From Niagara we went by the Canada Great Western Railway to Detroit, the big city of Michigan. It is an American institution that the States should have a commercial capital — or what I call their big city — as well as a political capital, which may, as a rule, be called the State’s central city. The object in choosing the political capital is average nearness of approach from the various confines of the State but commerce submits to no such Procrustean laws in selecting her capitals and consequently she has placed Detroit on the borders of Michigan, on the shore of the neck of water which joins Lake Huron to Lake Erie, through which all the trade must flow which comes down from Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron on its way to the Eastern States and to Europe. We had thought of going from Buffalo across Lake Erie to Detroit; but we found that the better class of steamers had been taken off the waters for the winter. And we also found that navigation among these lakes is a mistake whenever the necessary journey can be taken by railway. Their waters are by no means smooth, and then there is nothing to be seen. I do not know whether others may have a feeling, almost instinctive, that lake navigation must be pleasant — that lakes must of necessity be beautiful. I have such a feeling, but not now so strongly as formerly. Such an idea should be kept for use in Europe, and never brought over to America with other traveling gear. The lakes in America are cold, cumbrous, uncouth, and uninteresting — intended by nature for the conveyance of cereal produce, but not for the comfort of traveling men and women. So we gave up our plan of traversing the lake, and, passing back into Canada by the suspension bridge at Niagara, we reached the Detroit River at Windsor by the Great Western line, and passed thence by the ferry into the City of Detroit.

In making this journey at night we introduced ourselves to the thoroughly American institution of sleeping-cars — that is, of cars in which beds are made up for travelers. The traveler may have a whole bed, or half a bed, or no bed at all, as he pleases, paying a dollar or half a dollar extra should he choose the partial or full fruition of a couch. I confess I have always taken a delight in seeing these beds made up, and consider that the operations of the change are generally as well executed as the manoeuvres of any pantomime at Drury Lane. The work is usually done by negroes or colored men, and the domestic negroes of America are always light-handed and adroit. The nature of an American car is no doubt known to all men. It looks as far removed from all bed-room accommodation as the baker’s barrow does from the steam engine into which it is to be converted by Harlequin’s wand. But the negro goes to work much more quietly than the Harlequin; and for every four seats in the railway car he builds up four beds almost as quickly as the hero of the pantomime goes through his performance. The great glory of the Americans is in their wondrous contrivances — in their patent remedies for the usually troublous operations of life. In their huge hotels all the bell ropes of each house ring on one bell only; but a patent indicator discloses a number, and the whereabouts of the ringer is shown. One fire heats every room, passage, hall, and cupboard, and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the chambers; though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps is boiling, and that, when once turned on, it cannot be turned off again by any human energy. Everything is done by a new and wonderful patent contrivance; and of all their wonderful contrivances, that of their railroad beds is by no means the least. For every four seats the negro builds up four beds — that is, four half beds, or accommodation for four persons. Two are supposed to be below, on the level of the ordinary four seats, and two up above on shelves which are let down from the roof. Mattresses slip out from one nook and pillows from another. Blankets are added, and the bed is ready. Any over-particular individual — an islander, for instance, who hugs his chains — will generally prefer to pay the dollar for the double accommodation. Looking at the bed in the light of a bed — taking, as it were, an abstract view of it — or comparing it with some other bed or beds with which the occupant may have acquaintance, I cannot say that it is in all respects perfect. But distances are long in America; and he who declines to travel by night will lose very much time. He who does so travel will find the railway bed a great relief. I must confess that the feeling of dirt, on the following morning, is rather oppressive.

