although a man may there earn a dollar when he would earn but a shilling at home, yet he surely has to spend that dollar just as he would spend the shilling.

The average prices in America for anything above the commonest necessaries, are, I think, rather more than three times those prices in England. Take for instance the commonest fruit of the two countries-a boy in England can buy for a penny two or three good apples; in America he can get only one for twopence. If a lady buys a dress in England, she may give, as she thinks fit, from five shillings to five pounds, or twenty pounds; but, in America, she must commence her selection at twenty dollars. So with a man's dinner; he may get his chop, or steak―according to his means, or appetitefor a shilling or eighteenpence. If in Scotland, a pint of the very best soup, with a muttonchop and bread, can be had at the first pastrycook's in the city for a shilling; in New York I know not that anything worth eating can be had under a dollar. At this rate of living, therefore-even taking into account the extra gain—it is obvious that fortunes are not to be so readily made, and that they would look very small at an English banker's in £ s. d.

Americans are afflicted in the reverse way to poor Dora-they add up with too much facility.

Their hundreds soon creep into thousands, and when once they have got so far, they are not particular whether it be ten or twenty thousand; and though he "calculates" and "reckons" so much, the Yankee does not seem often right on that matter. Some nations are proverbially untruthful in figures. Asiatics have no distinct notion of numbers after they pass one hundred. Yet a crowd of boys assemble to see a bear dance, and they would assure you there were thousands of people there. If an army of a few thousand men marched out, they would be multiplied to millions. During the Russian war, the Turks persisted in enumerating their little army at about twenty times its actual strength, greatly to the bewilderment of the allied adjutant-generals. So, with American dollars, you more frequently hear in common conversation of a million dollars, than of a million francs in France. If a French woman has an income of mille francs, it is considered a nice little dot to marry upon, to enter a convent, or to set up in a fair way in business for herself. In America, a woman who had a thousand francs a year might make up her mind to starve or play at "beggar my neighbour." It may, however, be safely asserted that any man with good health, physical strength, and a little common sense,

may certainly make for himself a position which he never could command at home.

Another erroneous idea is, that artistes can make a larger fortune in America than in Europe. It is true that sensationalism and humbug can be carried to a much greater extent there than in England. Excitement has been lashed up in that country to a higher point than elsewhere for obtaining money. But that is the work of the operator, not of the artiste. In the case of Jenny Lind, the success was more attributable to Barnum, the great operator, than to the witching notes of the " Swedish Nightingale." From overlooking this fact, the fair songstress essaying to give concerts on her own account, and without the aid of her former manager-lost in the attempt very much of what she had already gained. So also with Ristori, who, in spite of speaking a language which was an almost unknown tongue in America, was yet able to create a furore and a fortune in one season. But she as surely lost it in the next, when she dispensed with the services of her clever theatrical manager—thus clearly demonstrating that it was the excitement people loved, and for which they were willing to pay, not her marvellous talent. Patti, although she made her début in America, made no fortune there, and has never returned to try

the experiment, judiciously reasoning that sufficient excitement could not be got up, and that in Europe she can make a fortune without it. Adventurous mercantile men may occasionally make sudden fortunes by speculation; but this is mere Stock Exchange gambling, not to be put forward as an inducement to emigrants, or as a model mode of life. Indeed, American

fortunes of this nature are made and lost so rapidly, that it is difficult to say who is really the rich man. Just as a few men, constantly passing and re-passing on the stage, are made to convey the idea of a numerous army, so a few fortunes, passing rapidly from hand to hand, give the idea of a great number of rich men. Two-thirds of the people you meet in America tell you of their former wealth and affluence, whilst the other third will expatiate on their rapid accession to fortune and their former poverty.

CHAPTER XXIII.

STUCK IN THE MUD.

EMPHIS, Tennessee, is built or stuck in the mud which the rapid current of the Mississippi casts hither and thither on its headlong gallop to the Gulf; sometimes forming large islands, sometimes swelling and sweeping forty or fifty miles across the country, covering crops and villages, and sometimes throwing up high mounds, like those on which Memphis is built. But whether hill or hollow, it is nevertheless mud, if it has the remotest connection with this lower portion of the Mississippi. It is mud, hard and dry, formed into strata much resembling cliffs; it is mud, soft, like oatmeal porridge cooked in a dirty pan; or it is mud, liquid, rolling in huge masses round the suburbs of the city of Memphis.

For miles and miles in every direction the