The Iowa transcript. (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1858-1866, 1866-10-12
From the Chicago Journal.
f. Ii. F. Taylor on the s~-gAiKl.oad.
New JEFFERSON, Iowa, !
September, 1866. j

September, 1866. J
Check and ticket a man; commit him to
the velvet plush and passiveness of rail-
road car whirl him a hundred miles TO
dinner, and another hundred in time to hear
tea-kettle sing; tell him where he is
when he is anywhere at all; ventilate him
carry him fire; bring him water; trail his
bed room after him; picket his cook before
him; insure his life for q dime day; take
him from where they "guess" to where
they "reckon !" where "carry" turns to
"1ote-' and "what" to (which :" where
they call him stranger" or commission
him colonel;" where he gets to be .'fel-
low" or slips down to a ssgent." Thus
educate him with hot water steam him
tender and hopeless, leaving him only that
last best gift of high civilization, to sit and
grumble, and then bundle him off upon a
railroad like the Chicago and North western,
growing mile day and naming a new
terminus once q month whirl him west
ward until he overtakes the track-layers,
the iron gives out and he drops off the rails
at the further end, upon the prairie, rich,
rank and new, and he experiences an I'M
speakabe sensation OF cheapness and
chickenhood. He has died out Of one
world too soon and been born into another
before his time; out OF world OF fire and
iron and smitten anvils into world Of flesh
and feeling and growing grass. He came
forth mighty in the name Of hot water, to
$50 i'm feebly "on his muscle" Hatched
out of the car like a chicken from the shell,
there stands your traveller
He looks around him at 1.-the magnificent
distances" Of New Jefferson, capital Of
Greene county and the September terminus
of the railroad; at its white Jail looking
like little be broom turned uncharit ably
out of doors; at its flock of buildings
standing about on the prairie just where
they happened to be when the train came
in; at the white.canvassed wagons thick as
eggs in an ant hill Boots have brisk
business squeak in them. Wearers have a
quick forward movement to them, and men
and leather remind him Of some scene at
the ssfront' in war time.
He thinks there must be an enemy some
where beyond and just out Of sight that they
are striving to get at and to conquer Anu
| there is. Time and space are there, and
time and space are doomed. He sees the
engine that brought him, innocently SIM
mering away his breathing spell. lie sees
the mud-stained coaches with their fours-
finland, and the same old saucy toss of the
leaders heads, between whose ears many q
skein of silk has exploded; coaches lsttered
fer Council Bluffs, for Sioux City, for every
where towards shutdown. He takes the in
ventory and nothing is missing; the driver
red as to his face, girded as to his waist
looking out over the tops Of pair Of boots,
and with bad cold in his head; the lamps
'dim, religious I" and pair the whip
trailed along the deck; the dusty apron
tapping down over the !" boot like two
elephants ears sewed into one; the coach
with heavy sea lurch in the springs and q
smell of damp straw and leather within.
Here the steam. There the stage. And
SO the vigorous new world, growing too fast
for its garment, ekes it out for while with
a rusty patch of the old.
Hotels after you put to sea--well, they
are experiences. Let me give you a night
at one of them. There is a great deal of
something IN the wrong place everywhere,
which is supposed to be euphemistic de-
fnition Of dirt. You find periods on your
white plate, where there is nothing to pune
tuatc, but then your knife-h1ndle couldn't
be sleeker The house swarms with flies
and folks. You secure room. No priest of
the trowel ever cried snort" in it. You put
out the inch Of candle and find you have
been aspectacle, for it is a sort of a coop you
are in, and through the Stats at your right,
you discover man lettering about, gar
ment depending from his arm of which it /
never took two to make q pair, and alto
gether in the guise of the commandment at I
Ticonderoga when he obeyed Ethan Aliens
proane and noisy summons / never
blamed him for surrendering before dressed
himself. No man can be hero without his