A live, undenominational, illustrated Christian paper, with a weekly circulation of fifty thousand copies, and rapidly increasing. Every State of the Union, every Province of Canada, and every country in the world is represented on its enormous subscription list. Address your subscription to Mr. N., treasurer, etc. "Signs of our times," indeed! [Illustration] CHAPTER XXXI. VIRGINIA--THE HOTELS--THE SOUTH--I WILL KILL A RAILWAY CONDUCTOR BEFORE I LEAVE AMERICA--PHILADELPHIA--IMPRESSIONS OF THE OLD CITY. _Petersburg, Va., March 3._ Left New York last night and arrived here at noon. No change in the scenery. The same burnt-up fields, the same placards all over the land. The roofs of houses, the trees in the forests, the fences in the fields, all announce to the world the magic properties of castor oil, aperients, and liver pills. [Illustration: MY SUPPER.] A little village inn in the bottom of old Brittany is a palace of comfort compared to the best hotel of a Virginia town. I feel wretched. My bedroom is so dirty that I shall not dare to undress to-night. I have just had lunch: a piece of tough dried-up beef, custard pie, and a glass of filthy water, the whole served by an old negro on an old, ragged, dirty table-cloth. Petersburg, which awakes so many souvenirs of the War of Secession, is a pretty town scattered with beautiful villas. It strikes one as a provincial town. To me, coming from the busy North, it looks asleep. The South has not yet recovered from its disasters of thirty years ago. That is what struck me most, when, two years ago, I went through Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. Now and then American eccentricity reveals itself. I have just seen a church built on the model of a Greek temple, and surmounted with a pointed spire lately added. Just imagine to yourself Julius Cæsar with his toga and buskin on, and having a chimney-top hat on his head. The streets seemed deserted, dead. To my surprise, the Opera House was crowded to-night. The audience was fashionable and appreciative, but very cool, almost as cool as in Connecticut and Maine. Heaven be praised! a gentleman invited me to have supper at a club after the lecture. * * * * * _March 4._ I am sore all over. I spent the night on the bed, outside, in my day clothes, and am bruised all over. I have pains in my gums too. Oh, that piece of beef yesterday! I am off to Philadelphia. My bill at the hotel amounts to $1.50. Never did I pay so much through the nose for what I had through the mouth. * * * * * _Philadelphia, March 4._ Before I return to Europe I will kill a railway conductor. [Illustration: "IMAGINE JULIUS CÆSAR WITH A BIG HAT."]