Year: 1871

We were smoking one night be-
fore the hotel smoking room CRATE,
when one man said:


Ihave always thought I'd like to
be railroad conductor-for little
while at least.


The old conductor smiled and
knocked the ashes off his cigar.


Well, said he, / believe almost
everybody has had that feeling at
one time or another. There is some
thing fascinating to sober busi-
ness man in the idea of doing bust
ness and earning your living at thir-
ty miles an hour, and the spice of
danger that you may at any moment
be sent to kingdom come by light
ming express, is just vague enough
not to frighten, but attract. But to
a conductor it's a prosaic business
enough. So it is to engineers and
brakesmen. Don't you remember
that, at the inquest over the Nor
walk Bridge accident, it was shown
that the engineer was in the habit of
opening everything, and then read
ing newspaper? He was neglect
ting his business of course; but it
shows what habit will do, twill make
reading room of an express en-
gine. F -


Railroad men learn the lesson of
punctuality very thoroughly. 1t
won't do to be late or the train
won't start on time, and then an
awful row is certain. One time 1
was at Albany, and that afternoon
the Hudson River, Boston and Cen
tral trains all started at five o'clock.
Well, the conductors of the trains,
and the engineers, too, went down
the river on a little propeller-the
"Julia" think she was called. We
turned around in plenty of time, but
about ten miles below Albany we
ran aground We were in a nice
scrape. There wasn't conductor
at the depot to take any ones place,
and the tide was falling. Williams,
a splendid, great big fellow, got des-
perate, jumped into the river, put
his shoulder to the stern, where the
propeller had caught on mud bank,
and as the boat was about nine cat
power only, and he perfect Her
culss, he actually lifted her off, and
we got to Albany just in time, only
Williams had to run to Syracuse
with his wet clothes on.


It's a queer existence, too, run
ming day after day through a lot of
little places that you don't take any
interest in or know anything about,
more than the stations are called
such stations. 1t isn't such dan
gerous life, either. Accident insur-
ance companies don'trate passenger
conductors very high, but if ever
you want TO feel how helpless you
are in the hands of the Almighty,
just get on an express engine, and
get the engineer to open everything
on dark night. It's positively aw-
full to see your headlight boring into
darkness, and to think between you
and instant death there's only the
chance of two pieces of iron you're
travelling ON being continuous and
clear; that if somebody has just
pred up rail since the last train
went over, or anchored something
on the track, your friends won't
know your body when the coroner's
Jury calls them as witnesses to your
identity. That's the way 1 thought
the first time l tried it, but the en-
gineer was smoking pipe, and the
fireman was whistling "Jim long
Josey."


When conductor runs q train
out of town and runs another in
again the same day, it isn't such
queer life as when he runs train
out one day and in the next. Then
he lives two lives. One night he is
a married man at one place, and the
next he is bachelor at another
place, and the next night married
man again-and SO on see-saw.


There's a kind of feeling of re-
sponsibility, having three or four
hundred lives in your keeping. But,
then, there are the rules,if you keep
them, if anything happens it isn't
your fault. When you are out of
time and have to wait, you're sure
to be cross and sure to be badgered
by questions. A foreigner once told
me that one of the most surprising
things he'd seen in America was the