Woodruff County news., 1901-11-09
A RACE AGAINST TIME.
Graphic Account of the RecOrd- Breaking Journey of the Aus
 traIian-LondOn Mail.

adelphia, 'underlies material pros Perity in every department of commerce.; without transportation commerce would be impossible; those states and nations are rich, powerful and enlightened whose transporta tion facilities are the best and most com prehensive; the dying nations are those with little or no transportation facilities"
 Then the speaker uttered these two memorable sentences:
 Grade follows the flag"
 Trade follows the mail"
 If these statements be true, too great importance can hardly be placed upon the recent achievement of an American Pacific liner and of the five great railroads making up the | transcontinental system between San Francisco and New York, of which MT. Charles Barnard gives a graphic account in the -Four Track Series." At the post office of Sydney, N. s. w., there lay, early in the morning of August 13, 1901, 367 sacks of the most important mail matter ever sent from Australia to England. There are two routes by which such mail could go. One is an all-British route by way of the Suez canal. The other is prac- tically an all-American route, by way of Samoa, Hawaii, San Francisco, New York and thence to London. Of course, under the present arrange ment, the last lap on the bosom of the broad Atlantic, is sailed under the British flag. The British route is the older one and also the shorter, being 12,500 miles, while the distance the other away around is 13,557 a difference of over thousand miles.
 That morning, the 18th of August, the American flag was flying on a new ship, fresh from the American ship yards on the Delaware. She was the best available ship that day in the South Pacific. The only thing to do was to place the important mail on board the new American, twin-screw steamer Ventura" of the Oceanic Steamship company, which was done at ten o'clock in the morning. From Sydney the Ventura steered straight for Auckland, and entered that har- Dor on the 17th Taking on freight, mails and passengers she again set sail, making for the beautiful and po- etic islands of Samoa, thence for Ha- waii and San Francisco. At seven D. m., September 2, she anchored at quarantine in San Francisco harbor, having made the voyage in 20 days and hours. Had the Ventura been urged it is possible she could have arr rived a few hours earlier and landed those precious mail bags that day. As it happened they could not be landed till S:3o on the morning of the 3d. They were at once transferred by teams to the Market street station of the Southern Pacific (Ogdenroute), and at ten o'clock they began their eventful journey across the continent to New York, 3,3SS miles away.
 Suddenly the unexpected happened. The train arrived at Ogden, Utah, two dreadful hours late.
 The mail was transferred to the mail car of train No. of the Union Pacific. It was still late when it reached Omaha. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy put the single mail car containing his majesty's mail behind special fast engine. It was night run against time for No. 10S6. On and on, 60 miles an hour steady. The train entered Union sta- tion, Chicago, at sos a. m., on the 9th. Five hundred and eight miles in 555 minutes.
 No. is the Lake Shore-New York Central "fast mail'-the heaviest fast mail train in America. She had left at S:30. That train had to be over- taken. A new special, two cars and No. 566, would try if it had to chase it all the way into Buffalo. At pre- cisely 9:5930 a. m. she pulled out from the Lake Shore station-and No. one hour and 291h minutes ahead. As the special ate up the miles, it became evident that she was making up the lost time. She would overhaul No. 6 at Toledo. Two hun- dred and forty-four miles in 265% minutes. The thing had been done. The two hours lost 2,000 miles away had been made up.
 At Buffalo, the precaution was taken to make up the New York Gen. tral's No. 6-the fast mail-into two sections, sending on those mail bags from Australia, together with Uncle Sam's mail, in the first section. This was the fifth and last of the railroad lines forming the route across the United States. The train pulled into the Grand Central station the morn- ing of the 7th at 9:57-three minutes ahead of time.