The system of the custody of letters at the large American hotels
appeared to me rather unsafe. A visitor asks for letters, whereupon
there are handed to him all the letters in the pigeon-hole marked with
the initial of which the visitor's name commences. The visitor then
proceeds to look through them, and takes what he chooses, and hands the
rest back. The official is too busy, or it is not customary for him, to
look through them for the visitor, or even to watch the visitor in his
process of selection. I noticed one gentleman with a packet of letters,
I should think considerably over a hundred, every now and then slip one
into his breast pocket and give a furtive glance, which did not inspire
confidence, but probably this is a well accustomed habit of the people,
and the letters, perhaps, are as safe as the newspapers I frequently saw
deposited on the tops of the street letter boxes (outside the boxes),
because they were too large to be put inside; of course anyone could
have taken them, but the custom not to touch them is probably honourably
recognized. The street letter boxes are quite small square boxes, not
large pillar boxes as are ours in this country.

I should like to have remarked more generally on America, but both time
and space fail me. Of course, as most people know, the (to us)
disgusting practice of spitting is common in America; spittoons are
universally provided in public and private places. At Merced Court House
is this notice: "Gentlemen will not, and others should not spit upon the
floors." Huge spittoons are provided there.

The awful guttural which precedes the constant expectoration of
Americans is most trying. It excites in persons near them and who are
unaccustomed to it, a sensation of necessity to vomit, as it conveys a
fear that your neighbour is about to vomit over you. It is not the
excusable expectoration arising from an accumalation in the air