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tutions in an enlightened age, that you had the estimable parts of our constitution to copy from, while its faults were before you to serve as beacons, I think your constitution ought to be nearer perfection than it is." "I think our constitution is as near perfection as anything human can be; we are the most free, enlightened, and progressive people under the sun," he answered, rather hotly; but in a few minutes resuming the conversation with his former companion, I overheard him say, "I think I shall give up politics altogether; I don't believe we have a single public man who is not corrupt." "A melancholy result of a perfect constitution, and a humiliating confession for an American," I observed.

The conversations in the cars are well worth a traveller's attention. They are very frequently on politics, but often one hears stories such as the world has become familiarised with from the early pages of Barnum's Autobiography, abounding in racy anecdote, broad humour, and cunning imposition. At Erie we changed cars, and I saw numerous emigrants sitting on large blue boxes, looking disconsolately about them; the Irish physiognomy being the most predominant. They are generally so dirty that they travel by themselves in a partially lighted van, called the Emigrants' car, for a most trifling payment. I once got into one by mistake, and was almost sickened by the smell of tobacco, spirits, dirty fustian, and old leather, which assailed my olfactory organs. Leaving Erie, beyond which the lake of the same name stretched to the distant horizon, blue and calm like a tideless sea, we entered the huge forests on the south shore, through which we passed, I suppose, for more than 100 miles.