The State is the sole proprietor of nearly all the Belgian railways; and while it paternally confers on its subjects the benefit of cheap circulation and traffic, it might also modify an arrangement which is no other than unfeeling, and is deficient in that humanity which a government ought to exercise towards all under its protecting sway, without reference to wealth or rank. The second-class carriages are tolerable, with stuffed seats and a little horizontal stripe of stuffing to ease the back, and ladies may travel in them; but they are of scant dimensions, very naked inside, and unprovided with any hooks for hats or caps, or with receptacles for sticks and umbrellas. The seats are fancifully arranged with a sort of passage left between them, to give the means of stepping from one to the other, as if you were occupying a little parlour; but the result is no addition to comfort. The signal for starting is given, not by the whistle of the engine, but by a little musical flourish, a tir-ely, consisting of three notes, blown on his bugle by the conductor of the train. Of the officials, general civility and obliging behaviour is the rule. The passengers’ luggage department would be improved by assimilation with the system adopted in France. But nations are often like wilful children; they are determined to have a way of their own, for the sake of having it. They refuse to attend to good advice, because it is counsel given by another; and they persist in some evidently inconvenient mode of doing things, merely to show that they are independent agents, and that they can and will follow their own devices.