Long Island is separated from New York by a narrow sound, across which ferry-boats ply in both directions with extreme punctuality. From any part of New York city a couple of electric cars or an electric railway will take you to the threshold of the ferry-boat, and trains await you at the back-door, so to speak, of the ferry-boats, to convey you down the length of Long Island. On board the ferry-boat you can buy a variety of badly-printed and sensational daily papers for the sum of one cent; you can get your boots blacked for very little more; and no doubt, if there was sufficient demand, the directors would enable you to have your teeth brushed or your hair combed. No part of the equipment, however, is at all lovely. It answers the purpose of conveying you cheaply and expeditiously from one point to another, and enables you to finish your toilet in transit, which is an invaluable boon to those who want to save time. As a matter of fact, everyone wants to save time, but it has been reserved for Americans to invent such methods of doing it. The rest of the world, therefore, is in their debt. The debt is acknowledged, but the rest of the world, quite inscrutably, does not choose to follow their example. All may raise the flower now all have got the seed, but they do not raise the flower. There is no 'class' on these boats; there is no 'class' on the elevated railway; there is no 'class' on the electric cars. Millionaires in Long Island, in consequence, have the privilege of enjoying the same discomforts as other people, and even Lewis S., who could have bought up the whole system of electric cars, overhead railway, and ferry-boats (after a little judicious distribution of emoluments to the officials of New York City), habitually went by these unlovely conveyances, because there were no other. During his transit he once sent a cablegram buying, at any price, the whole dinner-service which had been used on the last occasion on which Marie Antoinette dined at Petit Trianon. It was extremely expensive, and, as he wrote, the drippings from the rain fell on to his cablegram form, for the boat was full. Subsequently he argued with the boot-boy who had blacked his boots, but gave in when the boy produced his tariff-card. And Democracy, the spirit of his fellow-passengers, sympathized in the main with him. Once arrived on Long Island, a walk of a hundred yards or so leads to the ticket-office. Those hundred yards are uncovered, however; but since people who live on Long Island _must_ pass them in order to get into the Delectable City, there is no reason why the railroad or the ferry-boat company should offer conveniences in the way of shelter to their passengers. Given competition, any line would vie with the others in mirrors and gilded furniture; but if there is none, why on earth spend a penny? Not a passenger the less will travel because the mode of transit is bestial. Thus, common-sense, as usual, emerges triumphant.