Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-04-19
IN RAIL-CARS.

The following article might be advantageously
printed, we think, by the Society for the Diffusion
of Uusual knowledge, and distributed gratuit-
ously along the different Railroad lines of the
country,
"Since Providence seems to have ordained that
Americans shall 60 by steam, and on wheels, to
an extent unknown among any other people, it be-
comes US oil to learn the art of riding. When we
reflect how many miles every year on active citizen
in this Republic is liable to be wheeled over the
land, does not the art of using this time for the
best purposes Of enjoyment and improvement be-
comes quite important? Life S short enough, at
best-fearfully short in our fast-living day; and
we grudge the precious time spent in the half ami
NAL existence that life in the cars is to the mass of
travelling people. Since we must be boxed up a
fortnight or a month every year in this way, for
the love of humanity let US learn to be rational
creatures in our peregrinatiOns.
"We wonder if railroad directors will ever get
rich enoug to attend to a few items in the comfort
of the armies that ride in their vehicles? Such lit
tie facts, for example, as whether a hundred poo
pie shall be shut up a day or night in winter, in an
oblong oven reeking with vile calculations, alter
nately heated to the pitch of frenzy and chilled to
the level of consumption ? or step from the same
box in summer, encrusted in every geological strata
of a thousand mile region-all for the want of a
little Yankee ingenuity employed in ventilation?
Whether crowds Of men, women and children
shall be crowded, squeezed, bent double, mashed
and jounced into jelly, as they are over all our
great routes, for want of a little more sitting room?
Whether the American citizen is to be forced into
a state of chronic indigestion by the continuance
Of the internal messes, sardonically called break
fast dinner supper and 're~-freshments,' at
railroad stations?
But Americans have yet a great deal to learn in
the art Of travelling. Perhaps we have no right to
expect that men, women and children, will be trans
formed in the cars to what they are not at home in
breeding and character, but it sometimes appears
- -. 49, l.lf Ia - , IL -. II Ii
Its of manners and conduct, to wear in journeying.
We wonder if it ever occurred to that welldressed
man at our right, that it is q greater insult to squirt
tobacco juice on the floor of a room where q hun
dred people must sit, breathe and smell a whole
day, than on a drawing-rdom carpet, where two
people are to sit an hour? That genteel lady be,
hind us would not ask us to sit by an open window
in her own house on a January morning, if we
made her a fashionable call; yet she opens O car
window, and gives US q draft across the neck, like
a sharp sword, during a six hours ride. Should
we make q wedding call on that sentimenel-looking
young couple yonder, would they not be as polite
in giving us the best sea. as they are boorish now
in driving up some good-natured farmer to roam
in vain through crowded aisles for a resting place,
willis they smuggle in his nest snoring imbeci!ity?
Would that dignifed Pater and Mater famalias en-
terrain a patty at their country house by gorging
themselves and their little ones on their presence,
hour by by hour, with all things digestable and
indigestable? Yet they are probably now in the
presence of better company than they ever enter
tanned. Who would rush to a supper in his own
house, or into the drawing.room of q friend, as
Americans on the cars storm q public dinner-table
or jam the passages of an express train? Alas
our countrymen, you have some things yet tolearn
for a birth in this great democracy does not neces
sarily make a man a gentleman, or a woman a lady
unless culture at home and 'on the road,' steps in,
and helps out nature.
"a little reflection on the ways and means OF
making ones self comfortable. agreeable, and re,
spectful, during a journey, would save people from
presenting the uninspiring spectacle of y~awning
listlessness or sleepy stupidity, varied by ravenous
gluttony and barbarous etiquette, which they now
so often do. Why cannot q man, about to travel
a thousand or q hundred miles in winter, take
along garments enough to ensure his bodily com,
fort during the journey, that he may not be frozen
into a surly bear every time the stove cools below
red heat, and can sleep an hour without danger OF
waking as hoarse MS a crow? Why can he not get
to the cars in season, instead of jumping on the
train at the nine and ninetieth hour, and proving
through a crowded carriage, stirring everybody
into bad hCmor by his efforts after a seat p
can he not restrain his appetite till dinner time,
and not pare apples and MUNICH parched corn,
and eraunch lozengers in eyerybody's face, adj
RauSeam.
w are old-fashioned enough to think a great
deal can be learned by riding a day in a room fill
ed with the representatives Of every state of soci-
ETY., and almost every nationality, through the
grand and beautiful scenery Of our chief railroad
routes. 1t is not necessary to ask every man his
name and business. or stare in every woman's face,
10 learn much by what you are compelled to hear