Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1889-11-28
The Wonders of the Steam Coach

The ALEXANDRIA GAZETTE of April &c,
1925, contained the following rather pre-
pbetic article from the Edinburgh Scotsman
On the steam railway which the present gen.
Grafton Is seeing fulfilled
when the steam coach is brought fully into
use practice will teach us many things respecting
it of which theory leaves us Ignorant. With the
facilities for rapid motion which 1t Will afford,
however, we think we are not too sanguine III
expecting to the present exit enc rate OF traV-
cling doubled We shall then be carried at the
rate of four hundred miles day with all the @ ise
we now enjoy in the steamboats,, but without tie
ANNOYANCE of sea- sickness, the dinger of being
burned or drowned. 1t is impossible to an
tcipate the effects of such an extraordinary Ia
cility of communication when generally intro
duced From Calais to st. Petersburg or Con-
stantinople for instance, would ne but journey
of five days, and the tour of Europe might be ac-
complished in a shorter time than our grandfath-
ers took to travel to London and home again. he
Americans with their characteristic ardor for m-
proyements SIC now collecting information about
railways and locomotive machines in England
and to them these inventions will prove CT ines
tImable value Some persons doubt, for instance
whether it il possible to keep so vast territory
as theirs united under one government. But 1t j,
forgot en- that extent OF territory is bar TO pc
litical union only rs it renders communications
slow and difficult, and that with the rapid and
EASY means of intercourse which the railway sf-
fords, New York, New Orleans and Columbia
river, though distant respectively from two thou
sand to three thousand miles, will be politically
and morally nearer one another than London and
Edinburgh were century ago. Free govern
ments in ancient times were necessarily small
because they depended on union Of sentiment in
the mass of the people, and one citizen would not
then know the opinion of another at thirty miles
distance. But the post, the press and the stage
co .ch have made it easier to unite twenty million
IN conn On cause in our days than it was to
unite the fiteth part OF tho number in the dsys
of Philip of Macedon and with the means OF
communica ion likely soon to possess We
think the one hundred and fifty millions who
will nhabit North America next century Will be
more completely one people than the inhab tants
of Fra ice or Britain ut this day. 1t is pleasing,
indeed To think, that at the moment when the gi-
pantic republics of the new world are starting
into existence, the inventive genius of man Is
creating new moral and mechanical powers to &C.
ment and bind their vast and distant members to-
pether, and give the human rsce the benefits OF
more extendtd and perfect civilization But we
ought not TO overlook the additional security
which an opuleut and highly improved country
will in future derive from the facility Of Its In.
ternal means OF communication. Were foreign
enemy, for instance to invade England, I've hun
red steam wagons could convey fifty thousand
armed men in one day to the point assaile1 and
within one week it wonii be easy, by the same
means. to collect two or three hundred thousand
man IN one & not and all fresh and ut for action