Arizona citizen., 1875-10-16
RAILROADS.
The Fiftieth Anniversary Of she Establishment of the RaIIroai-A ROmRnce-A Reality.

Recently we published & telegram noting tue celebration on Monday last, October 4, in England, of the tiftieth anniversary of the establ .shmelt of the railroad.
 IL Is simply inconceivable, looking st the world now-that fifty years ago no such thing as railroad existed. That we travelled by leg power alone-ei,her of man or horse. Blot out the road to. day and what would be our cOndition1 But there are men still alive who have travelled from the Missouri tO Philadel- phls and Baltimore on horseback to buy the dry goods and broadcloths our mothers and fathers wore-and which were often purchased year be- fore they were placed on sale in the far Western store. That is what fifty years ago was. Men in independent and comfortable circumstances lived and died, without going fifty miles from home.
 To-day the merchant of Kansas City goes to New York in fifty hours, and in a fortnight thereafter his pur- chases are on sale in his market. How did the world ever get along without the railway,
 These "reminiscences of the time be- fore our railways are akin to those of England. The place of the celebrs- tion was in Durham, between the rivers Lees and Wear, al South Dur. ham and Darlington. This was the center Of coal and lead region and the rivers being only navigable for short distances above their mouths, coal and lead were carried on tine backs of horses to the town of StOckton-On- Lees, to be shipped to the larger towns to market. Two Quakers, Jonathan BlackhOuse, banker and manufac. turer, and Edward Pease, a manufac- turer, as part of committee in ISIS, employed George Leather, an engineer, 10 make a survey for canal or horse tramway, between Darlington and Stockton. His estimates for horse railway were, for feed, e12 per horse per year; e30 for drivers wages, and the receipts from traffic, e32. And this is the first estimate ever made for railway business. But the sturdy Quakers did not give up. They finally obtained a charter for 8 canal or railway, or part of both. And now George Stephen appeared on the scene, and proposed to make all rail and take the power to haul from engines, few of which, called Putting Billies," were working in the pits at the collier ies This was in 1891. In 1922 the first rail was laid, and in September, 1895, the work was finished, the open ing taking place on the 27th of that month. The first engine was called |" LecOmpton,' and the first train was what would now be called mixed one; 8 score of wagons loaded with coal, flour, and passengers, and one long coach" in which the directors and their friends rode The engine driver was George Stephenson, the first and greatest occupant of the foot board " the world has seen.
 Twelve years ago the annual income of this same line was three times great CT than the capital on the day it was opened fifty years ago. The world to- day has almost forgotten the two Quakers to whom they owe the gift of the railway, and George Stephenson. Instead of supplying two little towns with coal, the globe Is belted with iron, and the locomotive draws more mer- chandise and more people than the horses of the world did fifty years ago, or since.