American cities are not in the position of our country towns, but of the capitals of European kingdoms. Richmond, for instance, till the disruption of Virginia which took place during the late war, was the capital of a State as large as the whole of England and Wales, with the addition of almost the half of Scotland. And as the sites of these cities were always chosen on account of the facilities they offered for trade and commerce, they have in almost every instance become the emporia for the chief part of the foreign and domestic business of their respective States. This also has generally led to their becoming manufacturing towns. In this way each has come to engross almost everything in the State that contributes to the building up of a great city. Bearing this in mind, we shall cease to wonder at the rapid growth in population, wealth, and trade of such a place as Chicago. It is a measure of the population, the wealth, the production and consumption of the great State of Illinois. Just so also with Cincinnati, St. Louis, and all their other great cities. They are made by the States to which they belong. This of course is not the case with New York, which is the commercial capital of a great part of the Union, or with New Orleans, which is the warehouse through which a large proportion of the produce of the valley of the Mississippi must pass. We must also remember that these large cities are at enormous distances from each other. In some instances, as notably in those of New York and New Orleans, the chief town in the State has not been able to retain the presence of the State legislature; this loss, however, has proved of no great consequence to them. We are often told that the character of a nation in some degree depends on its kitchen. A traveller therefore who understands all that will be expected of him when he returns home, will not pass by unnoticed the style of cookery, and the materials with which it deals, of the people among whom he makes what I heard in this country called, not unaptly, ‘a tour of observation’; and cookery, whether he chooses to observe it or not, is a matter which at all events is submitted to his observation two or three times a day. The fact that first struck me in American ‘living’ was its abundance. Butchers’ shops and poulterers’ were, particularly the latter, of more frequent occurrence and better stored than I had ever seen elsewhere. Everybody appears to have plenty to eat, and few appear to neglect their opportunities. [Sidenote: _American Living._]