796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Railroad, including seven thousand miles of track and one hundred 

 thousand employes. 



It will be remembered that this system is also used to prevent the 

 admission of defective men into the service, and that the apparently 

 small percentage of color-blind in this table may be ascribed to the 

 non-apj)lication of men who know their deficiency, and to the fact that 

 men in the service knowing their defect would leave the road before 

 examination, and thus escape detection, and be enabled to gain employ- 

 ment on other roads where no examinations are required. Perhaps 

 twelve or thirteen thousand was the number who were subject to ex- 

 amination by virtue of being in positions where color-signals were used 

 to direct them, in 1884, and the difference between that number and 

 the total twenty-five thousand would be made up of new men who 

 would present a small ratio of those below the standard, since men 

 conscious of color-blindness, or poor sight, would not apply. 



The fact that the intelligent officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad 

 have adopted this system, purged their old force of all dangerous men, 

 extended its use to all parts of their immense railroad, and now oppose 

 it as a barrier to the admission of men thus unfit for service, is the best 

 evidence that can be adduced to claim for it a successful place among 

 the efforts to render scientific truths of practical value to the world. 

 It is hoped that the Reading Railroad will be sustained in its contest 

 with its employes by the example so quietly conducted by the Penn- 

 sylvania Railroad, and that the reform so necessary for the traveling 

 public and for those employes who carry their lives in their hands 

 daily, may be conducted to a happy finish. 



-*--- 



THE SAYAGERY OE BOYHOOD. 



By JOHN JOHNSON, Jr. 



THE following train of reflection was suggested to me by reading, 

 among a number of compositions by my pupils, this blood-curd- 

 ling narrative : 



"Not long ago, when one of the boys went up to bed, he was stand- 

 ing close to the window, undressing himself, and a little bird came 

 fluttering around the window on the outside. At first we thought it 

 was a bat, but after a while we came to the conclusion that it was a 

 little bird. Then we opened the window and let it in. It seemed to 

 be crippled or very cold, and it could not fly very well, although it 

 would keep out of our reach. "We tried to catch it by running after 

 it, but we soon got tired of that, and we began to throw our hats at 

 it. Sometimes we would strike it with a hat, but that didn't do much 

 good, until the bird was tired of flying, and it got under a bed, and 

 we caught it. Then we went up the hall, and wrung its head off. 



