Enormous Piles Of Boxes
Are Disclosed On The Platform At All The Larger Stations, The
Numbers Of Which Are Roared Forth With Quick Voice By Some Two Or
Three Railway Denizens At Once.
A modest English voyager, with six
or seven small packages, would stand no chance of getting anything
if he were left to his own devices.
As it is, I am bound to say
that the thing is well done. I have had my desk with all my money
in it lost for a day, and my black leather bag was on one occasion
sent back over the line. They, however, were recovered; and, on
the whole, I feel grateful to the check system of the American
railways. And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage. Of
weight they are quite regardless. On two or three occasions an
overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten
packages were a great many, and that some of those "light fixings"
might have been made up into one. And when I came to understand
that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re-
entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that she ought to
do without a bonnet box. The ten, however, went on, and were
always duly protected. I must add, however, that articles
requiring tender treatment will sometimes reappear a little the
worse from the hardships of their journey.
I have not much to say of Detroit - not much, that is, beyond what I
have to say of all the North.
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