population would use them in the United States as in any country in Europe.  And it seems to be evident that in arranging that there shall be only one rate of traveling, the price is enhanced on poor travelers exactly in proportion as it is made cheap to those who are not poor.  For the poorer classes, traveling in America is by no means cheap, the average rate being, as far as I can judge, fully three halfpence a mile.  It is manifest that dearer rates for one class would allow of cheaper rates for the other; and that in this manner general traveling would be encouraged and increased.

But I do not believe that the question of expenditure has had anything to do with it.  I conceive it to be true that the railways are afraid to put themselves at variance with the general feeling of the people.  If so, the railways may be right.  But then, on the other band, the general feeling of the people must in such case be wrong.  Such a feeling argues a total mistake as to the nature of that liberty and equality for the security of which the people are so anxious, and that mistake the very one which has made shipwreck so many attempts at freedom in other countries.  It argues that confusion between social and political equality which has led astray multitudes who have longed for liberty fervently, but who have not thought of it carefully.  If a first-class railway carriage should be held as offensive, so should a first-class house, or a first-class horse, or a first-class dinner.  But first-class houses, first-class horses, and first-class dinners are very rife in America.  Of course it may be said that the expenditure shown in these last-named objects is private expenditure, and cannot be controlled; and that railway traveling is of a public nature, and can be made subject to public opinion.  But the fault is in that public opinion which desires to control matters of this nature.  Such an arrangement partakes of all the vice of a sumptuary law, and sumptuary laws are in their very essence mistakes.  It is well that a man should always have all for which he is willing to pay.  If he desires and obtains more than is good for him, the punishment, and thus also the preventive, will come from other sources.

It will be said that the American cars are good enough for all purposes.  The seats are not very hard, and the room for sitting is sufficient.  Nevertheless I deny that they are good enough for all purposes.  They are very long, and to enter them and find a place often requires a struggle and almost a fight.  There is rarely any person to tell a stranger which car he should enter.  One never meets an uncivil or unruly man, but the women of the lower ranks are not courteous.  American ladies love to lie at ease in their carriages, as thoroughly as do our women in Hyde Park; and to those who are used to such luxury, traveling by railroad in their own country must be grievous.  I would not wish to be thought a Sybarite