That splendid trinity of the American peerage, the colonel, the judge, and the professor, turned out in full force at Central Music Hall last night. The lecturer is a magician who serves up your many little defects, peculiar to the auditors' own country, on a silver salver, so artistically garnished that one forgets the sarcasm in admiration of the sauce. [Illustration: A CELEBRATED EXECUTIONER.] The _Tribune_ is quite as complimentary and quite as lively: His satire is as keen as the blade of the celebrated executioner who could cut a man's head off, and the unlucky person not know it until a pinch of snuff would cause a sneeze, and the decapitated head would, much to its surprise, find itself rolling over in the dust. And after a good breakfast at Toledo station, I enjoyed an hour poring over the Chicago papers. I lecture in Cleveland to-night, and am still in "the neighborhood of Chicago." [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [3] Very strange, that church with its stalls, galleries, and boxes--a perfect theater. From the platform it was interesting to watch the immense throng, packing the place from floor to ceiling, in front, on the sides, behind, everywhere. CHAPTER XXVII. THE MONOTONY OF TRAVELING IN THE STATES--"MANON LESCAUT" IN AMERICA. _In the train from Cleveland to Albany, February 27._ Am getting tired and ill. I am not bed-ridden, but am fairly well rid of a bed. I have lately spent as many nights in railway cars as in hotel beds. Am on my way to Albany, just outside "the neighborhood of Chicago." I lecture in that place to-night, and shall get to New York to-morrow. I am suffering from the monotony of life. My greatest objection to America (indeed I do not believe I have any other) is the sameness of everything. I understand the Americans who run away to Europe every year to see an old church, a wall covered with moss and ivy, some good old-fashioned peasantry not dressed like the rest of the world.