you get on?' 'Oh,' he replied, 'exceedingly well; I gave them three solid hours of it, and they were as quiet as if they had been in church.' Upon the whole, my impression of the Americans is this, that in point of energy and enterprise they are rather above the average Britisher, but not above the average Scotchman-about, I may say, equal to an average Scotchman. They are certainly very pushing and go-ahead people; but then if they make a great deal of money they also spend it very quickly -there is no doubt that they are inclined to be extravagant.

Everyone who goes to America is very much struck by the respect for law which prevails there. They are, in fact, an extremely law-abiding people; and since their great war, having learned by experi ence how horrible war is, they have come through great trials and difficulties with wonderful avoidance of irritation and injurious conflict. I know no people in the world who accept defeat in so thoroughly good-humoured a way; and in this respect I

think that the tone and temper of the people of the Southern States is very highly to be praised.

There is an idea prevalent in this country that in regard to many questions of social science, the management of prisons and such like matters, the Americans have gone far ahead of ourselves. I did not go very minutely into these matters, for I had not time, but so far as I could learn I failed to find that they are much ahead of us. I heard quite as many complaints of prison management in America as ever I did in this country, and I doubt very much whether their sanitary and other improvements are greatly superior to ours. I am inclined to believe that Edinburgh and Glasgow have done quite as much in the way of social science progress as any American town.

I was specially interested in the condition of the Southern States, and I spent a good deal of my time there. They have no doubt suffered from war in a pecuniary way as well as by losing all the flower of the population; but they have a good heart, and are doing well. This subject, however, is a special one, which I shall probably take occasion to explain in another shape, for it is scarcely possible to do so now.

I do not know that there is anything very special in the larger American cities, except the trees in the streets which I have mentioned, and the strictly rectangular character in their arrangement which leads to the numbering of the streets in the way you have often heard. There is one institution in New York which struck me as very successful, and that is the elevated

railways just opened. Instead of destroying the narrower streets, full of traffic, by laying tramways in them, they leave the streets for the ordinary traffic, and carry the railway on elevated girders above the heads of the people and the carts. That seems to be successfully done in New York, and I hope to see it 'done in London also. The Elevated Railway is quite a new institution in New York-only started in the last few months; but throughout all the towns the tramway-car is a most universal and successful insti tution. The whole population use the tram-cars; in most places there are comparatively few private carriages, and cabs are always dear.

My complaint of the American cities is that they are too big-that is to say, too many people come to the towns who had much better go and work in the country. I was almost tempted to say that, among the Americans, for every man who really works with his hands there seems to be two who seek to live by speculating upon him-especially by insuring his life-that seems to be the great business now to which retired generals, governors, and other great men devote themselves. It seemed to me that Washing. ton is the pleasantest and best of American cities. Mr. Trollope describes it in very horrible terms, but it has certainly been very much improved since those days, and appeared to me to be a charming place. Boston, as you may have heard, is a delightfully English-looking place. Chicago and those new ci ties seem to have been overdone and to be much too large.

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. 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

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