From Chicago we went on to Cleveland, a town in the State of Ohio on Lake Erie, again travelling by the sleeping cars. I found that these cars were universally mentioned with great horror and disgust by Americans of the upper class. They always declared that they would not travel in them on any account. Noise and dirt were the two objections. They are very noisy, but to us belonged the happy power of sleeping down noise. I invariably slept all through the night, and knew nothing about the noise. They are also very dirty,--extremely dirty,--dirty so as to cause much annoyance. But then they are not quite so dirty as the day cars. If dirt is to be a bar against travelling in America, men and women must stay at home. For myself I don't much care for dirt, having a strong reliance on soap and water and scrubbing brushes. No one regards poisons who carries antidotes in which he has perfect faith.
Cleveland is another pleasant town,--pleasant as Milwaukee and Portland. The streets are handsome, and are shaded by grand avenues of trees. One of these streets is over a mile in length, and throughout the whole of it, there are trees on each side--not little paltry trees as are to be seen on the boulevards of Paris, but spreading elms,--the beautiful American elm which not only spreads, but droops also, and makes more of its foliage than any other tree extant. And there is a square in Cleveland, well sized, as large as Russell Square I should say, with open paths across it, and containing one or two handsome buildings. I cannot but think that all men and women in London would be great gainers if the iron rails of the squares were thrown down, and the grassy enclosures thrown open to the public. Of course the edges of the turf would be worn, and the paths would not keep their exact shapes. But the prison look would be banished, and the sombre sadness of the squares would be relieved.
I was particularly struck by the size and comfort of the houses at Cleveland. All down that street of which I have spoken, they do not stand continuously together, but are detached and separate; houses which in England would require some fifteen or eighteen hundred a year for their maintenance. In the States, however, men commonly expend upon house rent a much greater proportion of their income than they do in England. With us it is, I believe, thought that a man should certainly not apportion more than a seventh of his spending income to his house rent,--some say not more than a tenth. But in many cities of the States a man is thought to live well within bounds if he so expends a fourth. There can be no doubt as to Americans living in better houses than Englishmen,--making the comparison of course between men of equal incomes. But the Englishman has many more incidental expenses than the American. He spends more on wine, on entertainments, on horses, and on amusements. He has a more numerous establishment, and keeps up the adjuncts and outskirts of his residence with a more finished neatness.