SIR,--I am not one of those who snarl at modern improvements, but I admit my incapacity to find out the improvements, at which other people snarl--I consider gas and steam to be two of the most odious and abominable nuisances ever tolerated in a Christian country: I only ask the best-natured critic--the most impartial judge in Christendom--whether anything can smell more abominably than the vapour which thousands of pounds are hourly spent to produce? If ruining oil-men, and beggaring wax-chandlers, is sport, well and good--in Heaven's name stew down the wholesome coals and make smoke, and set fire to it: but don't call that an improvement. I love the sight of a lamp-lighter--a "jolly Dick" in a greasy jacket flaring his link along the pavement, rubbing against one's sleeve, or besprinkling one's shirt with oil--I seldom see one of them now; the race is superseded by a parcel of dandies, with dark lanthorns in their hands, prowling about like so many Guy Fawkes's: up they go, and without taking off the green lamp-tops and putting them on their heads, as the jolly Dicks did, they open a door, turn a cock, introduce their lanthorn--piff, paff, poff,--out comes the light, and down goes the ladder--this is innovation, not improvement. Then steam--what's the improvement of steam? There was an interest in a short sea voyage when I was young--contrary winds--tides against one--nature had fair play--but now Mr. This-thing or Mr. T'other-thing makes a great copper pot, and fills it with water--more coals; poking and stoking, and shovelling and raking--Nature is thrown overboard; and the pacquet-boat, uninfluenced either by her smiles or frowns, ploughs up the waves, and marches along, like a couple of wandering water-mills. There is no interest in this, sir--any fool can make a copper pot--any fool can fill a copper pot with water--any fool can make a fire, and poke it, and make water boil--there's no pleasure in this life when events are thus provided for, and that, which had all the interest of doubt and difficulty, is reduced to a certainty. The same in land carriage--formerly, a stage coach journey was an affair--a thing to be thought about--a man took leave of his relations, left his home, in the expectation of never seeing his wife again; then there was an interest, a pleasure in the speculation, and a hope, and a fear, and a doubt, and something to keep the faculties awake. Now, sir, if you want to go sixty or seventy miles, you have hardly settled yourself comfortably in your corner, before you are at your journey's end. Why, sir, before these jigamaree things were invented, I have lived two-and-twenty days on board a Leith smack, for three pounds three shillings, and enjoyed a pleasant five days' excursion on the road to Plymouth; whereas at present I am whirled from Edinburgh to London in forty hours, and taken from Piccadilly to Dock--Devonport I mean--in about half that time. Now this, to my mind, is no improvement.