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I. The Straits of New York--When is a Ship not a Ship?--Nationality of Passengers--A Dream Realized
II. Fog in New York Harbor--The Customs--The Note-Taker's Hyperæsthesia--A Literary Car-Conductor--Mr. Kipling and the American Public--The City of Elevators
III. New York a much-maligned City--Its Charm--Mr. Steevens' Antithesis--New York compared with Other Cities--Its Slums--Advertisements--Architecture in New York and Philadelphia
IV. Absence of Red Tape--"Rapid Transit" in New York--The Problem and its Solution--The Whirl of Life--New York by Night--The "White Magic" of the Future
V. Character and Culture--American Universities--Is the American "Electric" or Phlegmatic?--Alleged Laxity of the Family Tie--Postscript: The University System
VI. Washington in April--A Metropolis in the Making--The White House, the Capitol, and the Library of Congress--The Symbolism of Washington
VII. American Hospitality--Instances--Conversation and Story-Telling--Overprofusion In Hospitality--Expensiveness of Life in America--The American Barber--Postscript: An Anglo-American Club
VIII. Boston--Its Resemblance to Edinburgh--Concord, Walden Pond, and Sleepy Hollow--Is the "Yankee" Dying Out?--America for the Americans--Detroit and Buffalo--The "Middle West"
IX. Chicago--Its Splendour and Squalour--Mammoth Buildings--Wind, Dust, and Smoke--Culture--Chicago's Self-Criticism--Postscript: Social Service in America
X. New York in Spring--Central Park--New York not an Ill-Governed City--The United States Post Office--The Express System--Valedictory
The letters and essays which make up this volume appeared in the London _Pall Mall Gazette_ and _Pall Mall Magazine_ respectively, and are reprinted by kind permission of the editors of these periodicals. The ten letters which were sent to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ appeared also in the _New York Times_.
The Straits of New York--When is a Ship not a Ship?--Nationality of Passengers--A Dream Realized.
The Atlantic Ocean is geographically a misnomer, socially and politically a dwindling superstition. That is the chief lesson one learns--and one has barely time to take it in--between Queenstown and Sandy Hook. Ocean forsooth! this little belt of blue water that we cross before we know where we are, at a single hop-skip-and-jump! From north to south, perhaps, it may still count as an ocean; from east to west we have narrowed it into a strait. Why, even for the seasick (and on this point I speak with melancholy authority) the Atlantic has not half the terrors of the Straits of Dover; comfort at sea being a question, not of the size of the waves, but of the proportion between the size of the waves and the size of the ship. Our imagination is still beguiled by the fuss the world made over Columbus, whose exploit was intellectually and morally rather than physically great. The map-makers, too, throw dust in our eyes by their absurd figment of two "hemispheres," as though Nature had sliced her orange in two, and held one half in either hand. We are slow to realise, in fact, that time is the only true measure of space, and that London to-day is nearer to New York than it was to Edinburgh a hundred and fifty years ago. The essential facts of the case, as they at present stand, would come home much more closely to the popular mind of both continents if we called this strip of sea the Straits of New York, and classed our liners, not as the successors of Columbus's caravels, but simply as what they are: giant ferry-boats plying with clockwork punctuality between the twin landing-stages of the English-speaking world.