The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-29

Of elegance and convenience, and one almost
realizes by their means the wonders of the
"Arabian Nights, on going to sleep in one
city, and waking in the morning at another a
hundred miles away.
Yet though great deal has been achieved
in this direction, much still remains to be
done. Dust and cinders are the railway trav-
eller's great pests, and until some system of
ventilation is devised which will exclude
these while admitting the air, water routes,
wherever practicable, will be preferred, in
summer at least. Now, considerin the an
noyance, not to say positive misery, caused
by these nuisances, it seems worth while to
make a strong effort to abolish them. A
cinder lodging in the eye will cause an
amount of distress, if not of permanent in
jury, hardly conceivable without the undesira-
BILE experience. Why do not our inventors
turn their attention to this subject We
have gas-consumlng stoves, why not cinder
and smoke consuming locomotives A water
car, with copious sprinklers, attached to the
tender to lay the dust along the way, must
perhaps be reserved for the age of perfection.
But it seems not impossible to devise some
plan of ventilation whereby the air, before
passing into the car, shall be purified, and so
relieved of its disagreeable accomplishments
The present discomfort is at any rate serious
enough to make the question of relief worthy
of close investigation. The railway traveller
is now almost choked by cinders and dust.
In the matter of speed, too, we are sadly
behindhand. Forty miles an hour is a maxi
mum rate, even on our best roads, and twenty
five the average. Compared with the rates of
foreign express trains this is ridiculously
Glow. Of course, allowance is to be made for
the more broken character of our country,
and the consequent excess of curves in our
roads, but this is not enough to account for
the great disparity. Our railroad men are,
however, beginning to realize our backward
ness in this respect, and to revise their time
tables. If, as is promised, we have an express
to Chicago in twenty-four hours, which will
be at the rate of nearly fifty miles an hour,
and if this speed can be achieved with entire
safety, we shall doubtless see the dawn of a
new era in American railway travel. But
much greater care will have to be exercised
in looking after the road and the cars than is
common at present. In regard to accuracy
and punctuality, also, most of our roads
might be improved. A train which verifes
its timetable is almost phenomenon. This
uncertainty, besides its danger, is a source of
great annoyance, and even of loss, to busi-
ness men. 1t might be greatly if not entirely
obviated by adopting the plan prevalent
abroad-the only one which insures against
collisions-of running by telegraph as well
as timetables, and of permitting no train to
leave one station until communication has
been had with the next, and the track ascer-
tanned to be clear.
Railway companies would also consult their
own interests, no less than the comfort of
their passengers, by giving some attention to
the wayside eating-stations. What these are
at present no traveller needs to be told.
What they should and might be, trip on a
French or Russian road will show. In Russia,
particularly, the refreshment stations are
patterns of cleanliness and comfort. The
traveller at each is served with savory meal,
and has ample time to eat it. If our COM
panies would take this matter into their own
hands, and attend to it in liberal spirit, in
stead of leaving it to their conductors, or to
other irresponsible parties, as a means of ex-
orbitant profit, a reform much needed could
readily be established.
There are many similar petty vexations, to
which the railway traveller in America is ex-
posed without sufficient justification. Of
these, lack of drinking water is one of the
most frequent and inexcusable. Another is
such deplorable want of system as that
whereby the traveller is turned out of his
sleeping-car at Ogdensburg, to cross the St.
Lawrence, at 2 o'clock in the morning, on a
ferry-boat which could readily take over the
car, as is done at Camden and Havre-de-
Grace. Railway travelling is rapidly being
reduced to a science, and mistakes of this
sort are every day becoming less justifable.
The time is not very distant when the success
or failure of road may turn on Just such
minor matters as these.
SPECIAL NOTICES.