From Windsor, on the Canada side, we passed over to Detroit, in the State of Michigan, by a steam ferry. But ferries in England and ferries in America are very different. Here, on this Detroit ferry, some hundred of passengers, who were going forward from the other side without delay, at once sat down to breakfast. I may as well explain the way in which disposition is made of one’s luggage as one takes these long journeys. The traveler, when he starts, has his baggage checked. He abandons his trunk — generally a box, studded with nails, as long as a coffin and as high as a linen chest — and, in return for this, he receives an iron ticket with a number on it. As he approaches the end of his first installment of travel and while the engine is still working its hardest, a man comes up to him, bearing with him, suspended on a circular bar, an infinite variety of other checks. The traveler confides to this man his wishes, and, if he be going farther without delay, surrenders his check and receives a counter-check in return. Then, while the train is still in motion, the new destiny of the trunk is imparted to it. But another man, with another set of checks, also comes the way, walking leisurely through the train as he performs his work. This is the minister of the hotel-omnibus institution. His business is with those who do not travel beyond the next terminus. To him, if such be your intention, you make your confidence, giving up your tallies, and taking other tallies by way of receipt; and your luggage is afterward found by you in the hall of your hotel. There is undoubtedly very much of comfort in this; and the mind of the traveler is lost in amazement as he thinks of the futile efforts with which he would struggle to regain his luggage were there no such arrangement. Enormous piles of boxes are disclosed on the platform at all the larger stations, the numbers of which are roared forth with quick voice by some two or three railway denizens at once. A modest English voyager, with six or seven small packages, would stand no chance of getting anything if he were left to his own devices. As it is, I am bound to say that the thing is well done. I have had my desk with all my money in it lost for a day, and my black leather bag was on one occasion sent back over the line. They, however, were recovered; and, on the whole, I feel grateful to the check system of the American railways. And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage. Of weight they are quite regardless. On two or three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those “light fixings” might have been made up into one. And when I came to understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re-entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that she ought to do without a bonnet box. The ten, however, went on, and were always duly protected. I must add, however, that articles requiring tender treatment will sometimes reappear a little the worse from the hardships of their journey.

I have not much to say of Detroit — not much, that is, beyond what I have to say of all the North. It is a large, well-built, half-finished city lying on a convenient waterway, and spreading itself out with promises of a wide and still wider prosperity. It has about it perhaps as little of intrinsic interest as any of those large Western towns which I visited. It is not so pleasant as Milwaukee, nor so picturesque as St. Paul, nor so grand as Chicago, nor so civilized as Cleveland, nor so busy as Buffalo. Indeed, Detroit is neither pleasant nor picturesque at all. I will not say that it is uncivilized; but it has a harsh, crude, unprepossessing appearance. It has some 70,000 inhabitants, and good accommodation for shipping. It was doing an enormous business before the war began, and, when these troublous times are over, will no doubt again go ahead. I do not, however, think it well to recommend any Englishman to make a special visit to Detroit who may be wholly uncommercial in his views, and travel in search of that which is either beautiful or interesting.

From Detroit we continued our course westward across the State of Michigan, through a country that was absolutely wild till the railway pierced it, Very much of it is still absolutely wild. For miles upon miles the road passes the untouched forest, showing that even in Michigan the great work of civilization has hardly more than been commenced. One thinks of the all but countless population which is, before long, to be fed from these regions — of the cities which will grow here, and of the amount of government which in due time will be required — one can hardly fail to feel that the division of the United States into separate nationalities is merely a part of the ordained work of creation as arranged for the well-being of mankind. The States already boast of thirty millions of inhabitants — not of unnoticed and unnoticeable beings requiring little, knowing little, and doing little, such as are the Eastern hordes, which may be counted by tens of millions, but of men and women who talk loudly and are ambitious, who eat beef, who read and write, and understand the dignity of manhood. But these thirty millions are as nothing to the crowds which will grow sleek, and talk loudly, and become aggressive on these wheat and meat producing levels. The country is as yet but touched by the pioneering hand of population. In the old countries, agriculture, following on the heels of pastoral, patriarchal life, preceded the birth of cities. But in this young world the cities have come first. The new Jasons, blessed with the experience of the Old-World adventurers, have gone forth in search of their golden fleeces, armed with all that the science and skill of the East had as yet produced, and, in settling up their new Colchis, have begun by the erection of first class hotels and the fabrication of railroads. Let the Old World bid them God speed in their work. Only it would be well if they could be brought to acknowledge from whence they have learned all that they know.

Our route lay right across the State to a place called Grand Haven, on Lake Michigan, from whence we were to take boat for Milwaukee, a town in Wisconsin, on the opposite or western shore of the lake. Michigan is sometimes called the Peninsular State, from the fact that the main part of its territory is surrounded by Lakes Michigan and Huron, by the little Lake St. Clair and by Lake Erie. It juts out to the northward from the main land of Indiana and Ohio, and is circumnavigable on the east, north, and west. These particulars, however, refer to a part of the State only; for a portion of it lies on the other side of Lake Michigan, between that and Lake Superior. I doubt whether any large inland territory in the world is blessed with such facilities of water carriage.

