The tickets issued by the two London houses for France seem to be charged at or about the same rates as at the French railway stations. But in Italy, or for Italy, their tickets must be paid for in English money; so that it does not seem in a pecuniary point of view to be one’s interest to procure them, because the benefit of the exchange, amounting to about one–twelfth of the cost, is thus lost. No doubt it is an advantage to those who cannot speak a few words of the Italian language so as to be understood, or who cannot pick up what is said at the railway booking window, to take the English tickets, and they can afford to pay for their ignorance. But if the fee–expecting _commissionaire_ of the hotel do not attend to the matter, which he often of his own accord does, or will do if asked, extremely little is necessary to be said, even French, or a mere acquaintance with the numerals, being generally sufficient. Personally I never experienced any difficulty whatever in taking out the tickets at the foreign railway stations, and indeed the only difficulty I remember to have had was, because I had Cook’s tickets. Conceiving there might, on a first visit, be trouble, I had at Nice taken tickets from Genoa to Rome, bearing a right to make three intermediate stoppages. Having, in perfect accordance with the conditions, stopped at Spezzia, Pisa, and Sienna, I could hardly, on leaving Sienna, get the tickets marked for Rome. They were refused at the ticket window, and doubted by the _chef–de–gare_; and it was only upon my emphatic remonstrance, and his appealing to somebody else on the platform, that I succeeded in getting them stamped. On arriving in Rome, I told Mr. Cook’s agent there what had happened, and he said that if I had been required to have purchased tickets from Sienna to Rome, he would have compelled the railway company to have refunded the money, and made a complaint about it. It was no doubt just one of those stupid things that will happen under the best arrangements, well to be mentioned, that it may not be repeated; and apart from the question of time (for the English tickets are limited in time allowed for a journey extending over several towns), there is no reason why they should not be preferred, provided always that they could be procured with Italian paper money. Probably from the fluctuating state of the exchange, it is difficult for Messrs. Cook and Gaze to arrange; but if they could, it would obviate all objection. * * * * *