Year: 1874

One Of the pet subjects of real or would be
satirists of our current life, has long been the
nuisances of travel, and particularly the peri
patetic vendors of sundres in railway cars.
About all the professional humorists, from
Gail Hamilton down through all the grades
to Eli Perkins, have taken turn at these
lively and aggressive dispensers of wares, and
have depicted in moving strain the sufferings
of travellers. The paragrapher has also
pounced upon this tempting theme and has set
afioat many of those immortal and perpetual
ly recurring squbs which become perennial
bore to newspaper readers.


While there must be some basis for so gen.
eral protest from all quarters, it is equally
true that there must be we'll defined demand
for the wares thus protruded upon the public,
or the system would cease. These people
could not carry on the traffic simply for
amusement or solely for the qualification of a
malevolent desire to exasperate the unoffend-
ing citizen, and its continuance demonstrates
public want which it to some extent supplies.
The only question for our civilization to solve
in connection with it is the best method of
regulating and managing it, so as to accom-
modate those who wish to buy, with the least
possible Inconvenience to those who do not.
We of the East may see this problem in most
satisfactory progress toward solution on near
ly all the railroads running out of this city.
And this effort to alleviate the annoyances Of
travel deserves hearty recognition.


The we'll known firm of c. Il. Chisholm &
Brothers are engaged in probably the largest
railway supply business in the world They
have control OF the traffic east from Portland
to Halifax on the Eastern Railroad, on the
Grand Trunk and all the railroads and steam
boats of Canada, with one exception, besides
many restaurants and news-stands in depOts
and important points. They have large
capital invested in the business and employ a
corps of one hundred and twenty five agents,
all neatly dressed in the uniform of the COM
pany and governed in all their movements by
a strict code of rules, intended to secure the
comfort and convenience of travellers. They
use only the best quality of wares of all kinds
and purvey a carefully selected and entirely
respectable class of literary matter. The best
publications of the Harpers, Osgood & Co,
and other leading houses and all the standard
magazines and periodicals are afforded by
them to the public. which is a grateful change
from the rubbish which formerly nauseated
the unhappy traveller who had not taken along
his own mental pabulum. Their wide system
of operation also enables them to furnish the
daily journals promptly at all accessible
points in each case and this service is in ev
cry respect done for the publishers and the
public IN a faithful, impartial business-like
and satisfactory manner. These gentlemen
seem to have an honest pride in their business
and are constantly improving all parts of it.


We invite those who have suffered from the
ill-traned, obtrusive and irritating youth who
sell things on rail cars in the middle, western
and Southern States to fairly compare the
guerrilla system there with the perfectly or
ganized and convenient methods of service on
our roads, and then confess that we are
bles ed among travellers and have less temp
tation than oar countrymen in other sections
to wander far from home. We feel as if this
were fit ject for some little gloriication as
the nuisance has been hagrant and relief
from it is correspondingly conspicuous; and
tribute to men who are doing such good
work in the vineyard is simply Justice
[ Portland Press.