There are two sources of embarrassment which the Englishman is spared in his own country, but which press upon him in full force while travelling by rail abroad--namely, the different kinds of distance measurement, and the different kinds of money employed. Accustomed to English charges varying from three farthings to threepence per mile, he is frequently thrown out of his reckoning by the absence of miles abroad. The French kilomètre and the German meile are not English miles; the former equals 1093 yards, and is therefore a troublesome fraction of an English mile; while the German meile is as long as about four and a half English miles.
But this, however, is a minor inconvenience; for our 'Continental Bradshaw' gives most of the measurements in English miles. Not so in respect to the current coinage abroad. Although there was a 'railway congress' held a few years ago, to determine on a plan for facilitating the intercourse between country and country, yet this plan did not go so far as to assimilate the moneys of the different states; the tourist speedily discovers that this is the case, and he becomes perplexed with a multiplicity of cares. So long as he is in France or Belgium, the _franc_ (9-1/2d.), with its multiples and submultiples, are easily managed; but when he gets beyond the Rhine, his troubles begin. If in Holland, he has to manage with the _guilder_ (1s. 8d.) and its fractional parts in _cents_. If in the neighbourhood of Hamburg, he has to pay by means of the _mark_ (14-1/2d.), and certain strange-looking _schillings_ or _skillings_, of which sixteen equal one mark. Going south and east into Prussia, he finds the ruling coin to be the _thaler_ (3s.), divisible into thirty _groschen_. and each of these into twelve _pfennige_; but if he be hovering in the frontiers of Prussia and Saxony, he will find that the _neu-groschen_ of the latter country is worth a little more than the _silber-groschen_ of the former, and that there is some difficulty in getting rid of either in the country of the other. Getting further south, to the regions belonging to or adjoining Austria, he will find his thalers and groschen no longer welcome; he has to attend to the _florin_ (2s.), and its divisions into sixty _kreutzers_. If he travels north-east, to the few miles of railway yet existing in Poland, he will have to pay in _rubles_ (3s. 3d.) and _kopecks_, which rank at 100 to the ruble. On the little Zurich and Baden Railway, the only one yet in Switzerland, our traveller meets again with his old acquaintance the _franc_; but this is worth 14-1/2d., instead of 9-1/2d., and, moreover, it is divided into ten _batzen_, each of which is worth ten _rappen_. If he crosses the Alps to Austrian Italy, he finds that his fare is reckoned in Austrian _lire_ (about 8d.) In many cases, the different states take money from _through_ passengers in the coin of either country; but the traveller who makes frequent stoppages, soon finds the embarrassment of the different moneys. A railway has lately been completed from Dresden to Prague--the capitals of the two kingdoms of Saxony and Bohemia--along the banks of the Elbe; it is no great distance, and yet the fees north of the frontier are charged in _thalers_ and _neu-groschen_, while those south of it are in _florins_ and _kreutzers_.