The effect produced on the party by the first sight of the city was not agreeable. The unwonted look of the Elevated Railway, of the forest of crooked telegraph poles, and cobweb-like wires along the sideways, combined to give an unpleasant sensation to the eye. We had occasion, subsequently, to recognise the utility of the Elevated Railway, just as we had to admit the advantages of tramcar railways for the million; but no device can redeem the ugliness of the one, and nothing but a fine spirit of self-sacrifice can reconcile a resident of New York to the devastation caused in the streets, and to the misery of travelling over the iron ruts which run through most of the thoroughfares of the city, with the exception of Broadway. It is only fair to state that the Elevated Railway is not commended by any one from an æsthetic point of view, and there is a theory afloat that the telegraph wires will, some fine day, be laid underground; but, all said and done, there is reason to doubt whether they manage these things in New York much better than they do in some of the decayed old capitals of the Eastern World. In some respects I found the old parts of New York but little changed since 1861. The words in which I recorded my first impressions then would not inaptly describe what one sees, in 1881, on landing at one of the wharves and driving to the Fifth Avenue, barring the change of seasons, for there was no snow in April, but the condition of the streets was accounted for by the late and severe winter, of which the effects had not yet disappeared.