"No man in the steamboat or railroad cars had the slightest appearance of travelling for pleasure's suke." - Gruttan's Civilized America.

AND no one can be found who does not acknowledge the benefits and conveniences of railroads, which are spread like a net over so vast an extent of our country, and which convey us in twenty-four hours literally from one climate to another. There is, however, a growing notion that railway directors are far from consulting the interests they represent, in such a manner as to make the most for the stock-holders, and at the same time to make the traveller the most comfortable. It may be set down now as a fixed fact, that nobody ventures on a journey of any length, except in summer, if he can avoid it. It is considered a positive nuisance to travel, by the great majority of persons who have a good home. Now, we say, that if this could be converted into a positive pleasure, the number who travel would be so greatly increased that a large part of the present financial difficulties of the roads would vanish. How to do this is the question.

Let us see. A journey from New York or Philadelphia to Chicago is to be endured: the distance is, say 850 miles, more or less, and two nights are to be consumed, - or we must lie by and lose that much time. Most people make up their minds to get through with it; all may bo said to endure at least one night of travel in going or returning. What do they see, and how are they treated?

A couch car is provided at night on some of the routes of which we shall speak further; many who have paid for this indulgence cheerfully, find it too noisome for repetition, and if it were entirely desirable, there is not room enough for all. Those who remain in their seats are subjected to the presence all night of dirty passengers and their children; to the admission at every station of way passengers: to the spitting of Americans; to the overheating of the stove; to the imperfect or excessive ventilation; to being waked many times to "show your ticket," and that generally just as yon have succeeded with difficulty in composing yourself. There are other causes of personal inconvenience; but let us ask, Why, while we are being whirled at this rapidly convenient gait, we should be compelled to suffer an amount of inconvenience and danger to health that our domestic animals, if long exposed to, would die under? here we allude to the heat and ventilation. A man or boy, who knows 110 more of thermometrical variations than he does of the belt of Saturn, is employed by the month to "make the fires in the cars," - and generally, wo must say, he earns his money by attentively piling in wood whenever the stove is empty; but he makes no difference between a warm and a cold night, a moderately cool or a hot day; - how should he know? the conductor is often a perfectly indifferent passenger, who amuses himself, between his frequent demand for tickets, with the travelling post-master, in the smoking-car, (advertised, but not always to be found - -and when found, too often disgracefully dirty), or nods at his post in a small room now often provided for that purpose.

So the passengers are allowed to take care of themselves, the fireman only appearing at intervals sufficiently distinct to keep a furious fire; or, if not watched, he lets it go entirely out.

The infirm passenger, or the delicate lady, who has been accustomed to comfort at home, consult their feelings by taking such seats as they consider to be most desirable, securing, if not too late, a window of their own. An emigrant woman who can afford to pay the full price, seats herself, with three or four fledglings not in the best trim, before our travellers, or mayhap along side. Soon at a way station, a countryman, with boots muddied to the very knees, brushes by, - and half a dozen local people who are going to the next station, redolent of tobacco and mud, hoist or lower windows before and behind you, and if you remonstrate declare their right to do as they please. Thus you are roasted at one moment and frozen at the next; you have no control whatever of the ventilation of a scat that you have paid for all that was asked. The reader who has travelled for two or three successive nights will add a dozen more annoyances, such as the mud into which you are sometimes landed; the very shocking meals you are compelled to partake of or starve; the black coal dust that penetrates every portion of your person and in half an hour defiles you all over; the dust (less annoying however in winter than in summer), and not least, the ever-recurring ticket-seer.

Now. ail this is wrong; nearly everything we have named can be remedied by a very simple process; the ticket-taker shall never intrude upon, you; the countryman, returning from selling veal at the town you stop at, shall not intrude himself on the seat of the through passenger or delicate lady; none but yourself or your chosen companions shall let down a window on your neck; no dirty boots shall be admitted to rub your delicate dress; no man redolent of a bar-room shall snore in your ear, and you shall have a temperature so equable that even your favorite horse might endure a night in it. Shall we go on any longer without attempting an improvement? shall thousands nightly run the risk of consumption and pneumonia, or shall we be comfortable, and decrease the amount of the bills of mortality? Let us see.

The couch-car is a step in advancing comfort, but it is open to serious objection, the first of which is the ventilation; the persons near the door, or ventilator, get too much of the outward air, while those beyond get too little. The space is cramped, the bed hard, or otherwise uncomfortable, and the pounding you get is multiplied by the increase of surface exposed to it while in a recumbent posture; and at all events you will find plenty in the morning who have not "slept a wink." They will also soon be infested with insects. The inventors, who are allowed to run these cars at their own cost and risk, and charge half a dollar for the night, do all in their power to make the best of it, but it is an imperfect substitute for the poor benches; we want and must have a better.

The French Coupe, now in use all over Europe, is what is wanted. It is a single, room with four seats, a door on each side, which may be hired for the trip by one, two, three, or four individuals, for a small charge additional to the regular ticket. The seats are all capitally stuffed, with a projection from the back to lean the head on; and this is a most comfortable mode of sleeping; at your feet is a copper tube of sufficient size, pushed in from the outside, and filled when requested with hot water. Here you may really rest for days and nights in succession, free from every annoyance we have named, regulating your own ventilation, eating your own provision, drinking your own wine, or milk, or cream, and conversing with those with whom you have planned your journey, or have invited from the cars to share your luxury and comfort.

Is it not astonishing that this convenience has to be named, after railways have been so long an institution among us? We are confident that the couch-car inventors would make double the money they now do, with half the trouble, by introducing the Coupe; and we appeal to the directors of our respectable routes to make one effort more to accommodate the sick, the delicate, the fastidious, and the old. Their profits are greatly concerned in this matter, and those who leave the comforts of home will travel thrice where they now go but once, and be thankful for an introduction to a new branch, if we may so call it, of "rural art".

Knowledge is "slow to travel," but no people on the earth are more sure to carry out a good plan than our own, when once it is shown to be valuable. We look upon the present system of travelling (next to the peculation of public plunderers, and the foolish telegraphic matter* of our daily press, which doses us daily with murders and runaway wives), as one of the greatest and yet most easily corrected evils existing in "free America." We have got to be so entirely "free," that every fellow-traveller may dash cold air on you as often as he pleases; the next step must be a reform, or he will apply cold water (instead of tobacco juice) in the same manner.