_April 27th._--The early morning was devoted to a stroll down Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and then we returned to the hotel and gave some time to the consideration of the plans for the journey which was to be made to the Far West, and to the details of the excursions which had been arranged before we left England. We had "friends in council," and it says a good deal for the care and forethought with which the expedition had been sketched out that but very few alterations, and those of a trifling character, were necessary in the programme. The hall of the Brevoort House was still thronged with gentlemen desirous of interviews with the new-comers, or verifying the descriptions of them in the newspapers.
In the forenoon we were conducted to the Elevated Railway, and took our places in the special train which started from a station in a cross street close to the Brevoort House, off the Fifth Avenue. I am not going to be the world's policeman, or to inveigh against a mode of conveyance which is tolerated by the people most affected by it; but as I travelled along this extraordinary construction, I could not but feel, as I inadvertently looked into a long series of private interiors, through the open windows on a level with me, and beheld the domestic arrangements of family after family carried out under my eyes, that I was taking a great liberty with private life. Here, drawn by an engine which in common with the carriages distilled oil plentifully on the road below, at a height varying from 20 to 40 feet, was I being borne along in the middle of streets thronged with people and filled with vehicles, looking into drawing-rooms or third-floor windows as I travelled. In a city elongated for miles as New York is, the convenience, no doubt, is very great; but I fail to see why the railway should not have been made on the plan of our own Metropolitan underground system. The speed, in spite of the numerous stoppages, was very respectable, more than 15 miles an hour; but we were retarded from time to time by the trains in advance of us. Wonderful was it to see them gliding round the sharp curves as the line pursued its sinuous course through the streets like a monster millipede. At some parts of its career the railway seems to run right over the pavements, and if the passers-by are not careful, they may receive some of the _disjecta_ of the carriages on their clothes and faces; indeed I am not sure that any amount of care would prevent that sometimes occurring. The remarks which I made to one of the railway officials respecting the inconvenience to which the railway must subject the people living in the houses on either side of it, were met by the statement that "the rents had not diminished." The case of a householder who brought an action against the Company for damages and got a verdict in his favour was not regarded with much favour, and was, I was told, not likely to become a precedent, inasmuch as the final appeal did not lie with the court in which the judgment had been entered; and it was the intention of the company to carry the cause to a higher jurisdiction, where their contention that they had right to cause inconvenience to the few on account of the benefit of the many would be accepted, probably, as good morality and law. To my mind, however, nothing but hard necessity could compel people to live under such conditions as those to which the inhabitants of the houses exposed to the nuisance of the Elevated Railway must submit. It is not alone that they are under incessant inspection of the passengers if they keep blinds and windows up or open, but that the noise and whirl must be distracting. A train passes every minute, I was told, during the hours of business. There are two of these elevated railways, one going east from the Battery to Harlem, the other west from the same starting-point to Fifty-Ninth Street. The Metropolitan line starts from a point near West Broadway to the Central Park. The line on which we were travelling ultimately struck out for the more open country till we came to the Harlem river. There we got out and inspected a very remarkable bridge, with a draw of a most ingenious construction for the passage of vessels, which will be completed speedily. From the railway we enjoyed a fine view of the Croton Aqueduct, of which New York may well be proud, the high bridge by which it is carried across the Harlem River being an imperial work recalling the grandest enterprises of the kind of the Roman engineers.