The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1899-12-02

! the distance uNlNtth NHN mean
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 Watts wheel has done as
much on the land. How well remem'
Der Sanderson's stagecoach, running
from New Brunswick TO Easton, as he
drove through Someryille, n. j., turn
ing up to the post Office and dropping
the mail bags with ten letters aud two
or three newspapers, Sanderson him,
self on the box, six feet two Inches ana
well proportional, long lash whip in his
hand, the reius of six horses in the
other, the "leaders" lathered along the
line of the traces, foam dripping from
| the bits!
1t was the event OF the day when the
stage came. 1t was our highest anlbl-
ton to become a stage driver some OF
the boys climbed on the great leatbern
boot of the stage, and those of us who
could not get on shouted: cut be-
hind!" | saw the old stage driver not
long ago, and l expressed to him my
surprise that one around whose head |
had seen halo Of glory in my boyhood
time was only man like the rest Of us.
Between Sanderson's stagecoach and a
| Chicago express train what a eitfer-
ence, all the great cities of the Iation
strung on an iron thread of railways!
At Doncaster, England, | saw George
| Stephenson'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 railroaders. 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
a village of palace cars, becoming draw
ing rooms by day and princely dormi-
tories by night, what bewitching prog
/ ress!
See the train move out Of one Of our
great depots for a thousand-mile jour
ney! All aboard Tickets clipped and
baggage checked and porters attentive
/ 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
hundred men living and q hundred
| dead, full head Of steam and two men in
the locomotive charged with all the re-
sponsibility of whistle and Westing-
house brake. Clank clank! gro the
wheels. Clank! clank! echo the rocks.
Small villages only hear the thunder
and see the whirlwind as the train
shoots past, a city on the wing Thrill
ing, startling, sublime, magnificent
| spectacle-a rail train in lightning pro-
cession.
When years ago the railroad men
struck for wages, our country was
threatened with annihilation, and we
realized what the railroad wheel had
done for this country - over 100000
miles of railroad in the United States;
in one year over $1,000, 600 900 received
from passengers and freight; White
mountains, Allegheny mountains,
Rocky mountains, Sierra Neyadas, bow
ing to the iron yoke; all the rolling
stock of New York Central, Erie, Penn
sylvania, Michigan Central, Georgia,
Great Southern, Union Pacific and all
the other wheels of the, tens of thou
sands Of ffefght cars, wrecking cars, ca
bosses, drawing room cars, sleeping
cars, passenger cars, of all the accom-
mediation, express and special trains,
started by the wheel of the grotesque
locomotive that l saw at Doncaster,
For what it has done for all Christen-
dom l calculate in the language Of the
text, 80 WHEEL"
While the world has been rolling on
the eight wheels of the rail car or the
four wheels of the carriage or the two
wheels of the gig it was not until 1876,
at the Centennial exposition at Phila-
delphia, that the miracle of the nine
tenth century rolled in-the bicycle.
The world could not believe its own
eyes, and not until quite far on in the
eighties were the continents enchanted
with the whirling, flashing, dominating
spectacle of a machine that was to do
so much for the pleasure, the business,
| the health and the profit of nations.
The world had needed it for 5000 years.
Mans slowness of locomotion was a
mystery. Was it of more Importance
that the reindeer or the eagle rapidly
| exchanged iungles or crags than that
man should get swiftly from place to
| place? Was the business of the bird or
the roebuck more urgent than that Of
the incarnated immortal? No. At last
we have the obliteration of distances by
pneumatic tire At last we have wings.
| And what has this invention done for
woman? The cynics and constitution
al GROWERS would deny her this eman-
cipation and say: what better exer-
| else can she have than a broom or a
buster or a churn or rocking cradle
or running up and downstairs or walk
to church with a prayer book under
| her arm?" And they rather rejoice to
| find her disabled with broken pedal or
punctured tire half way out to Chevy
| Chase or Coney Island. But all sensible
people who know the tonic Of fresh air
/ and the health in deep respiration and
| the awakening of disused muscles and
the exhilaration of velocity will rejoice
that wife and mother and daughter may
have this new recreation. Indeed life
to so many is so hard grind that am
glad at the arrival of any new mode of
healthful recreation. We need have no
anxiety about this Invasion of the
worlds stupidity by the vivacious and
laughing and iubiant wheel, except
that we always want it to roll in the
right direction, toward place of bust
ness, toward good recreation, toward
philanthropy, toward usefulness, to-
ward places of divine worship, and
never toward immortality or Sabbath
desecration. My friend, VIII Carleton,
wrote:
We claim a great utility that daily must in