Changes and improvements of very great importance to the travelling community have taken place within the last few years, not only in regard to the ocean steamships, but also in regard to facilities for embarkation and landing, and this very largely owing to the lively competition of Southampton and the inducements which it has to offer as a shipping port. The dredging of the bar at the mouth of the Mersey, so as to admit of sea-going vessels entering the port at any state of the tide, is not the least important of the changes referred to. Until quite recently ocean steamers had frequently to come to anchor six or eight miles from the mouth of the river, and wait outside for hours till the tide would rise. That obstruction has been removed, and now the largest steamers can cross the bar at almost any state of the tide. But that is not all. The tedious and discomfortable method of being conveyed from ship to shore in a “tender” has also been done away with. The wonder is that it was submitted to so long. The ocean steamship on her arrival at Liverpool is now brought alongside the landing-stage, and instead of being obliged to drive in a cab or omnibus across the city a mile or more to the railway station for London or elsewhere, the railway and the station have come down to the water’s edge, and you pass at once from the ship to the railway train, and immediately proceed on your journey. Passengers for New York may leave Euston Station, London, at noon by a special train of the London and North Western Railway, and find themselves on the landing-stage at Liverpool at 4.15 p.m., the run of over two hundred miles being made, perhaps, without a stoppage—looking for their luggage, as Englishmen are accustomed to do, and astonished to learn that, by some occult system of handling, and, most strange of all, without a “tip,” it is already on board the ship!