The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-12-08

- IA ~ min &AG ~At
mont, the first steamboat. is going up
the North river, running the distance
hold your breath while I tell you
from New York to Albany in 81 hours.
But the steamboat wheel multiplied
its velo<ities until the Lucania Of the
Cunard and the Majestic of h White
Star lire and the New York OF the
American line and the Kaiser Wilhelm
of the North German Lloyd line cross
the Atlantic ocean in six days or less,
communication between the two
countries so rapid and so constant shat
whereas once those who had been to
Europe took on airs far the rest ~
l-~.- E-C-.- AssS-@-l TO m 4-gi
many years the most d~isagreeabie man
/ could meet vas the man who had
been to Europe. despising ali Americana
pictures and American music and Anne
rican society because they had seen
European pictures and heard European
music and mingled In European So
ciety-now a transatlantic voyage Is
50 common that a sensible man would
no more boast OF II than II he had been
to New York or Boston.
Ali xne rivers and lakes and seas
have turned white with rage under the
shifting or the steamboat wheel. In
the phosphorescent wake Of IL sail the
worlds commercial properties.
Through the axle of that wheel nations.
join hands. and America says TO Ne
nice, Give me your pictures" n TO
France, Give me your graceful ap-
parel." and to England, Give me YOUR
Sheffield knives and Nottingham laces
ard Manchester goods. and l will give
you breadstuffs, corn and rye n rice.
l will give you cotton for your mills.
/ VIII give you cattle for your slaugh-
ter houses. Give me all you have to-
spare. and / will give you all l have
TO spare" And transatlantic and els
atlantic nations grasp each others
hands in brotherhood.
What a difference between John
Fitch's steamboat, 6 feet long. and the
Ocanic, 704 feet long, The ocean wheel
turns swifter and swifter, filling up the.
distance between the h~emispheres and
Fastening the time spoken OF in the
book Of Revelation when there shall
be no more sea.
While this has been doing on the wa
ter James Waits wheel has done as
much on the land. How we'll | re-
member Sanderson's stagecoach. run
ming from New Brunswick to Easton.
as he drove through Somerville, n. j.,
turning up to the postoffice and drop
ping the mail bags with ten letters
and two or three newspapers. Sander
son himself on the box, 6 feet 2 inches
and well proportioned, long lash whip
in his hand, the reins OF six horses in
the other, the leaders" lathered along
the line of the traces, foam dropping
from the bits
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
1t was the event of the day when the
stage came. 1t was our highest ambi-
ton to become a stage driver. Some of
the boys climbed on the great leathern
boot of the stage, and those of us who.
could not get on shouted cut behind
I IA the old stage driver not long ago.
and / expressed to him my surprise
that one around whose head l had seen
a halo of glory in my boyhood time
was only a man like the rest Of US.
Between SandersOn's stagecoach and
a Chicago express train what a differ
ence, all the great cities of the nation
strung on an iron thread of railways!
At Doncaster, England, 1 saw George
S~tephenson's first locomotive. If in
good repair it could run yet, but be
cause of its make and size it would be
the burlesque of all r~ailroaders. Be
tween that rude machine. crawling
Down the iron track, followed by a
clumsy and bouncing train, and one of
our Rocky mountain locomotives, with
g. village of palace cars, becoming
drawing rooms by day and %princely
dormitories by night, what bewItching
progress!
See the train move out of one Of our
great depOts for a thousand mile
journey! All aboard! Tickets clipped
and baggage checked and porters at
tenrive to every want, under tunnels
dripping with dampness that never saw
the light, along lodges where an inch
off the track would be the difference
between a hundred men living and a
hundred men dead, fun head of steam
and two men in the locomotive charged
with all the responsibility of whistle
and Westinghouse brake. Clank!
clank! go the wheels. Clank! clank.
ech the rocks. Small villages only
hear the thunder and see the wkirl-
wind as the train boots past, a city
on the wing. Thrilling, startling, sub
lime, magnificent spectacle-a rail
train in lightning procession.
When years ago the railroad men
struck for wages. our country was
threatened with humiliation, and we
realized what the railroad wheel had
done for his country-ove one hun
dred and eighty thousand miles Of rail-
road in the United States; in one year
ove a billion dollar received from
passengers and freight; White noun
tains. Allegheny mountains, Rocky
mountains, Sierra Nevadas, bowling to
the iron yoke; all the rolling stock Of
New York Central. Erie, Pennsylvania,
Michigan Central. sGeorgia, Great
Southern, Union Pacific and all the
other wheels Of the e of thousands
of freight cars, wrecking cars, ca
bosses, drawing room cars, sleeping
cars, passenger cars, OF all the &C
commodation, express and special
trains, started by the wheel Of the
grotesQue locomotive that I saw at
DoncaSter. For what 1t has done, for
all Christendom l calculate in the
language of the text, 20 wheel"
THE MIRACLE OF THE AGE.
While the world a been rolling on
the eight wheels of the rail car or the
four wheels of the carriage or the two
OF the gig IT was not until 1876.
at h Centennial exposition at Phila-
delphia, that the miracle Of the nine
teenth century rolled in-the bicycle.
The world could not believe its own
eyes, and not until quite far on in thel
eighties were the continents enchant-l
ed with the whirling, flashing, DONNA
ting spectacle of a machine that was
to do so much for the pleasure of ma
tons. The world had needed IL for
5000 years. Mans slowness of loco
motion was a mystery. Was II OF more