of Indian goods. I do not know why it is so much an Indian

centre.

I took another look at the Falls in the morning-they well bear looking at twice certainly. I noticed that the hotel bill was very moderate. To be sure it is rather late in the season; but perhaps the neighborhood of Canada brings down prices. Certainly the hack carriages on the Canadian side are very moderate compared with American charges. From Niagara I went to Chicago, through Canada, by the Great Western Railway, crossing the river by the Suspension Bridge. The country beyond the river was much like what I had already seen. We passed the Welland Canal; that is, the Canadian canal, by which ships are taken round the Niagara Falls. It is now being re-excavated to the size and depth sufficient to carry seagoing ships; so that vessels may sail direct from the head of Lake Superior to ports in Europe with cargoes of grain and timber, or rather will soon be able to do so. If the navigation were open all the year round this route would have an immense advantage, but unfortunately it is closed by ice a great part of the year. I stopped a little time at Hamilton, in Canada. It seemed a decentlooking, newly-settled town, with many factories for agricultural implements. It is at the head of Lake Ontario, but I did not see much shipping. I went to a fair and agricultural show which was then taking place, and thought it really a very fine show indeed. It was full of Scotch people, or at any rate people talking very decided Scotch; indeed, there was so much of the Scotch intonation that if I had shut my eyes I might have supposed myself in Scotland. I am told that there are many Irish too hereabouts, and in one part of this country there are also Dutch. When I entered Canada I noticed that a superior class of coloured people came into the train. There seemed to be several parties of them, and among them several smart black ladies-very smart indeed. I do not know whether it was an accident seeing these people just as I entered Canada, or whether there are many well-to-do descendants of old refugees. In all the crowd at the fair there were scarcely any coloured people. I only saw two. All the rest looked very British. I was much interested in the agricultural show. There were plenty of good cattle, and horses, and pigs, but no sheep. But going away in the train I saw a good many sheep. Be

sides the ordinary food-grains there were some very fine mangolds, and a very magnificent show of apples, some pears, and very fine grapes; but I am told that most of the grapes are grown under glass. There was a great variety of agricultural machinery. A man was exhibiting and much praising what he called sugarcane grown in the neighbourhood. I looked at it, and found it was only sorghum, and that what was called sugar was nothing but a kind of molasses. In the bazaar there were many things of United States manufacturewatches from Illinois, enamelled ironmongery from St. Louis, silver from Connecticut; but furniture was mostly Canadian, as also were a good many woollen goods, which did not seem to me very first-rate. A little further on I stopped a little while at London. Here again another fair and show was going on, and again I found many Scotch-speaking people. I am sorry to say that one or two with whom I specially fraternised turned out to be tipsy. However, that little weakness excepted, they seemed a good sort of Scotch people. I do not know whether it is because I am remarkably sober myself, but I seem to have a special attraction for Scotchmen who have had a drop too much-when I go abroad.

There was an hotel-car attached to the train on the Great Western line, and in it I had far the best travelling meal I have yet had everything warm and nice, and the prices. moderate. These hotel-cars are an immense convenience. It is a great blessing, and greatly improves the digestion, to be able to take your meal at your leisure, without the continual fear of being left behind. Unfortunately, however, the hotel-cars are comparatively rare, and are only found on a few lines. On this line they go as far, I think, as Omaha, but they do not now run (as they once did) to San Francisco. For the rest of the journcy passengers are obliged to get their meals at the stations, which must be a very great drawback to that long journey. I know nothing so trying in the American arrangements as the stopping and the starting of the trains. There are no porters to shout and no slamming of doors, because there are no doors to slam, and most frequently no warning is given whatever. The train slides away quite silently, and until I gained experience I was once or twice almost left behind whilst standing on the platform, because I thought that the train going off in that style must be only shunting. However, you are always at liberty to run

after the train and catch it, and get up as best you can. That is what a large proportion of the passengers do.

