would be a mockery to say when you have satisfied your appetite-- and
at the door stand two muscular men (significantly the proprietor is
aware of the need of such) with bank bills drawn through their
fingers, who are prepared to receive your 50c. It is not unusual to
hear a great deal of indignation expressed by travellers on such
occasions. No man has a right to grumble at the fare which hospitality
sets before him. But when he buys a dinner at a liberal price, in a
country where provisions are abundant, he has a right to expect
something which will sustain life and health. Those individuals who
have the privilege of furnishing meals to railroad travellers probably
find security in the reflection that their patronage does not depend
on the will of their patrons. But the evil can be remedied by the
proprietors and superintendents of the roads, and the public will look
for a reformation in dinners and suppers at their hands.

I might say that from Benwood, near Wheeling-- where I arrived at
about four in the afternoon, having been nearly twenty-four hours
coming 875 miles-- I passed on to Zanesville to spend the night;
thinking it more convenient, as it surely was, to go to bed at eleven
at night and start the next morning at eight, than to go to bed at
Wheeling at nine, or when I chose, and start again at two in the
morning. The ride that evening was pleasant. The cars were filled with
lusty yeomen, all gabbling politics. There was an overwhelming
majority for Fremont. Under such circumstances it was a virtue for a
Buchanan man to show his colors. There was a solid old Virginian
aboard; and his open and intelligent countenance-- peculiar, it seems
to me, to Virginia-- denoted that he was a good-hearted man. I was
glad to see him defend his side of politics with so much zeal against
the Fremonters. He argued against half a dozen of them with great
spirit and sense. In spite of the fervor of his opponents, however,