Even at the distance of 10,000 miles there must be many who cannot gether forget the horrors of crossing the English channel. The walk from the train to the boat in the drizzling rain with so maw bundles and packages that if one bad twenty hands there would hardly be one to spare for an umbrella; the wretched passage on deck where in bad weather one often site, nominally kept dry by a luge oil-skin coat, or the still more wretched passage in the fetid atmosphere of the cabin, finishing up with the horrible crush at landing, where everyone seems to be impressed with the idea that if a number of people wish to disembark quickly the first step is to wedge them. selves into a compact mass in which no one can move. We would not suggest for a moment that any of our readers who belong to the sex which suffers most on such occasions can remember the Channel passage anything but what it is, but there must be many of the sterner sex here who knew it at all events in the days when it was no uncommon thing for the steamer to be unable to enter Calais harbour, and regardless of weather, passengers and luggage had to be transferred into a boat little bigger than a steam launch, From time to time attempts ab improvement have been made. At Dover and Calais, Boulogne and Folkestone, harbours have been deepened, or piers extended, and with better harbours have come better boats, To the Bessemer we need not allude, but the Dicey system has held its own though it has not superseded the older model. Quite lately we have an account of the trial of the Albert Victor, ship which will undoubtedly shorten
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