American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-11-18
Railroads and Progress.

New Haven is some seventy-three miles from
New York. Our special reporter left at nine
o'clock in the morning, and, after dining and
taking walk around the Getty Of Elms," at
tended the meeting, took notes for nearly two
hours and half and was home here at the
Office at quarter after eight o'clock in the
evening to write out his report.
The proposed line of railroad-cut off the
large angle on which Springfield and Hartford
are situated, and running east of those towns
shortens the distance between New York and
Boston by about thirty miles, thus reducing the
entire length to about two hundred miles, which
it is proposed to traverse in six hours
The railroad and the telegraph are destined
to work wonders in the United States eclipsing
all that is past. These great agents for the
civilization of man and the interchange Of hui
man thought are as yet in their infancy. The
contemplation of what revolutions they will
hereafter accomplish, if these changes could
only be brought before the mental vision as in
q panorama, would startle the boldest and most
speculative mind. They are too vast for the
most far-sighted human ken. But we can all
see some Of the results that necessarily flow,
even from present data. Let us point them out
AS Professor Silliman observed at the New
Haven convention, speed of seventy-two miles
an hour is no Uncommon thing in England,
and fifty miles is the average on some roads
What is done in England can be done here. 1t
was not long since believed that the speed of
the ocean steamers Of Great Britain was un-
approachable. Collins line of American steam
ers has disposed of that fallacy. Already the
locomotives of the Hudson River Railroad and
the Erie Railroad have actually run fifty miles
per hour. What has been done for one hour,
or three hours, may be done for a thousand
hon afa lano
horse. What has been done on part of a
line may be done on the whole of it, and what
has been done on one line may be done on
any number Of lines. That speed of seventy
five miles an hour will be attained at no distant
day, there is every reason to believe. But, TAX
ing the moderate estimate of fifty miles per hour,
which has been already achieved, what is the
grand result? Why, that in very short time
we shall be enabled to reach New Orleans in
two days; San Francisco will be gained in about
three days, or, at most, four-a point which,
only few years ago, it took'a many months
to reach and even now period Of twenty-eight
days is regarded as q wonderfully rapid transit
In England, higher speed is attained on rail
roads than in this country, because they are more
substantially built, and the population is greater
in proportion to the distance over which they ex-
tend. We are now nation of 25,000,000 but
when the population of the U. States is doubled,
not only will railroads cover the country like o
network, but they win be built in such way that
with the improvements that spring from the
overteeming active brains Of our scientific and
practical men, fifty miles an hour will be re-
garded as mere ordinary speed. The giant
strides of young America, with its free institu-
tons, its placers Of silver and gold, its mex
haustible resources, its uniform language, and
its homogeneous race, are not to be estimated
by the slow, crippled movements of the poverty
stricken, monarchy -ridden, decrepid, and en-
shaved nations Of Europe-N. Y. Herald.