The age-herald., 1897-09-12

for the convenience of those who do not wish to take the trouble of going to the railway stations. The agents at the ho- tels and on the principal streets, who are licensed to sell railway tickets, are authorized to charge fee of 10 per cent. on the printed price of tickets if up to a certain amount and per cent. on longsdistance tickets, and there is a government tax upon every such trans action. which must also be paid by the passenger. If you engage accommoda- tions in sleeping car in advance you have to pay more than If you waited until time for the train to start. If you buy your sleeping-car ticket uptown you pay commission of 10 per cent. to the agent and a government taffl of 50 pfennigs. which is equivalent to 121s cents. The sleeping cars are close, nar- row and imperfect, ,shrdlu shrdlu ffiam row and uncomfortable, the ventilation is imperfect, the compartments are lit- tie closets, the beds are narrow and hard. and the roads are so rough that it would be difficult to sleep if the beds were comfortable. It is necessary to strap down passengers in upper berths to prevent them from being thrown out by the jolting and rocking of the car.
 I have never been able to use a type writer on a European railway train. When man is under engagement to furnish a newspaper letter every day, week after week and month after month and is sent around the world to se- cure material, he must utilize his time to the best possible advantage, and while I am trveling in the United States I do most of my writing on railway trains. In an ordinary Pullman sleeper or parlor car, with an adjustable table, on most of the railways of the United States it is almost as easy to manipu- late typewriter as in an office or a library. I have thus been able to keep up my daily letter and travel from ore end of the country to the other. In fact. after you get used to it there is a sort of fascination about writing on railway train; but over here it is in- possible, the roads are so rough and the springs in the car are so poor
 To enter a new country where a for eign language is spoken and the public men are strangers it is often difficult to obtain interesting material and be accurate in your facts, but in Germany I have been treated with the greatest courtesy and consideration.
 Sleeping-car accommodations upon or dinary rtains cost about the same as in the United States-that is, s2 a night although, as I have said, if you buy your ticket in advance you have to pay 20 cents more as commission to the ticket agent and 121A cents government tax, which makes a total of $2.3215. If you take one of the 'de luxe" trains, as they call them, which are more rapid and comfortable, the expense is much greater. The rate between Berlin and Paris, for example, for a sleeping car is 15 marks, which is $375, and the time is twenty hours on ordinary express trains. On one of the trains "de luxe" you must pay first-class fare, which is about one-third more than the second- class fare, and 35 marks, or nearly $9 extra, which is twice as much as the Pullman company would charge in the United States for accommodations that are sinfinitely more comfortable. Those who complain of the "extortion" of the Pullman company and the expense of travel in the United States should spend few months on European railways. Such an experience will teach them that we get more for our money out of the railways of the United States than is furnished by any other railway system in the world The nearest approach to similar accommodations in Europe costs more than twice the rates charged in the United States, but it is impossible to secure for any sum of money the com forts and convenences that are fur nished by every railway running out of Chicago.
 VIM. E. CURTIS.