On arriving at Grand Haven we found that there had been a storm on the lake, and that the passengers from the trains of the preceding day were still remaining there, waiting to be carried over to Milwaukee. The water however — or the sea, as they all call it — was still very high, and the captain declared his intention of remaining there that night; whereupon all our fellow-travelers huddled themselves into the great lake steamboat, and proceeded to carry on life there as though they were quite at home. The men took themselves to the bar-room, and smoked cigars and talked about the war with their feet upon the counter; and the women got themselves into rocking-chairs in the saloon, and sat there listless and silent, but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big drawing-rooms of the big hotels. There was supper there precisely at six o’clock — beef-steaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot cakes, and light fixings, to all which luxuries an American deems himself entitled, let him have to seek his meal where he may. And I was soon informed, with considerable energy, that let the boat be kept there as long as it might by stress of weather, the beef-steaks and apple jam, light fixings and heavy fixings, must be supplied at the cost of the owners of the ship. “Your first supper you pay for,” my informant told me, “because you eat that on your own account. What you consume after that comes of their doing, because they don’t start; and if it’s three meals a day for a week, it’s their look out.” It occurred to me that, under such circumstances, a captain would be very apt to sail either in foul weather or in fair.

It was a bright moonlight night — moonlight such as we rarely have in England — and I started off by myself for a walk, that I might see of what nature were the environs of Grand Haven. A more melancholy place I never beheld. The town of Grand Haven itself is placed on the opposite side of a creek, and was to be reached by a ferry. On our side, to which the railway came and from which the boat was to sail, there was nothing to be seen but sand hills, which stretched away for miles along the shore of the lake. There were great sand mountains and sand valleys, on the surface of which were scattered the debris of dead trees, scattered logs white with age, and boughs half buried beneath the sand. Grand Haven itself is but a poor place, not having succeeded in catching much of the commerce which comes across the lake from Wisconsin, and which takes itself on Eastward by the railway. Altogether, it is a dreary place, such as might break a man’s heart should he find that inexorable fate required him there to pitch his tent.

On my return I went down into the bar-room of the steamer, put my feet upon the counter, lit my cigar, and struck into the debate then proceeding on the subject of the war. I was getting West, and General Fremont was the hero of the hour. “He’s a frontier man, and that’s what we want. I guess he’ll about go through. Yes, sir.” “As for relieving General Fre-mont,” (with the accent always strongly on the “mont,”) “I guess you may as well talk of relieving the whole West. They won’t meddle with Fre-mont. They are beginning to know in Washington what stuff he’s made of.” “Why, sir, there are 50,000 men in these States who will follow Fre-mont, who would not stir a foot after any other man.” From which, and the like of it in many other places, I began to understand how difficult was the task which the statesmen in Washington had in hand.

I received no pecuniary advantage whatever from that law as to the steamboat meals which my new friend had revealed to me. For my one supper of course I paid, looking forward to any amount of subsequent gratuitous provisions. But in the course of the night the ship sailed, and we found ourselves at Milwaukee in time for breakfast on the following morning.

Milwaukee is a pleasant town, a very pleasant town, containing 45,000 inhabitants. How many of my readers can boast that they know anything of Milwaukee, or even have heard of it? To me its name was unknown until I saw it on huge railway placards stuck up in the smoking-rooms and lounging halls of all American hotels. It is the big town of Wisconsin, whereas Madison is the capital. It stands immediately on the western shore of Lake Michigan, and is very pleasant. Why it should be so, and why Detroit should be the contrary, I can hardly tell; only I think that the same verdict would be given by any English tourist. It must be always borne in mind that 10,000 or 40,000 inhabitants in an American town, and especially in any new Western town, is a number which means much more than would be implied by any similar number as to an old town in Europe. Such a population in America consumes double the amount of beef which it would in England, wears double the amount of clothes, and demands double as much of the comforts of life. If a census could be taken of the watches, it would be found, I take it, that the American population possessed among them nearly double as many as would the English; and I fear also that it would be found that many more of the Americans were readers and writers by habit. In any large town in England it is probable that a higher excellence of education would be found than in Milwaukee, and also a style of life into which more of refinement and more of luxury had found its way. But the general level of these things, of material and intellectual well-being — of beef, that is, and book learning — is no doubt infinitely higher in a new American than in an old European town. Such an animal as a beggar is as much unknown as a mastodon. Men out of work and in want are almost unknown. I do not say that there are none of the hardships of life — and to them I will come by-and-by — but want is not known as a hardship in these towns, nor is that dense ignorance in which so large a proportion of our town populations is still steeped. And then the town of 40,000 inhabitants is spread over a surface which would suffice in England for a city of four times the size. Our towns in England — and the towns, indeed, of Europe generally — have been built as they have been wanted. No aspiring ambition as to hundreds of thousands of people warmed the bosoms of their first founders. Two or three dozen men required habitations in the same locality, and clustered them together closely. Many such have failed and died out of the world’s notice. Others have thriven, and houses have been packed on to houses, till London and Manchester, Dublin and Glasgow have been produced. Poor men have built, or have had built for them, wretched lanes, and rich men have erected grand palaces. From the nature of their beginnings such has, of necessity, been the manner of their creation. But in America, and especially in Western America, there has been no such necessity and there is no such result. The founders of cities have had the experience of the world before them. They have known of sanitary laws as they began. That sewerage, and water, and gas, and good air would be needed for a thriving community has been to them as much a matter of fact as are the well-understood combinations between timber and nails, and bricks and mortar. They have known that water carriage is almost a necessity for commercial success, and have chosen their sites accordingly. Broad streets cost as little, while land by the foot is not as yet of value to be regarded, as those which are narrow; and therefore the sites of towns have been prepared with noble avenues and imposing streets. A city at its commencement is laid out with an intention that it shall be populous. The houses are not all built at once, but there are the places allocated for them. The streets are not made, but there are the spaces. Many an abortive attempt at municipal greatness has so been made and then all but abandoned. There are wretched villages, with huge, straggling parallel ways, which will never grow into towns. They are the failures — failures in which the pioneers of civilization, frontier men as they call themselves, have lost their tens of thousands of dollars. But when the success comes, when the happy hit has been made, and the ways of commerce have been truly foreseen with a cunning eye, then a great and prosperous city springs up, ready made as it were, from the earth. Such a town is Milwaukee, now containing 45,000 inhabitants, but with room apparently for double that number; with room for four times that number, were men packed as closely there as they are with us.

