The Russellville Democrat., 1882-03-30
The Women and Railroads.

Women appreciate the benefits of rail roads with keener relish than men. Railroads have brought to women and to the family blessings of peculiar and valuable character. Isolation is the dreary lot and portion of the rural women of America. The lives of farm ers wives are dull and insipid they are without recreation and amusement they are distant from works and displays of art and science; their lot and that of their children is one of loneliness. For this reason farmers wives suffer from mental and moral weariness life loses it's zest and freshness fer them, and their children flock to the cities to seek new ways of industry, enterprise and enjoy ment. Women feel the need of society more than men, while they have less opportunities for social intercourse, and they appreciate 1t more because they have less of it, and have sharp sense of their need in that respect. They are more aesthetic they covet personal and household adornment, and they have an unsuitable longing for the means by which their tastes may be gratitied. All this would be more and more as it is, this condition of things would increase and intensity, but for the civilizing and re- 6ning influences created by railroads, and but for the means and facilities for culture and social improvement which they have created.
 The railroads make the city and coun- try near neighbors. They break up the rustic and old-fashioned habits and ways of life which have prevailed on the farms and in the remote villages; they are the direct agencies in educating. re- i fining, polishing and elevating the classes of people who have been in the past without the possibilities of culture and refinement. The railroads carry books, magazines, fresh newspapefs, models of taste and labor, patterns, and a knowl- edge of art, the results of experiment and science. to the most distant com- munities, and to the scattered homes and l firesides throughout the vast areas of our common country. They have removed 1 from the ways of rural life the curse oi l isolation, and the shackles which bound men, women and children to sameness of scene, toll and effort during their life l time, and from generation to genera. | ton.
 1 The railroads have made the country cosmopolitan, and they have brought l every body within the radius and influ ence of the highest sources of enjoy ment. The greatest singer in the world comes to the metropolis, and the railroads make it practicable for thousands from near and far to listen to the miracles oi her minstrelsy The great orators, through the facilities created by railroads, visit all the people of the country at their local centres and places of resort, or the people are enabled to go long distances to listen to their arguments and eloquence. Famous men and wom- en in all professions are no longer strangers to the masses of the people. Travel has been cheapened and made comfortable and convenient by railroads, and it has greatly enlarged the field of every ones vision.
 The women of to-day are vastly pri- vileged beyond their mothers. The first settlers in the West came iD OK. teams, and were six or eight weeks or longer, on the road lover the hills and far away" and they left in the unapproachable dis. tanee behind them all that was dear and delightful by association and memory. | The railroad has opened a means of | transit from the past to the present, i from the farthest East to the ultimate | West, and few hours or a day or two 1 by rail will carry the men and women on the borders of civilization to the scenes of their childhood, to "the old folks at home" to the old homestead and fireside. Railroads enable friends and relatives to be set down at the far. distant bedside of the sick and dying aRd to minister to the cheeJless and for lorn wherever their Tot may be cast
 Men value railroads because they
 facilitate business, enhance the price oi
 land, promote speculation and aid in
 money-getting. The dollar mark is the