Presidents and vice-presidents of railways in this country are great powers, and exercise vast influence, if not in the State, at least on their own lines--aye, and farther too. On one occasion I was informed, when inquiring into the functions of the several officers of a great company, that one of them was charged especially with looking after those interests of the railway which might be affected by legislation--in other words, that he had to see lest the company should suffer detriment from the views of persons who might be returned to positions in which they might carry out theories dangerous to their monopoly. The distance from New York to Philadelphia is ninety miles, which, under ordinary circumstances, is traversed in two hours and a half, or thereabouts; but our special was timed to do it in considerably less. The train passes right through the streets of Jersey City, which would be considered a large town in the old country, and boasts of a population of nearly 90,000. As the bell of the engine tolled, women and children skipped out of the way or ran across the line, when they eluded the vigilance of the railway officials who lowered ingenious barriers as the train approached. But although they say "practice makes perfect," "killed by the cars" is a very ordinary head-line in the American newspapers. The country outside "Jersey City," which is like an ugly continuation of New York, is flat and uninteresting, but the low land which the railroad traverses is dotted by factories and industrial establishments of all kinds. We were soon aware that we were carrying with us the plague of hideous advertisements plastered upon walls, and even upon the natural features of the country, which we had observed in the environs of New York. From imperious commands to "smoke" somebody's "mixture" down to wheedling supplications to "use" somebody else's "oil," the eye encountered at every hundred yards on the hoardings, on the sides of houses, on trees and palings, the mendacious advertisements of quack doctors and sellers of patent or unpatent nostrums, frequently illustrated by woodcuts set forth in glaring colours. So close to Jersey City that we were scarcely aware that it was separated from it by a few fields, we came to Newark, a great town of brick and wood houses, chimneys, factories, and churches, containing more than 120,000 people, and as we ran through the streets we got glimpses of some fine-looking buildings, of which we have nothing more to say.