We entered Philadelphia just at sunset, and rattled through Chestnut Street just as it was looking its brightest and best with its well-stocked shops, its belles and its beaux, and its bran-new Continental, where we longed to stop, had we not given our word to reach New York that night. I liked Philadelphia from the first moment I put my foot there, some years ago.
It always seemed so cosy, home-like,—and comfortable; one might, one thinks, be so domestic and sensible there, while in New York it is next to impossible to be sensible, with the very best intentions. So I left Philadelphia with real regret, thinking of friends to whom I would gladly have said, even a brief "how d'ye do." May I be allowed to ask who invented the torturing style of cars from Philadelphia to New York, with wooden panels where windows should be, and seats divided off into spaces, narrow as a bigot's creed? It may be all very well for spinsters and bachelors, but as I don't belong to either class, and as I like a shoulder to sleep on when I have travelled since the previous midnight, it was just simply infamous to shut me off, and bar me up from it by that ridiculous partition; in vain I bobbed my bonnet, and got a crick in my neck, trying to reach the shoulder to which I was legally entitled without a permit from any railroad company. In vain I doubled my travelling shawl and piled it on that shoulder, and tried to annex my head to it that way; in vain I rose in my might and looked viciously at the wooden pane which should have been a window, and whimpered out, "Oh I'm so tired!" in vain Mr. Fern and I corkscrewed ourselves into all sorts of shapes, and asked each other, with a grim attempt at jest, "if they called that an accommodation train." Thank heaven, said I, if we do live to reach New York, a hot supper and a warm welcome awaits us! And now, seated at ease in mine inn, I wish to wind up these articles with a whisper to landlords generally:
First:—Don't always fasten the looking-glass in a lady's bed-room in the very darkest corner, or attach it to some lumbering piece of furniture incapable of being moved, save by an earthquake.
Secondly:—Give ladies four bed-pillows instead of two, until geese yield more feathers.
Thirdly:—Banish forever, with other tortures of the Inquisition, that infernal "gong," (excuse the expression,) which has had so much to do in filling our Lunatic Asylums.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes
A few obvious misprints have been corrected, but in general the original spelling has been retained (for example, "of tourse," "beneneath," etc.). Inconsistent use of hyphens was also left unchanged.
Contents page: "MOURNING" p. 240; This was treated as a chapter in the text, but was missing from the Contents Page. It has been added. Other slight variations between the Contents list and Chapter headings were left as in the original.