But it is a great misfortune that the company do not run hotel cars. I was told that the reason why we were made over helplessly to such caterers as those at North Platte and Sterling for our food was, that the custom of passengers is almost the only source of revenue the "eating-houses" along the line can depend upon. Without the custom of passengers they would expire--atrophise--become deceased. What I want to know is why they should not expire. I, as a traveller, see no reason whatever, no necessity, for their being kept alive at a cost of so much suffering to the company's customers. Let them decease, or else establish a claim to public support. During a long railway journey the system is temporarily deranged and appetites are irregular, so that some people can not eat when they have the opportunity, and when they could eat, do not get it. Some day, no doubt, a horrible cannibalic outrage on the cars will awaken the directors to the peril of carrying starving passengers, and the luxury of the hotel-car will be instituted. Not that I could censure the poor men of the South Seas or Central Africa for eating each other. There seems to me something a trifle admirable in this economy of their food. But cannibalism must, in the very nature of it, be deterrent to the formation of lasting friendships between strangers. So long as two men look upon each other as possible side dishes, there can be no permanent cordiality between them. Mutual confidence, the great charm of sincere friendship, must be wanting. You could never be altogether at your ease in a company which discussed the best stuffing for you. Meanwhile, the custom of carrying their own provisions is increasing in favour among passengers, so that, hotel cars or not, these Barmecide "eating-houses" may yet expire from inanition. The waiting (done by girls) is, I ought to say, admirable--but then so it was at Sancho Panza's supper and at Duke Humphrey's dinner-table. And yet the hungry went empty away. Between Cheyenne and Ogden the commissariat is distinctly better, and the unprovided traveller triumphs mildly over the more careful who have carried their own provisions. But, striking a balance on the whole journey, there is no doubt that the comfort of the trip, some sixty odd hours, from Omaha to Ogden, is materially increased by starting with a private stock of food. Bitter herbs without indigestion is better than a stalled ox with dyspepsia. An old Roman epicure gravely expressed his opinion that Africa could never be a progressive country, inasmuch as its shrimps were so small. And I think I may venture to say that if the cookery in the central States does not improve, the country must gradually drift backwards into barbarism. For there is a most intimate connexion between cookery and civilization.