FROM LIVERPOOL TO SAN FRANCISCO.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 143, 17 June 1881, Page 4

FROM LIVERPOOL TO SAN FRANCISCO.

" [Rambler" writes to the Auckland Star rr—lri landing from a steamer in New York, especially if there are many passeDgers, you have to put up with the annoyance of great detention; For instance you first have your cabin baggage landed by the ships* stewards by the passenger gangway. Then you have to hang about forward until the ) whole of your baggage is landed, so ' that it maybe all together for examination.-. Sometimes you may have to wait half an hour before your last package turns ts^r Then you join a long single tile of tiber passengers, say seventy or eighty, and quietly wait until you reach the sub'Coliieator who takes your declaration a* to whether you have anything dutiable- or not, and appoints I an examiner to go with you and tnmble /over the whole of your baggage to see if you have told the truth or not. He proceeds deliberately to do this, and if you have" been kept waiting with your wife quietly sitting on the baggage two houiß on the cold bleak wharf and don't swear, weiJ you are simply a saint— that's all. fou engage a carriage if you har«r not too much baggage and after tipping every man who has done you the hvOßor to touch it j on its way you at last feel yourself in a fair way, This carriage costs you 5dol; but if you have only English coin they will kindly consent to take i a s6vereign, which is the equivalent of 4.85 dol. The carriages are lumbering vehicles and are driyen slowly and deliberately. At last you reach your hotel— go to the officer I I counter and engage rooms ; if you are J \ thoughtless and do not know the J | country, you will not bother about the : price, trusting to their advertised scale, but the better plan is to get the best accommodation at the lowest possible figure, and have it fixed. If you don't do this, you n re done certain. Now you will find every waiter and chambermaid will look for a fee, and do the smallest amount of work for it. On our way from the steamer we passed through streets with mud at least eight or nine inches deep (a dead-horse that bad been lying, our driver told me, two j days ), and the most abominably filthy streets it has been, my fortune to see. They have a system in Wew York of lumbering up the side walks with all sorts of garbage. Empty wooden flourbarrels are used as receptacles, and they are placed at the outer edge of the side walk full of all the refuse from the dwellings, decayed vegetable matter, ashes, bone?, etc, Now, in any wellordered town, these would be emptied early in the morning, but in New York for days jou will see the same regiment of fly covered barrels of garbage, and the stench that rises from them is something that once felt is never to be forgotten. The police regulations on paper are no doubt very good, but they are never carried out. Even in the business streets of the city the sidewalks a.pd a quarter of the Btreet on each side are lumbered up with merchandise so much so that it is with difficulty you can get along. The elevated railways are a great boon to the people wjho live up town — they are three feet gauge. Fine long roomy carriages, and set on two bogie trucks, with four wheels each, and plenty of springs. In '75 when I was in New York they h<d only one of this system of railroad, and the construction of the Structure on which it runs being very cranky, it cost more to keep it in order than it earned. This original structure was very modeßfc, only occupying a small space on one side of the street near the sidewalk, but the ring who took up this matter grew much more daring, and in the streetß where they are now they occupy the whole of the street except the sidewalk on each side. The streets are in consequence dark and glbomy. The manner in which the Elevated Railroad Companies obtain their charters shows that they are ex* pert in the American Municipal style ot swindling. The owners of the property in the avenues in which they run have never been able to get a halfpenny compensation. Their property baa deteriorated 60 per cent., and expenses for keeping it in repair are simply enormous. Ido not hesitate to say that in no Colonial or English cifcy would such a robbery have been perpetrated. You can travel from "Bicberstreet to 145 at certain hours of the day for 5 cents, and the balance of the day for 10 cents. You see into the first floor windows of every house you pass, and this gives you a pretty good idea of the way in which the people live. Some you will see just getting out of bed, others dressing, others having their meals. Down town you see poor sickly looking girls at work in the. factories, all decked in some sort of way, their hair banged &c, with, in moat instances, the flush of consumption on their cheeks, showing the ravage of a fast life, bad drainage, and a hard climate. The elevated railroads have paid enormous dividends, and the stock was until recently run after by any

poor moth who had a, little money. This led to another system of robbery called "watering the stock," and thiß has been so cleverly managed fchafc the original shareholders are, many of them, the happy possessors of millions ot the bard earnings of the investing i middle-class of .New York, ■- . • •-■