In the principal business streets of all these towns one sees vast buildings. They are usually called blocks, and are often so denominated in large letters on their front, as Portland Block, Devereux Block, Buel’s Block. Such a block may face to two, three, or even four streets, and, as I presume, has generally been a matter of one special speculation. It may be divided into separate houses, or kept for a single purpose, such as that of a hotel, or grouped into shops below, and into various sets of chambers above. I have had occasion in various towns to mount the stairs within these blocks, and have generally found some portion of them vacant — have sometimes found the greater portion of them vacant. Men build on an enormous scale, three times, ten times as much as is wanted. The only measure of size is an increase on what men have built before. Monroe P. Jones, the speculator, is very probably ruined, and then begins the world again nothing daunted. But Jones’s block remains, and gives to the city in its aggregate a certain amount of wealth. Or the block becomes at once of service and finds tenants. In which case Jones probably sells it, and immediately builds two others twice as big. That Monroe P. Jones will encounter ruin is almost a matter of course; but then he is none the worse for being ruined. It hardly makes him unhappy. He is greedy of dollars with a terrible covetousness; but he is greedy in order that he may speculate more widely. He would sooner have built Jones’s tenth block, with a prospect of completing a twentieth, than settle himself down at rest for life as the owner of a Chatsworth or a Woburn. As for his children, he has no desire of leaving them money. Let the girls marry. And for the boys — for them it will be good to begin as he begun. If they cannot build blocks for themselves, let them earn their bread in the blocks of other men. So Monroe P. Jones, with his million of dollars accomplished, advances on to a new frontier, goes to work again on a new city, and loses it all. As an individual I differ very much from Monroe P. Jones. The first block accomplished, with an adequate rent accruing to me as the builder, I fancy that I should never try a second. But Jones is undoubtedly the man for the West. It is that love of money to come, joined to a strong disregard for money made, which constitutes the vigorous frontier mind, the true pioneering organization. Monroe P. Jones would be a great man to all posterity if only he had a poet to sing of his valor.

It may be imagined how large in proportion to its inhabitants will be a town which spreads itself in this way. There are great houses left untenanted, and great gaps left unfilled. But if the place be successful, if it promise success, it will be seen at once that there is life all through it. Omnibuses, or street cars working on rails, run hither and thither. The shops that have been opened are well filled. The great hotels are thronged. The quays are crowded with vessels, and a general feeling of progress pervades the place. It is easy to perceive whether or no an American town is going ahead. The days of my visit to Milwaukee were days of civil war and national trouble, but in spite of civil war and national trouble Milwaukee looked healthy.

I have said that there was but little poverty — little to be seen of real want in these thriving towns — but that they who labored in them had nevertheless their own hardships. This is so. I would not have any man believe that he can take himself to the Western States of America — to those States of which I am now speaking — Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, or Illinois, and there by industry escape the ills to which flesh is heir. The laboring Irish in these towns eat meat seven days a week, but I have met many a laboring Irishman among them who has wished himself back in his old cabin. Industry is a good thing, and there is no bread so sweet as that which is eaten in the sweat of a man’s brow; but labor carried to excess wearies the mind as well as body, and the sweat............