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173 Everything in the United State, except railway fares, & the per diem charges of hotels is unreasonably dear. And the hotels themselves participate in the general irrationality on this subject as soon as you order any thing that is not down in the list of what is allowed for the daily unclear charged you. I never got a fir lighted in my bed room for a few hours for less than a dollar, that is 3 shillings 6 pence; or half a dozen pieces washed for less than a dollar & a half. But the one matter of all in which the charges are the most insane is that of hackney coaches, & railway omnibuses. You get into an omnibus at the station to be carried two or three hundred yards to your hotel. As soon as the vehicle begins to move, the conductor begins to levy his black mail. He is only doing to you what his own government is doing to him. And in America it seems to be taken for granted that one will pay just what he is ordered to pay. "Sir", he addresses you,"you must pay now; three quarters of a dollar for yourself, & a quarter of a dollar for each piece." that is of luggage. You have perhaps four pieces being an ignorant stranger; if you had been a well-informed native you would have had only one piece; & for these four pieces & yourself you pay about 7 shillings, In an English railway omnibus you would have paid 6 pence or 1 shilling. The Hackney coaches are very much worse. I found a driver in New York who would take me for a short distance for a dollar & a half, but I never found so reasonable a gentleman in this profession else where. At...