Year: 1871

OUR ''sEvEN" (HUNDRED) "MILE BOOTS"


In just thirty-fve hours after leaving
your thrifty village, we were sat down at
the Baltimore Depot in this city of ances-
tral name and associations. But you ask
why we were 30 long in going the short
distaace of seven hundred mileP, more or
less ; and you will say that you see moth
ing in that worthy of mention except tar
diness that we must have played by the
way or been asleep somewhere. All, that
is just it, we plead guilty to both charges.
Deduct from the above time one hour lost
in changing cars at Troy and Albany
and ask no questions, for we cannot tell
why it should be necessary for through
passengers on an express train to change
at every station. We doubt if any one
can, but if there be such, let them speak.
Then deduct four hours more time en-
ployed in running through a coal train at
Hudson, and ten more lost somehow In
getting through New York city, and the
remainder is the actual time employed IN
making the trip. What would our ven
erable ancestors, great grandfathers and
the like, say to this way of getting over
the country With us it is a settled fact,
and any allusion to steam and lightning
il ant to be stale and disinteresting as a
vacant oyster she'll. Moreover, we our
selves are rot partial to cold chop. Great
ness or littleness of the past, whether in
personal ancestry or the world in general,
are of little importance to us only as they
may refer to the truth present and pro-
spective. But we think it healthy thing
for calculation to occasionally tip one eye
over the shoulder and note what has been,
30 we ask, what would they of the days Of
two weeks stage coach trip toWashington,
have thought of its being done in eight
cen or twenty hours They would doubt
less have treated such a proposition some
thing as we should treat a proposition to
do the same in as many moments, with
the cry impossible! The person proposing
such thing would have been imprisoned
as a lunatio, or if be had demonstrated it's
possibility by actual test, would probably
have been burned as a witch.


In nothing is the course of progress
more manifest than in this "annihiatlon
of tire and epace" How much further
we are to go in this direction, the wisest
man does not predict. 1t is not at all inn
probable that in the distant future, when
coming generations shall occupy In our
stead when progress shall have written
the name of man so high in the scale of
existence. that wars and rumOrs Of wsrs
shall have cease d, and the last national
debt been paid,-wheu the HERALD as an
organ shall have reached the full measure
of it's destiny and shine triumphant amid
its surroundings, that some future knight
of the pencil, in his explorations of your
ANTIQUARIAN room, may fall upon the old
| files of 1871, and chance to read this.
Methinks l bear him incredulously say,
Twenty hours to Washington. How
slow :" aud, in demonstraticn of his sur
prise, tell how he spends the night at
his home in Rutland, and reports to Con-
gress in Washington during the day.
Perhaps the immutable law of progress
NAV not achieve this precisely as written,
but we hope that before going much fur
ther. it will decide that once changing
car. between Rutland and New York will
suffice.


At Albany we spent long time in run
ming back and forth through the city.
Every body became impatient, and some
wondered if we bad got to submit to
swindle from the road by being compelled
to ride out our fares in this way. Finally,
the conductor appeared and announced
! that we were anhour late-that the train
would not stop at Hudson. A wag asked
him how we could change cars there un-
less he stopped, but his dusty brain failed
to comprehend the j1ke, and he went on'
SO did the train.


The scene was glorious one. For a
week, nature had been indulging in lit
Of "bluee." and now for the first time, the
cauopying clouds had parted. The sun
poured in his most genial smiles, and the
moon at midday was struggling to be
seen. A golden haze lit up the western
horizon as The sun neared it, and all ma
ture seemed responding with the softes'
netes of her music in the air. Such a
scene is rarely seen, and never without
ennobling the soul. For a long time we
watched the placid water as we crashed
along its edge, often so near that the rink
could not be seen from the car window
Tins for hours and miles we fed onward
meditating upon the strong yet unseen
power that bore US ever near, yet kept uf
from the danger at our feet. The sun
sank out of sight, and a pail of darkness
brooded over the land, still we went


whirling and laundering along. All al
once a shrek and a continuation o.


shrieks from the locomotive, were fol
lowed by the springing of brakes and run


ming of brakemen, then deafening crash
followed by three successive conclusions


like the vibration of pendulum. Experl
} ence had prepared us fora change OF carr
at any and every station on the line bu
this not being down on the programme
eonld not be anticipated and not few O
, them were taken abaek. Change was th'
frat thing thought of and everybody
changed, changed color, changed seats
: changed ends, and so on until all came Il
: dead stand, gIaring at each other like
: parcel of strange cats in strange garrett


Let what will happen, there is alway
. some Mrs. Partington or Elder Snitfies, t
give a ludicrous point to things. hi