Activity.—Healthy Cold.—Why Drunkenness is Rare in America.—Do not Lose Sight of your Nose.—Advice to the Foreigner intending to Visit Jonathan in the Winter.—Visit to the Falls of Niagara.—Turkish Baths offered Gratis by Nature.

Chapter XXXIV.—Jonathan's Eccentricities.—The Arc de Triomphe not being Hirable, an American proposes to Buy it.—The Town Council of Paris do not Close with Him.—Cathedrals on Hire.—Companies Insuring against Matrimonial Infidelity.—Harmony Association.—Burial of a Leg.—Last Will and Testament of an American who Means to be Absent on the Day of Judgment.

Chapter XXXV.—Advertisements.—Marvellous Puffs.—Illustrated Ditto.—A Yankee on the Look-out for a Living,—"Her Heart and a Cottage."—A Circus Proprietor and the President of the United States.—Irresistible Offers of Marriage.—A Journalist of all Work.—Wanted, a Frenchwoman, Young, Pretty, and Cheerful.—Nerve-calming Syrup.—Doctors on the Road.—An Advocate Recommends Himself to Light-fingered Gentlemen.—Mr. Phineas Barnum, the King of Showmen.—Nothing is sacred in the Eyes of Phineas, the Modern Phoenix.—My Manager Regrets not being able to Engage Mr. Gladstone and Lord Randolph Churchill for Platform Work in the United States.

Chapter XXXVI.—Railways.—Vestibule Trains.—Hotels on Wheels.—Windows and Ventilators, and their Uses.—Pitiless Firemen.—Conductors and their Functions.—A Traveller's Perplexity.—Rudeness of Railway Servants.—The Actress and the Conductor.—An Inquisitive Traveller.—A Negro in a Flourishing Way.—Commerce on board the Cars.—"Apples, Oranges, Bananas!"—The Negro Compartment.—Change of Toilette.—"Mind your own business."

Chapter XXXVII.—Jonathan's Domestics.—Reduced Duchesses.—Queer Ideas of Equality.—Unchivalrous Man.—The Ladies of the Feather-broom.—Mr. Vanderbilt's Cook.—Negroes.—Pompey's Wedding.—Where is my Coat?—Kitchen Pianists.—Punch's Caricatures Outdone by Reality.—A Lady seeks a Situation as Dishwasher.—Why it is Desirable not to Part with your Servants on Bad Terms.

Chapter XXXVIII.—Jonathan's Table.—Danger of Steel Knives.—The Americans are Water-drinkers.—I Discover a Snake in my Tumbler.—The Negro Waiter Comforts Me.—Accommodation for Travellers.—The Menu.—Abbreviated Dinner.—The Little Oval Dishes.—Turkey and Cranberry Sauce.—A not very Tempting Dish.—Consolation of Knowing that the Waitresses are well cared for.—Something to Eat, for Heaven's Sake!—Humble Apologies to Mine Host.

Chapter XXXIX.—How the Americans take their Holidays.—The Hotel is their Mecca.—Mammoth Hotels.—Jacksonville and St. Augustine.—The Ponce de Leon Hotel.—Rocking-chairs.—Having a "Good Time!"—The American is never Bored.—The Food is not very Salt, but the Bill is very Stiff.—The Negroes of the South.—Prodigious Memories.—More "Duchesses."—The Negresses.—I Insult a Woman.

Chapter XL.—The Value of the Dollar.—A Dressmaker's Bill.—What American Women must Spend on Dress.—Why so many Americans come to Europe every year.—Current Prices.—The Beggar and the Nickel.—Books and Oysters are Cheap.—Salaries.—"I can afford it."

Chapter XLI.—Conclusion.—Reply to the American Question.—Social Condition of Europe and America.—European Debt and American Surplus.—The Americans are not so Happy as the French.—What Jonathan has Accomplished.—A Wish.

CHAPTER I.

he population of America is about sixty millions—mostly colonels.

Yes, sixty millions—all alive and kicking!

If the earth is small, America is large, and the Americans are immense!

An Englishman was one day boasting to a Frenchman of the immensity of the British Empire.

"Yes, sir," he exclaimed to finish up with, "the sun never sets on the English possessions."

"I am not surprised at that," replied the Frenchman; "the sun is obliged to keep an eye on the rascals."

However, the sun can now travel from New York to San Francisco, and light, on his passage, a free nation which, for the last hundred years, has been pretty successful in her efforts to get on in the world without John Bull's protection.

From east to west, America stretches over a breadth of more than three thousand miles. Here it is as well to put some readers on their guard, in case an American should one day ask them one of his favourite questions: "Where is the centre of America?" I myself imagined that, starting from New York and pushing westward, one would reach the extremity of America on arriving at San Francisco. Not so; and here Jonathan has you. He knows you are going to answer wrongly; and if you want to please him, you must let yourself be caught in this little trap, because it will give him such satisfaction to put you right. At San Francisco, it appears you are not quite half-way, and the centre of America is really the Pacific Ocean. Jonathan more than doubled the width of his continent in 1867, when for the sum of four[1] million dollars he purchased Alaska of the Russians.

Not satisfied with these immensities, Jonathan delights in contemplating his country through magnifying glasses; and one must forgive him the patriotism which makes him see everything double.

To-day population, progress, civilisation, every thing advances with giant's stride. Towns seem to spring up through the earth. A town with twenty thousand inhabitants, churches, libraries, schools, hotels, and banks, was perhaps, but a year or two ago, a patch of marsh or forest. To-day Paris fashions are followed there as closely as in New York or London.

In America, everything is on an immense scale: the just pride of the citizens of the young Republic is fed by the grandeur of its rivers, mountains, deserts, cataracts, its suspension