Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-01-09
nee Of the Evening star

ONE HUNDRED NILES AN Hous TO IN At
TANNED.
Special consspondence of the Evening Stan
New YORK, Jan. z. 1891
NHE DEATH OF MRS. ROBERT L. STUART
- was an event which many understood to
be fun OF significance to the cause Of charity,
especially as administered through the Pres
byterian church. Like her deceased husband,
sne regarded herself in the strictest sense Of
the term - Q trustee for the care and proper
distribution Of the wealth which had come to
her by business success and by the various
processes Of law and nature
For years she has been living life Of soli-
tary grandeur in the splendid mansion on 9Th
avenue, attended by O faithful woman secre-
tary and by two or three attached domestics.
She was the very personifcation of Q reserved
and dignified respectability. Old and infirrn,
she mingled very little in any society. but she
drew about her, as beftted her own views and
convenience, a very select coterie, among
whom the Presbyterian doctor of diyinitT
played conspicuous, and, perhaps. a pre-em-
inent part 1t was understood that the bulk of her
great fortune would be left to the various
branches OF the Presbyterian work and it was
natural, therefore, tina. the leaders of that de-
nomination should cultivate her society and
respond to her evident partiality foi them.
GENEROUS CHARITABLE REQUESTS
As soon as 1t wac announced that Mrs Stuart
had expired every one was on the tiptoe of ex-
pectation to learn how her will read, and i'm
mediately after her burial the document was
published in detail The authorizations Of the
public for once were not disappointed. The
requests were on q munifcent scale and we're
distributed among the many objects Of benevo-
lence in which she had always taken SC active
an interest. The chief single beneficiary is the
Lenox Library, which profits by her friendship
to the extent of about $3.50, 600. Next to this
item come several requests to the Leading chan
nels Of Presbyterian energy, I. e., the boards Of
foreign and home missions, Princeton Theo-
logical Seminary, the Presbyterian board Of
church erection. the Presby terrain Hospital and
the American Bible Society Princeton also
gets a cash bequest Of $4,000 and some valu-
able relics.
Mrs. Stuart was Of the strIctest sect Of the
Presbyterian, and was a strong partisan Of
Princeton. as against Union Seminary and other
more less liberal institutions. In her will
che gave last proof of her zeal in this matter:
Union is cut eff without even a shilling, Though
that seminary being the richest theological SEM
mary in the world and backed by the earnest
support Of some Of the great millionaires of
New York, can afford to be Indifferent to this
omission,
After thus disposing of about 100000 out
OF the $4,000, 900 Mrs. Stuart divides most of
the remainder among list of twenty-six char
ities each of which will receive $4,000 In
this list she included all of the boards of the
Presbyterian church that had not benefited by
her larger requests and almost all of the
principal charities Of the city, including many
that are undenominationaL Several orphan
asylums are on the list, including the Half Or
phan Asylum Oh l05th street. which she lately
furnished with new site and building at an
expense OF goo, 900.
Altogether the requests exceed in amount
ANYTHING thuR far IN record in oil
of benevolence. and may fifty be linked with
the munificent apr OPERATIONS to colleges made
by the late shoe merchsnt-Mr. Fayerweather.
The only item of surprise, and that will sur
prise no one who knew Mrs. Stuart, is the re-
voking of certain clauses in the will which
gave largely to the Museum of Natural History
and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although
both of these institutions are under the man
agement very largely of earnest Presbyterans,
Mr.. Morris K. Jessup being president of one
and Mr.. Marquand of the other. Still they
have shown a willingness to open on Sunday,
which was utterly repugnant to Mrs. Stuarts
feelings and on this account they both lost
their requests, Mrs. Stuart preferring to con-
centrate all her gifts OF this general character
upon tho Lenox Library. This institution. it
Is pretty safe to say, will never be open on
Sunday; it is only opened crack on any other
day.
THE NEXT EPOCH IN RAnRoADISa.
Railroad kingdoms come not with observa-
ton The great transportation companies have
q thorough dislike to the brass band theory of
campaigns, but they manage to get there on
time nevertheless. just now there is a tre-
mendous amount of energy concentrated on
the question of increased speed. We seem to
be standing on the brink of a new era in loco
motion. Not many years ago Mr.. Thomson of
the Thomson-HoustOn Company made the
startling prophecy that passenger trains would
soon be propelled at speed Of 100 miles an
hrrr~ .a< &b.x
road corporations that set the pace for trans
portation companies in general have fixed their
stake at this speed and are meeting the condi-
tons which make it possible.
We may say that model railr reading fills the
three sides of a triangle, on which the points
are Washington. Chicago and New York, and it
is along the lines connecting these three points
that the development of new ideas and achieve
ments in speed will be made. Some of your
readers will remember that for a time a special
mail service was maintained between Washing
ton and New York on the east and Chicago on
the west, which called for a speed of eighty
miles an hour, but it was found out by expert
ence that the conditions OF rairoading did not
make this speed feasible. You know, too,
that the time table on the fastest trains of the
b. and o. between Locust Point and Washing
ton called for that run of forty miles to be
made in thirty-fve minutes. including two
stretches where the train had to slow down.
This called for speed varying from sixty
ent the time between Baltimore and Washington
has been extended ten minutes. A speed of
sixty miles an hour, or even seventy miles an
hour, is however, reached more or less fire.
quently along the lines OF the great triangle
have mentioned. and is accomplished without
Inconvenience or terror to the travellers.
GAIN THIRTY MILES AN HOUR
This is thirty miles an hour faster than was
considered safe and comfortable quarter of
a century ago. Can We now gain another thirty
miles an hour and reach the hundreds mile
speed? This is the problem which is being
faced by the New York Central, the Pennsyl-'
vania and the Baltimore asd Ohio as the three
great trunk lines. and the efforts are made with
view to results in time for the great EXPOSE
ton Of 1898, when American railroading will be
on view before the whole world. You have
seen much lately about the marvellous increase
Of speed on the New York Central and need
not enlarge upon this feature here further than
to say that the new schedules are carried out
practically without discomfort or apparent risk,
though they call frequently for q speed of fully
seventy miles an hour where the conditions
are favorable to such spurts of speed The
Pennsylvania railroad has recently ordered
5000 tons of 100-pound rails, and SO far as pos
sible is taking out all curves, with a view of
reducing the scheduled express time from New
York to Chicago to twenty-one hours. The
Baltimore and Ohio, as you ale aware, has re-
Gently ordered forty powerful compound en-
gines with view to accelerating its schedules
to keep pace with the plans Of its great rivals.
THE ELECTRIC MOTOR.
Sy..A