Before and since my arrival in the United States, I had thought much of seeing Washington, and, if possible, Congress in session. But such was the severity of the weather that we could not cross the Alleghanies before that assembly had risen and dispersed. At Baltimore I was within two hours' journey of the capital. Should I go and see it? No; for what can _there_ be found to gratify the friend of freedom and of man? The Missouri compromise, the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War, are all associated with Washington. The capital itself is but a great slave-mart, with its baracoons and manacles, its handcuffs and auction-stands! Ay, and all this in full view of the national edifice, wherein is deposited that instrument which bears on its head and front the noble sentiment--"That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Under the influence of these recollections, I abandoned the idea of visiting Washington. At 9 o'clock on Monday morning we set off by railway for Philadelphia. While I was taking a last glance at my trunks in the luggage-van, at the Baltimore station, about half-a-dozen very clean and respectable coloured ladies came up, and made for the said van as a matter of course. It was the only accommodation that would be allowed them, though they paid the same fare as other people! They were ladies to whom any gentleman in England would have been proud to resign a seat. But in the land of equality, they were consigned to the cold, dark, and dirty regions of the luggage-van. I noticed one important difference between the railway economy of England and that of America. In the former, as you know, the railway is haughty, exclusive, and aristocratic. It scorns all fellowship with common roads, and dashes on, either under or over the houses, with arbitrary indifference. In America, it generally condescends to pass along the public streets to the very centre of the city, the engine being taken off or put to in the suburbs, and its place _intra muros_, if I may so say, supplied by horses. In leaving Baltimore, the engine was attached _before_ we got quite out of the city; and we were going for some time along the common road, meeting in one place a horse and cart, in another a man on horseback, in another a pair of oxen fastened to each other, and so on. Dangerous enough, apparently! yet railway accidents are much less frequent in America than in England. It is, besides, an immense saving of capital.