Part 41 (2/2)
The technicalities of steel and iron coue; they are his native speech, in which he expresses himself most intimately
All his life he has been concerned with machines He is the inventor of the Brennan steerable torpedo, whose adoption by the Ad years of study and experi of the mono-rail car He has a touch of the rich ood hule-hearted pride in his life work
It is characteristic, I think, of his honesty of purpose and of the genius that is his driving force that hitherto he has concerned himself with scientific invention somewhat to the exclusion of the commercial aspects of his contrivance He has had help in money and men from the British Government, which likewise placed the torpedo factory at his disposal; and the governranted him subsidies Railroad men from all parts of the world have seen his model; but he has not been ardent in the hunt for customers
Perhaps that will not be necessary; the mono-rail car should be its own salesreat inventor should stand aloof from commerce
But, for all the cheerful matter-of-factness of the man, he, too, has seen visions There are times when he talks of the future as he hopes it will be, as he means it to be, when ”transportation is civilization”
Men are to travel then on a single rail, in great cars like halls, two hundred feet long, thirty to forty feet wide, whirling across continents at two hundred miles an hour--from New York to San Francisobtween dawn and dawn
Travel will no longer be unco with the motion of an ice-yacht They will not jolt over uneven places, or strain to yroscopes will govern an unchanging equilibrium
Trustful Kashmir will advance from its remoteness to a place accessible froer be a perplexity to paving authorities and anatheround, out of the way of hoofs and tires Automobiles will run on theels like a bicycle It is to be a yroscopes By that tiineers will have found the reater speed than is now possible, thus rendering it feasible to use a s, backed by a great inventor's careful calculations; HG Wells has given a picture of it in the last of his stories of the future
Practical railroad iven to the mono-rail car a sufficiently elcome They have been impressed chiefly by its suitability to the conditions of transportation in the great new countries, as, for instance, on that line of railway that is creeping north from the Zambesi to open up the copper deposits of northwestern Rhodesia, and on through Central Africa to its terminus at Cairo Just such land as this helped to inspire Brennan He was a boy when he first saw the endless plains of Australia, and out of that experience grew his first speculations about the future of railway travel Such lands make positive and clear demands, if ever they are to be exploited for their full value to humanity They need railways quickly laid and cheaply constructed; lines not too exacting in point of curves and gradients; and, finally, fast travel It is not difficult to see how valuable the ency as the last Sudan War, when the ared a line of railith it doard Omdurman
Petrol-driven cars to replace the expensive steam locomotives, easy rapid transit instead of the laborious crawl through the stifling desert heat--a complete railway installation, swiftly and cheaply called into being, instead of a costly and cue, or engine-shed, or stable, or whatever the railway man of the future shall decide to call it Struts were pulled into position to hold her up, the yroscopes were left to run theht hours or so When the eneral use, explained Brennan, there will be docks for the cars, with low brick walls built to slide under the platforuests assene and eat sandwiches, he produced a big flat book, su infringed on in Germany On that same day there was an exhibition of aplace at the Zoological Gardens in Berlin; the book was its catalogue It was full of iinative pictures of trains fifty years hence, and thereto was appended sanguine letter-press While there sounded in our ears the huyroscopes froraph for hilisho, but the one no further
”There, now,” said Brennan
(_Everybody's Magazine_)
A NEW POLITICAL WEDGE
THE WAY ST LOUIS WOMEN DROVE A NINE-HOUR DAY INTO THE LAW
BY INIS H WEED
It was the evening before the state priht in the tenement district of St Louis, where the factory people eat their suppers and have their beds Men in shi+rt-sleeves and women with babies sat on the steps for a breath of air, and the streets were a noisy welter of children
Two of the ue stopped before the group silhouetted in the gaslight at No 32 and handed the roup this card:
REPUBLICAN VOTERS ----------------- It is the Women and Children that are the Victims of Manufacturers and Manufacturers associations and it is the WORKING WOMAN AND CHILD that demands your protection at the PRIMARIES, TUESDAY, AUGUST 2nd Scratch ------- EJ Troy Secretary St Louis Manufacturers association and run by theislature in the 1st District Co WARDS 10, 11, 2,13, and 24 Precincts 14 of the 15th WARD Precincts 1, 2, 3 of the 23rd WARD Precincts 1, 2 of the 15th WARD Precincts 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 of the 14th WARD Precincts 1, 4, 5 of the 9th Ward
”So yez would be afther havin' h his stubby crop with a puzzled air ”Oi'm always fur plazin' the loidies, but Misther Troy, he's a frind o' ar, an' he shakes yer hand that hearty”
So Mike belonged to the long, long glad-hand line Well, _personal_ arguirls sized up Mike Ryan
”But this ticket has soirl”
”With Briddie?”
”It sure does, Mr Ryan Didn't I hear your wife tellin' ith the hard times an' all, you'd be puttin' Briddie in the mill this winter as soon as ever she's turned fourteen? Wouldn't you rather they worked her nine hours a day instead o' ten--such a soft little kid with such a lot o' growin' to do? There's a lot of us goin' to fight for a Nine-Hour Bill for the women and children this winter, an' do you think a oin' to help us? Look at his record! See how he's fought the eislature! That's a part of his job! _He_ won't vote for no Nine-Hour Bill!”