Our author does not think that the state affords the public as good a commodity of travelling as the public ought to have for the money paid. Each passenger car, he says, pays for locomotive power two cents per mile, for each passenger—for toll two cents a mile for itself, and one cent per mile for each passenger—burthen cars paying half these rates. There is some mistake here or—we are mistaken. The estimated cost of working an engine, including interest and repairs, is sixteen dollars per day—and the daily sum earned is twenty eight dollars—the state clearing twelve dollars per day on each locomotive. Empty cars pay the same toll and power-hire as full ones, which, as Mr. Prolix observes, is unreasonable. At 4 P. M. our peregrinator went on board a boat to ascend the canal which follows the eastern bank of the Susquehanna. His description of the genus “canal boat,” species “Pioneer Line,” is effective, and will interest our readers. A canal packet boat is a microcosm that contains almost as many specimens of natural history as the Ark of Noah. It is nearly eighty feet long and eleven wide; and has a house built in it that extends to within six or seven feet of stem and stern. Thirty-six feet in length of said house are used as a cabin by day, and a dormitory by night; the forward twelve feet being nocturnally partitioned off by an opaque curtain, when there are more than four ladies on board, for their accommodation. In front of said twelve feet, there is an apartment of six feet containing four permanent berths and separated from the cabin by a wooden partition, with a door in it; this is called the ladies' dressing room, and is sacred to their uses. At 9 P. M. the steward and his satellites begin the work of arranging the sleeping apparatus. This consists of a wooden frame six feet long and twenty inches wide, with canvass nailed over it, a thin mattress and sheets, &c. to match. The frame has two metallic points on one side which are inserted into corresponding holes in the side of the cabin, and its horizontality is preserved {448} by little ropes descending from the ceiling fastened to its other side. There are three tiers of these conveniences on each side, making twenty-four for gentlemen, and twelve for ladies, besides the four permanent berths in the ladies' dressing room. The number of berths, however, does not limit the number of passengers; for a packet is like Milton's Pandemonium, and when it is brim full of imps, the inhabitants seem to grow smaller so as to afford room for more poor devils to come in and be stewed; and tables and settees are put into a sleeping fix in the twinkling of a bedpost.