In the United States the distances between leading places is so great that the fares charged, albeit generally moderate, cannot suit slender purses, while empty pockets are nowhere. In consequence many attempt to smuggle themselves through. The writer remembers, in about the part of the route under notice, a “dead‐head” who had for several stations managed to elude the notice of the guard, but who was at last detected, and put off at a point a dozen or more miles from the nearest settlement. The “dead‐head,” like the stowaway on board ship, of whom as many as fourteen have been concealed on a single vessel, and not one of them discovered by the proper authorities till far out at sea, is an unrecognised institution on the railways of the United States. Perhaps because our ticket system is more rigidly enforced, few attempt to take a free passage on English railways, although it is stated that a sailor was found, some little time since, asleep _under_ a carriage, his arms and legs coiled round the brake‐rods, having succeeded in nearly making the trip from London to Liverpool undiscovered. But, then, sailors are hardened to jars and shocks and noises, by being accustomed to the warring of the elements and so forth. The reader may remember that when, some few years ago, a Great Western train intersected and completely cut in two another which crossed its path, a sailor was found asleep on the seat of a _half_ third‐class carriage, and that he was quite angry when awoke and told of his narrow escape. All this bears a strong resemblance to digression, so let us return to our subject—“dead heads.” Examples of this tribe have boasted that they have travelled all over the States for nothing. Good‐natured guards—always “conductors” in America—will often wink at his presence, but more rigid officials have been known to stop the train outside a long tunnel, or on one side of a dangerous open trestle‐work bridge, and peremptorily tell the vagrant to “get!” He has often worked his way clear across the American continent. Turned off one train, kicked off another, left in the snow half‐way between far distant stations, charitably allowed a short ride on an open freight car, walking where he may not ride, stealing where it is easier than begging, and _vice versâ_, he has at last arrived in California, where, to do a glorious country and a generous people justice, not even a tramp is allowed to starve. After all, does not the vagabond deserve something for his enterprise? Perhaps in that land, now far more of corn and hops and wine than of gold, he may, under more auspicious circumstances, become a better and more prosperous man.