have been made, wherever late event or discovery has made them necessary; and the author-proprietor believes and claims that the "SHORT-TRIP GUIDE," for 1874, will be pronounced singularly complete and perfect for the supplying of that general information which forms its chief intention.

With reference to the latter point-the general usefulness of the work, for American guidance--perhaps it may be pardonable to quote the language of a prominent official connected with the U. S. government, on his way home, last autumn, from an extended European tour, and speaking to a ship-board acquaintance. "My party, in our travels through the British Islands and on the Continent, had nearly all the Guide-Books, and all the American; and it is only justice to say that after due examination, though using some of the larger and the local Guides, occasionally, for particulars not allowed by its limited space--we found Morford's the book to arrange routes and travel by, and made it our chief dependence, throughout."

With thanks alike for liberal patronage, warm commendation and valuable suggestion, the author-proprietor commends his seventh issue to the same appreciation accorded to its predecessors, and whatever of an increase in clientelle may be deserved by additional labor and longer experience.

THE SHORT-TRIP GUIDE.

(1874.)

COST OF SHORT EUROPEAN TRIPS.

Of course the question Whether to go to Europe at all? underlies, with Americans, both those others: How to go? and Where to go? The distance (of which something more will be said directly,) is known to be great, between the New and Old Worlds, though it is really only about one-eighth of that around the globe.

With many men Time is the great object, and the want of it the great hindrance; though they may annually spend quite as much of it as would be necessary for a summer tour, in dawdling elsewhere, around home or in places seen until they have become tiresome. With a far greater number of those who love Nature and Art to such an extent as to make travel a delight, Money is the anxiety, the want of it the hindrance, and the belief that a mint is necessary for anything European, the great bugbear which confines them to one continent.

A large proportion of this is a mistake, originally induced by want of intelligent enquiry, and materially added to by the exaggerations, not to call them falsehoods, of those who have been over the desired routes. While "going to Europe" was principally confined to the wealthy few or those driven by business demands, it was at once an easy and a tempting thing to do, to add to the supposed importance of what had been done, by overstating the cost as well as enlarging on the personal adventure and peril; and, truth to say, the habit has not yet quite died out, now when the many follow in the track of the few and detection is so much easier. Mr. Longbow, who supplies (as he believes) the centre at home of an admiring circle, not many members of which are likely to follow him abroad-cannot resist the temptation to show, when he returns, that he has been doing, in the way of cost, what they had better not attempt if they do not wish to fail miserably; and Madame La Mode, flaunting in home-circles the silks and jewelry purchased during the previous summer at Paris, will enlarge a little upon the cost of not only the silks and jewelry, but of getting into the "society" in which she figured in the great capitals.

Travelers tell "travelers' stories," in a pecuniary as well as an adventurous point of view: that is the truth, briefly told; and those stories frighten away many who would else enlarge their knowledge of life by seeing other continents than their own.

Not that many Americans fail to spend enormous amounts abroad: it is a shameful fact that we do

spend more money, on an average, in travel, than any other nation beneath the sun. It is easy for the writer to recal to mind one gentleman of New York, without landed estates, the working of capital, or other resources than his own hard-working energy and talent, who, during two-and-a-half months of the summer of 1865, in England and France alone, and principally about London and Paris, spent, unaccompanied, between $7,000 and $8,000, and borrowed money in London for his passage homeward! And during the summer of 1867, a well-known gentleman of fortune, of New York, visiting London and Paris with his wife and child, and going no step beyond the latter city, found the $8,000 (gold) which he had taken with him, insufficient, and drew on New York for $2,000 additional. Very possibly these figures do not even approach the amount of money spent by each one of many wealthy or wasteful Americans during corresponding periods: they are only given as instances happening to fall under personal knowledge.

So much for what may be spent in very brief tours, by those who can afford plenty of money, or think that they can do so now for what may be saved, or rather for the question upon how little these brief tours may really be made, without discomfort or painful compromise of position.

There was a country clergyman, not far from one of the large American cities, who, having united a couple in marriage, some quarter of a century ago, was privately enquired of by the well-to-do bridegroom, shortly after the completion of the ceremony,

as to the amount due for that performance. "Well," answered the clergyman, "I have no fixed price for such services. People generally pay me according to their means and what they think that they can afford. Sometimes I get as high as fifty dollars : twenty dollars; ten; five; and one man, not long ago, paid me-ha! ha!-only think of it!-only twenty-five cents!" Humph! twenty-five cents! well, that was reasonable enough!" replied the newmade bridegroom, extracting a quarter from his pocket and handing it over to the astounded official, who had thus given one peep too many into the "extreme economy" of paying for wedding ceremonials!

66

The application of which is to say that visits to Europe may be made by Americans, a little on the principle of the Cincinnatian who burned his lamps all day because "lard oil was cheaper than daylight" —that they may go, if they will, quite as cheaply as they can remain at home, possibly a little cheaper. This, however, might be like the twenty-five cents of the penurious bridegroom, and would involve the steerage of the ships, the third-class cattle-pens of the European railways, and lodging somewhere in the back-slums of any cities visited.

Still, even in the steerage, on some of the bestappointed lines (about which something definite in due place) passages may be made with much less discomfort than most stay-at-home people suppose; and it is not at all certain that thousands of hardy persons, limited in means, who spend the requisite amounts of time and money on very questionable