The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1857-05-05
H1LLSDALE, MICH, TUESDAY. MAY s. 1857.


From the .Bunslo Exprsss
Niagara euspension Bndge-s.Is II Safe.
There Is another bridge not far away from
lhis present writing, about which the public
need q wArniug-the Suspension Railway
bridge below the Falls, connecting the New
York Central and the Canadian Great West
en Railroads. This is grand, beautiful
structure, the mechanical wonder of the age
and hung over the most terrific chasm in the
Universe, is, combined with the chasm and
its food Of waters, one Of the worlds won-
den. Modern engineering planned this
bridge, the greed of monied capital built it,
and the travelling public caring little and
knowing less about its fabrication, trundle
recklessly across il, and will trundle on until
thousand shrieks, and an awful sudden
plunge announces that there has been a.
short and terrible funeral! Will that suspen-
sicn bridge standi "Yes," says positive en-
gineering wisdom, and 90 will dictatorial d.
rectorship. We say otherwise. The theory
regarding iron, of whatever description, is,
that suspended, whether horizontally or YER
tically, it in time becomes granulated and
brittle. So, we believe, decides experience.
In short, suspended iron grows weak, and af
ter a time, by vibration, easily breaks. To
this may be added the contraction by frost at
22e below zero, and the expansion by heat
at 90 above. "And," say the engineers, ga
hundred thousand strands Of wire annealed,
and banded into solid mass, Theoretically
oserlaid with painted cordage secure from the
elements, will remain indestructible and
strong; therefore, the bridge will last forev-
er% II, as we believe, theory be true, cord
after cord Of these hundred thousand attenu-
ated wires will break, noiselessly, aud under
their insidious cordage covering, with no eye
10 detect them, one after another will snap
like spiders threads, until they become a
mass Of fragmentory faggots. We wish, even
now, those strands could be uncovered that
On interested public could look upon them -
Fall that bridge wiHl We do not date the
time-but mark, that bridge wiA fall. Look
at the stilted towers on either bank--stout as
they are said to be-totally unfit for the
pressure. And yet the credulous public, in
meridian sunshine, or the deep darkness of
midnight, in "thunder, lightning and in rain,"
thurst themselves, with the hundred tons Of
locomotives and cars upon it as heedlessly as
i on the solid earth.
Now, the braving of all this danger is gra-
Luitous. No passenger ought ever to cross
this bridge in train of cars. II is not nec-
,ssary. There is 1break of guage" on both
'ides Of the bridge. The two railways are
lot alike in width. There is change Of ears
md change Of everything IN them, on pass
ng the bridge-passenges, baggage and
teight; the delay Of an hours occurs. The
passengers all have to get ont on one side of
he bridge or the other, and enter the oppo-
ite train. Why not compel them to walk
he simple As rods over the bridge, or ride in
inge cars drawn by rope attached to
and engine on the opposite side during that
lour's delay, as well as to be standing about
he station-houses, or sitting at their careless
ase, and risking their precious lives, with
ntold tons Of wood and iron in tho passage'
We have seen full train Of cars, stretching
rom one end of the bridge to the other, stop
t dead halt for fifteen or twenty minutes
t a time, as if courting death or destruction.
t is needless to say there is no time for this
low and inconvenent process. The passen-
ers can cross while the baggage is shifting.
Where there's will there's way.
The Legislatures, both Of Canada and
Jew York, should interfere and prevent the
angerous mode of passengers crossing. We
ave said enouph That brid1e ,pW fall