Part 27 (1/2)
A NEWSPAPER WONDER
The _Railway Journal_, an Aence with respect to horess debates, and theatrical events, is now printed and published daily in the trains running between New York and San Francisco All the nehich its coluraphed from different parts of the States to certain stations on the line, there collected by the editorial staff travelling in the train, and set up, printed, and circulated aers while the iron horse is persistently traversing plains and valleys, crossing rivers, and ascendingthe traveller may have his newspaper served up with his coffee, and thus keep hi on in the orld during a seven days' journey covering over three thousand round He who pays his subscription at New York, which he can do at the railway ticket-office, receives the last copy of his paper on the summit of the Sierra Nevada
The production of a news-sheet fro office at an elevation of some ten thousand feet above the level of the sea is most assuredly a performance worthy of conspicuous record in journalistic annals, and highly creditable to American enterprise
MONETARY DIFFICULTIES IN SPAIN
Sir Arthur Helps, in his life of Mr Brassey, res in which Mr Brassey eave hiements as the Spanish railway from Bilbao to Tudela The secretary, Mr Tapp, thus recounts the difficulties which they had to encounter:-
”'The great difficulty in Spain was in getting reat difficulty The bank was not in the habit of having large cheques drawn upon it to pay money; for nearly all the merchants kept their cash in safes in their offices, and it was a very debased kind of money, coins composed of half copper and half silver, and very ood many of them on faith I had to send down fifteen days before the pay day ca theperhaps 2,000 or 3,000 a day It was brought to the office, recounted, and put into my safe In that way I accu our busy season When pay week cae coach, drawn by four or six ether with one of the clerks from the office, a man to drive, and another-a sort of stableman-ent to help theave any trouble up the hilly country I was at the office at six o'clock, and I was always in a state of anxiety until I knew that the money had arrived safely at the end of the journey
More than once the conveyance broke down in the e broke in half froht of the money, and I had to send off two omnibuses to relieve them I had the load divided, and sent one to one section of the line and one to the other
”'Q-Was any attee?
”'A-Never; ays sent a clerk aruard We heard once of a conspiracy to rob us; but, to avoid that, ent by another road We were told that soht before'”
A CARLIST CHIEF AS A SUB-CONTRACTOR
The natural financial difficulties of constructing a railway in Spain were added to by the strange kind of people Mr Brassey's agents were obliged to employ One of the sub-contractors was a certain Carlist chief whoreat influence Mr Tapp thus relates the Carlist chief's ot into difficulties, Mr Sent, offered hi to his measured work He had over 100 men to pay, and Mr S to the ent pay the ht all his ularly bivouacked round Mr Small's office They slept in the streets and stayed there all night, and would not let Mr Small come out of the office till he had paid theo out-his horses were kept in the house (that is the practice in the houses of Spain); but when he rode out they pulled him off his horse and pushed hio until he had paid theht in terror, with loaded pistols and guns, expecting that he and his family would be massacred every minute, but he contrived eventually to send his staff-holder to Bilbao on horseback The alloped all the way to Bilbao, a distance of twenty-five ht, and told him what had happened Mr Bartlett immediately sent a detachment up to the place to disperse the men This Carlist threatened that if Mr Small did not pay the money he would kill every person in the house When he was asked, 'Would you kill afrom a man who, as I was told, had already killed fourteenMr
Brassey and his partners suffer a great amount of loss by their contracts for the Bilbao railway”
HOW TO BEAR LOSSES
During the construction of the Bilbao line, shortly before the proposed opening, it set in to rain in such an exceptional raphed to Mr Brassey to coe had been washed down About three hours afterwards another telegrae bank ashed away; and next e had been done Mr Brassey, turning to a friend, said, laughingly: ”I think I had better wait until I hear that the rain has ceased, so that when I do go, I may see what is left of the works, and estimate all the disasters at once, and so save a second journey”
No doubt Mr Brassey felt these great losses that occasionally came upon hi theave way to despondency in the presence of his officers
RAILROAD INCIDENT
An Englishwoo in Anoland, and was horrified by the appearance of hbour His forehead was low, his deep-set and restless eyes significant of cunning, and I at once set him down as a swindler or a pickpocket My conviction of the truth ofthat I re by advice, I never carriedin it onlythat I could not possibly keep awake the wholeIn spite of my endeavours to the contrary, I soon sunk into an oblivious state, from which I awoke to the consciousness thathis hand from my pocket My first impulse was to make an exclamation; my second, which I carried into execution, to ascertain age checks; abond's disposal, for I knew perfectly well that if I claie-master would have set me down as a bold swindler The keen-eyed conductor was not in the car, and, had he been there, the necessity for habitual suspicion incidental to his position would so far have reenerosity as to make him turn a deaf ear to my request; and there was not one of no to hio, and seeing that the thief's ticket bore the same name, I resolved to wait the chapter of accidents, or the reappearance of my friends With a whoop like an Indian hoop the cars ran into a shed-they stopped-the pickpocket got up-I got up too-the baggage-entle to the thief Bewildered, he took thee-master, and went hastily away I had no inclination to cry 'stop thief!' and had barely tiratulate myself on the fortunate impulse which had led me to say what I did, when e