The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-08

bluff to earn their forty dollars, but the passengers themselves grinned-- the farce was obvious.
 l Throughous Switzerland we met the same hold-ups, operated on the princi- pie of the Utah hoteIkeeper, who i charged three dollars for a steak-"be- cause he needed the money" The big towns fine you from five dollars to fif- ty dollars. The little towns have their tariff postted-"$2, $25O, $S for excess of speed" and, when the local gen. 1 darme is not there to collect it the children hurl brockbats at you. I got one on the head going down the valley of the Rhone that would have broken | the bone had we not been going in the same direction as the brickbat. So we went up over the Simpon Pass, the horses trotting ahead of slack traces and the motor doing the rest; up l through its wild scenery to the high plateau where stands the hospice of the Monks of St. Bernard their branch establishment We saw three dogs of the celebrated variety, but none were for sale, either there or elsewhere, and We got the impression that they were very rare indeed. Then we went down, down Into yawning depths of light, through white clouds and pale blue sky into the valley of the Rhone and up-to- date Switzerland. At Brigue we passed the Swiss entrance to the tunnel It is all ready for traffic and big hotels are building around it.
 A few hours had done 1t. In eight hours we had leaped from the Italian plain, over the Alps, into another world. It is a startling short cut, this Simplon Pass road completed by Ma poleon as First Consul in 1906. It is forty miles long, has six hundred and eleven bridges and seven galleries against enow in certain exposed sec tions, and cost over two million dol 1 lars, if you include the forced labor ex- acted by Napoleon from the people of i the Valais The stage coach takes ten hours to traverse it in summer.
 Now for the magic of the tunnel. Once, at almost the highest point, the driver of our blackmailing horses pointed out little lake in the distance. "The tunnel passes directly under that pond," he ssid.
 NO danger of the water soaking through" we asked.
 "The tunnel is mile and a quarter below it, was his only answer.
 At another point We stopped at a guards house and refuge inn. "The tunnel passes just beneath us" they said; and then to astonish us "Just a mile beneath usl" Think of it-a mile of solid rock and dirt for roof!
 The simplon tunnel is twelve and one-fourth miles long and has cost twelve million dollars. (The Gothard, nine and one-third miles, cost fifteen million, and the Mont Cenis, eight miles long, cost twelve million dollars) One of the striking details of it's digging was told us by an engineer at the guardhouse beneath which the tunnel passes a mile below.
 Tt was down there that they struck the rotten rock in December, 19O1," he said, pointing to the ground beneath our feet. Tt was only corner of rot ten rock, forty-two yards long, but 1t cost eighteen months continuous work The heaviest wooden supports were crushed like cheese Massive iron sup ports were twisted and smashed under the terrible slow pressure of the noun tain. Special riveted steel shields of unheard of resistance finally lasted long enough to permit them to estab- fish great temporary work of mason ry composed of three superposed arch es, Finally these arches and the space between them and the mountain were filled with masses of cement. The work cost five thousand dollars a yard"
 It took us eight hours to push those two horses over the pass in the auto {, mobile. When the tunnel is in opera tion trains will go through in less than one hour Even with the present French approaches, they say trains will go from Paris to Milan in twelve hours. It will be the same or better for other European districts. The piercing of the St. Gothard gave to Germany and Belgium very considera- ble advantages over over France from the traffic point of view of central Flu rope, Is the Simplon going to hurt or help France? All France is talking about it. Tn Parliament there are im- portant debates in this connection. It is known that the French government has more than one project. Every thing seems to depend on whether the Swiss are going to continue digging tunnels.
 If the Swiss rest on their laurels, iFNprf1npp p1T v1til1 e,nn hannAt hNy tho
 Simplon, and the same will be true of Holland and Belgium, while France will benefit, because the northern sec
 ton of the great P. L. M. trnnk line
 will find the distance from Paris to Mi, Ian very much shorter by the Simplon than by the Gothard. On the other
 hand, suppose the Swiss tunnel, the Bernese-O -Oberland of Wildstrubel-as they are almost sure to do-Germany will be remarkably favored in trunk line connections to the shortened dis tance-Bale-tMilan
 f What are the French to do in tha, event? They must further shorten
 their time to the Simplon, There i: , already a second class mountain rail
 road from Pontarlier, in France, to tht big Swiss lines at Lauranne It could be made trunk line for some twelve million dollars. The large business in- terests of Lausanne desire this. l The business men of Geneva, howev. CT, urge the French to tunnel thu 3 Faueille. It would mean a great tun 5 nel from France into Switzerland anC the construction of a new trunk line t
 the Simplon, passing near or touching , 1 Geneva at 8 cost of ten million dollars