The country about London is very pretty and good; to my idea as pleasant and home-looking an agricultural country as I have seen in America. It is undulating, and seemed to have much good grass, grazed over by fine stock, whereas in much of the New York country I gathered that the grass was much oftener cut as hay than grazed. In this Canada country there is much fine wood and many stumps in the fields, giving it a very newly-cleared appearance. Nevertheless I cannot help thinking that it showed more signs of good Scotch farming than anything I had seen in the States. In the night-train to Chicago there were a large number of sleeping-cars, and very many families and children returning from their summer outings. Sleeping-cars crowded in this fashion are not the coolest and pleasantest places in the world; and what surprises one is, that whereas in America there is almost always separate accommodation for ladies, every hotel having a separate ladies' entrance, and even every post-office a special window for ladies, in the sleeping-cars there is no division at all-all sexes and ages are accommodated promiscuously. I do not recommend night-travelling when there is a special run upon the cars. With all this sleeping accommodation and hotel-car and other luxuries, I was surprised to find there was no smoking accommodation whatever, except a very filthy car filled with emigrants. There is much less provision for smokers in America than with us. On this line there is practically a third class, under the name of 'emigrant carriages.' During the night we crossed the St. Lawrence (or whatever the river is here called) on a steamer without being at all disturbed. The train is taken on board and everything managed in the quickest and easiest manner. They certainly do manage these things capitally in America. Their ferry-boats are much superior to anything to be seen in Europe. In the morning we found ourselves in the Michigan. country, near the lake. It seemed there somewhat poor and jungly, and on the borders of the lake there were great sandhills. As we got on the country became somewhat better, but still a dead flat, with a great deal of marsh, and many of the houses built on piles. The lake was quite smooth: there were no waves beyond ripples. We duly arrived at Chicago. The railway station was burnt down in the great fire, and

as not been rebuilt. The town, though still showing a good many blanks, has been rebuilt in a wonderful way, and is undoubtedly a very fine one, but rather dirty and smoky-not clean, like the Eastern cities, where they burn anthracite coal. The whole country about is a dead level. The town is laid out on, I think, rather too great a scale; the distances are very great. Outside each quarter is a great park. I went to the Grand Pacific IIotel-not the largest, but it seems very good and well situated, and I was comfortable there. I made the acquaintance of Mr. A, the President of the Illinois Central Railway, who gave me much assistance; and I found one or two friends whom I had before met on my travels, and who were very kind to me. I spent the day in thoroughly doing the town. I went to one of the great pigkilling establishments. It certainly was a wonderful sight. They kill and dispose of 8,000 pigs per diem. It takes three or four days to convert the pigs into bacon, but they are really made into sausages in the course of an hour. The bacon is put into railway cars in layers, without any further packing, and so sent to the Eastern States. I drove round the parks, which are not quite complete, and may be called the parks of the future; but they are very well and handsomely laid out. There is a pleasant villa suburb called Hyde Park. Most of the Western cities have a 'Hyde Park." Here also there was an exhibition going on, which I went to see. American-made goods seemed to preponderate, the agricultural machinery, as usual, very prominent. I went to see one of the great elevators by which grain is raised by machinery, stored, and shipped. It must be understood that the elevator in America is not a mere machine for transferring the grain from one conveyance to another, but is, in fact, a. great warehouse, where grain is stored sometimes for months, especially on the great lakes, where, owing to the suspension of traffic in the winter, it must often be kept for a considerable period in store. The system seems to be one under which a man does not necessarily receive back his own grain,. but only a like quantity of grain of the same grade. I was not quite able to understand the nature of the interference exercised, but I found that at Chicago, and I believe at most American commercial centres, the produce brought to market is examined by official inspectors, who class the grain, and apparently nothing is allowed to be sold without being officially classed.

I met at Chicago and had much talk with Judge F of Tennessee, a gentleman who has had great experience in the Southern States; and also another gentleman, a Chicago lawyer, connected with the railway, a very clear-headed man. He told me that in all the States except Louisiana the law is based upon the English law. The Illinois Legislature meets biennially. The State Constitutions are generally revised by a Convention-say about once in every twenty years on the average, but there is no fixed time. Each State has its own civil and criminal law, and the State Judges dispose of all cases except offences against the United States revenue laws, which are tried by the United States Judges. After the war there was a general bankruptcy law throughout the whole of the United States, but it has now expired, and has not been renewed. There is a local insolvency law in some States, but not in all. In all States there seems to be a regular system of public prosecution-a prosecuting attorney is always to be found, corresponding to our Scotch Procurator Fiscals.

Judge F being a Southerner, takes a somewhat Southern view of things. He thinks the blacks will last for a time, but they cannot take care of themselves, and will die out in the end. Whether by nature or want of education, they seem to have a lower order of intelligence, and do not do well work requiring a fine hand, care, or thought; he believes they do not succeed in factories. They have a few farms of their own, but very few. He admits, however, that they are the most good-natured of mankind, and do very well under white superintendence. Most of the cotton is raised by negroes under a system of cultivation upon sharesthat is, the crops are divided between the proprietor and the negro who does the work, the negroes being well looked after. The larger estates in the South are now broken up into smaller farms, and more carefully worked than they used to be.

I went to see a great dry goods store. Dry goods are cloths and textile fabrics of all sorts, and, I believe, a good many other things besides; but I cannot exactly define the term. At all events dry goods are not groceries nor ironmongery. In this Great Central Chicago Store they say that half or perhaps more of the goods are of American make. Of the remainder, perhaps, one-third are English, and the rest French and German, or from other foreign countries.