Daily Los Angeles herald., 1884-04-26
A HUMAN PUZZLE.
some OF the Achievements or
George Francis Train.
lcorr 81. r.ul rloneer presa.l


Some thoughtful but unknown
friend has sent me George Francis
Trains "New Bill Tweed" which
made its appearance on Washing
toms birthday. 1t is a production
ns anomalous as the Madison
Square philosopher himself. II
ia curious how people in the in
terror are puzzled by such char
acters. The Great American
Traveller, Daniel Pratt, and the
crushed tragedian, Count George
Johannes, were never fully appre-
ciated as far west as the Missis-
sippi valley; and the editor Of the
"New Bill Tweed" will go down
to his grave as the coming Dicta-
tor, who never dictated anything
to anybody. II Goethe could
have seen and talked with Train
we should have had q greater
writer than Wilhelm Meister or
Faust. His iridescent mind is so
balanced between lunacy and
superhuman sense that it battles
analysis and is the despair OF
metapbysicians.
To realize this, read column
after column Of his mingled wis
dom and drivel, and remember
that the same mind 30 years ago
gave Australia the finest stage
coach system in the world, and
later her present railways and
telegraphs. II was Train who
gave us the Union Pacific, engin-
eered its finances in the face of
sneering doubt, and created the
Credit Mobilier. Three years be-
fore Cakes Ames' memorandum
book was in existence, Train in.
vited Garfield into his Credit
Foncier, and the dead President
would have accepted il he had
had the necessary money. 1t was
Train, too, who got James Brooks
into the Credit Mobilier, not as a
bribed Congressman, but as an
honest capitalist. Brooks died in
Q cloud therefor. 1t was Train
who vanquished the watch-d dog
opposition of Charles A. Dana,
Holman and Elihu Washburne,
and put through the Union Pacific
subsidy.
1t was Train who started the
first line of street. cars in England
at Birkenhead, near Liverpool.
John Stephenson building his
cars. The popular opposition
brought ON a riot, the tracks were
torn up, and the concern went
bare Of dividends for 20 years;
but is now, of course, fiourishing.
The street.car is now a settled
institution in oil cities of Europe,
but it was the erratic American
who took the idea over to them.
l remember a charming conver-
sation about George Francis Train
several years ago with Mrs. A. d.
7. Whitney, New England's best
producer of the ideal young
woman's novel. George is a cousin
OF Mrs. Whitney, whose maiden
name was Train. From urchin.
hood ho was queer. Left parent
less, his uncle, Mr.. Whitney faith
er, undertook to give him a home
and education. For q year he
staid in his counting room, and
but for his leaving would have
received promotion. The first his
friends knew, however, he had
quit and gone to driving a grocer's
wagon--to gain chance, he said,
to study human nature. From
this be went to sea, and from that
he wandered inland, always
studying human nature, and him
self affording much to study in
the same line. His Boston rela-
tives heard nothing from him for
years. His oddity was shown
when he was to sail for England
on the way to Australia in 1858.
He and his wife went off, leaving
their first and only child dead in
their rooms, and friends had to
step in and bury it.
The dictator is apparently pen
niless nowadays, and his bills are
paid by his children, who are we'll
supplied with fortunes. Barnum
recently made genuine offer of
$4,000 to get George Francis to
lecture one year in the United
States and Europe, and doubtless
could make money with him at
that high figure. There are few
more graceful and brilliant speak
ers living. while his fund of OBJ
servation and reference, to say
nothing of his "psychos," makes
what he savs worth hearino