Friends, railway authorities, and representatives of the press received the travellers on their arrival, and the process of interviewing commenced at once with great severity. As it would be inconvenient for all the gentlemen of the press to interview the same individual at once, a distribution of duties was made, and very soon after our appearance at the Brevoort House each member of the party had a little private confidence with the representative of some leading journal. The peculiar views of the interviewers themselves were reflected in their reports next day. Some attributed importance to personal details; others desired to ascertain our political opinions; some were anxious to be instructed on English social questions; others were curious to know our views respecting the municipal government of New York and the condition of the city, founded on what we gleaned from our inspection of the streets from the windows of the carriages in which we were carried to the hotel. But as even in so small a party there was diversity of opinions, the accounts of the general impressions of the whole body were rather contradictory and confused. It is a novel experience to English people to be accosted in the most familiar way by persons whom they have never seen in their lives, and to be subjected to an examination, even to minute particulars, respecting their views in relation to all manner of things, knowing all the while that their answers will be given with more or less accuracy in print in a few hours. But it is nevertheless an ordeal to which public men and notabilities in the United States submit generally without a struggle; and it would be considered a mark of "aristocratic exclusiveness" if titled people from England refused to acquiesce in the general custom.
The effect produced on the party by the first sight of the city was not agreeable. The unwonted look of the Elevated Railway, of the forest of crooked telegraph poles, and cobweb-like wires along the sideways, combined to give an unpleasant sensation to the eye. We had occasion, subsequently, to recognise the utility of the Elevated Railway, just as we had to admit the advantages of tramcar railways for the million; but no device can redeem the ugliness of the one, and nothing but a fine spirit of self-sacrifice can reconcile a resident of New York to the devastation caused in the streets, and to the misery of travelling over the iron ruts which run through most of the thoroughfares of the city, with the exception of Broadway. It is only fair to state that the Elevated Railway is not commended by any one from an æsthetic point of view, and there is a theory afloat that the telegraph wires will, some fine day, be laid underground; but, all said and done, there is reason to doubt whether they manage these things in New York much better than they do in some of the decayed old capitals of the Eastern World.