It is only human to make comparisons between American and English institutions, although they are likely to turn out as odious as the proverb says! The first institution in America that distressed me was the steam heat. It is far more manageable now than it was both in hotels and theaters, because there are more individual heaters. But how I suffered from it at first I cannot describe! I used to feel dreadfully ill, and when we could not turn the heat off at the theater, the plays always went badly. My voice was affected too. At Toledo once, it nearly went altogether. Then the next night, after a good fight for it, we got the theater cool, and the difference that it made to the play was extraordinary. I was in my best form, feeling well and jolly! No wonder the Americans drink ice-water and wear very thin clothes indoors. Their rooms are hotter than ours ever are, even in the height of the summer--when we have a summer! But no wonder, either, that Americans in England shiver at our cold, draughty rooms. They are brought up in hot-houses. If I did not like steam heat, I loved the ice which is such a feature at American meals. Everything is served on ice, and the ice-water, however pernicious the European may consider it as a drink, looks charming and cool in the hot rooms. I liked the traveling; but then we traveled in a very princely fashion. The Lyceum company and baggage occupied eight cars, and Henry's private parlor car was lovely. The only thing that we found was better understood in England, so far as railway traveling is concerned, was _privacy_. You may have a _private_ car in America, but all the conductors on the train, and there is one to each car, can walk through it. So can any official, baggage man or newsboy who has the mind! The "parlor car" in America is more luxurious than our first class, but you travel in it (if you have no "private" car) with thirty other people. "What do you want to be private for?" asked an American, and you don't know how to answer, for you find that with them that privacy means concealment. For this reason, I believe, they don't have hedges or walls round their estates and gardens. "Why should we? We have nothing to hide!" In the cars, as in the rooms at one's hotel, the "cuspidor" is always with you as a thing of beauty! When I first went to America the "Ladies' Entrance" to the hotel was really necessary, because the ordinary entrance was impassable! Since then very severe laws against spitting in public places have been passed, and there is a _great_ improvement. But the habit, I suppose due to the dryness of the climate, or to the very strong cigars smoked, or to chronic catarrh, or to a feeling of independence--"This is a free country and I can spit if I choose!"--remains sufficiently disgusting to a stranger visiting the country.