" THE MODERN ODYSSEY."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:9
SIR,—In the interesting review, in the Spectator of February `27th, of " A Nineteenth Century Ulysses," you state that the two objects which strike the traveller who approaches New 'York by sea are an enormous hotel on Coney Island built in the form of an elephant, and Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island. In regard to the first object, either the reviewer or the author of the book has fallen into an error. There is no hotel on Coney Island in the form of an elephant. That interesting elephantine erection which you rightly describe as grotesque and ugly, is simply a novel form of amusement for the crowds that troop down from New York,— a switchback-railway, I think, from what I recollect, or at least an amusement of that order.
I was also under the impression, having "approached New 'York " by steamer several times, that Coney Island was quite out of the range of eyesight in the ordinary route.—I am, Sir, T. RICHARDSON.
Robinson Street, West Hartlepool, February 29th.
{The exact language of the writer of " The Modern Odyssey " is as follows (p. 21) :—" the two objects which first
arrest the attention of the traveller entering the United States at New York. One is an hotel on Coney Island built in the form of an elephant, and the other is the most conspicuous figure of a beautiful haven,—the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island." Whether the author is right or not, we do not know. Neither object existed when the reviewer was last in America.—En. Spectator.]
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