the ragged and smutty companionship of tumble-down out-houses, and
mysteries of cellar and back-kitchen life which were never intended
for other eyes than those that grope in them by day or night. How
unnatural, and, more, almost profane and inhuman, is the fiery
locomotion of the Iron Horse through these densely-peopled towns!
now the screech, the roar, and the darkness of cavernous passages
under paved streets, church vaults, and an acre or two of three-
story brick houses, with the feeling of a world of breathing,
bustling humanity incumbent upon you;--now the dash and flash out
into the light, and the higgledy-piggledy glimpses of the next five
minutes. In a moment you are above thickly-thronged streets, and
the houses on either side, looking down into the black throats of
smoky chimneys; into the garret lairs of poverty, sickness, and sin;
down lower upon squads of children trying to play in back-yards
eight feet square. It is all wrong, except in the single quality of
speed. You enter the town as you would a farmer's house, if you
first passed through the pig-stye into the kitchen. Every
respectable house in the city turns its back upon you; and often a
very brick and dirty back too, though it may show an elegant front
of Bath or Portland stone to the street it faces. All the
respectable streets run over or under you with an audible shudder of
disgust or dread. None but a shabby lane of low shops for the sale
of junk, beer, onions, shrimps, and cabbages, will run a third of a
mile by your side for the sake of your company. The wickedest boys
in the town hoot at you, with most ignominious and satiric antics,
as you pass; and if they do not shie stones in upon you, or dead
cats, it is more from fear of the beadle or the constable than out
of respect for your business or pleasure.

Indeed, every town and village, great or small, which you pass