QUEER PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE. 589 



great corporations, having their interest connected with wider and 

 more extended territory, have broader views in their management, 

 and are guided by policies which tend more to the healthful and per- 

 manent development of their properties and the territories which they 

 depend upon for their revenue. The facts, in America as well as in 

 Europe, fully confirm the statement of the Parliamentary Committee 

 of Great Britain, that amalgamations result in furnishing better serv- 

 ice, lower rates, and higher dividends a benefit to all alike. 



In the popular mind, the solution of the railroad problem is based 

 upon the fundamental misconception that the so-called railroad " mo- 

 nopolies " raise the tariffs at their pleasure, are controlled only by their 

 own wills, and so, influenced alone by selfish interests, they maintain 

 unreasonably high or extortionate rates. Yet, it will always be found 

 that, in seeking to advance their own interests, they are absolutely 

 controlled by those general economic laws through the operation of 

 which every one is seeking his own good, under terms as nearly equal 

 as is allowed by nature itself ; and their interests can only be advanced 

 by advancing also the interests of their patrons. Freight will only be 

 shipped when its transportation results in a profit to the shipper. The 

 greater this profit, or the more it is extended to all articles of trade, 

 the greater is the traffic ; and the greater the traffic of the railroads, 

 the greater is their profit. Under the operation of natural laws, each, 

 in seeking its own interests, must advance also the interests of the 

 other ; this result can only be changed when the laws of nature are 

 suspended by the legislation of man. 



The railroad, heretofore generally untrammeled by restrictive legis- 

 lation, has been productive of more beneficent results to the country 

 at large than the most sanguine enthusiast of a generation ago would 

 have dreamed. As it is a human institution, it has contained also the 

 faults common to humanity. These, experience and interest will in 

 time reduce to a minimum ; and, guided by the same laws which in 

 the past have produced so favorable results, its future operations must 

 constantly work toward the greatest good of the greatest number. 



QUEER PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE* 



Bt FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D. 



OUR nearest relatives in the large family of the animal kingdom 

 are undoubtedly the frugivorous four-handers, with some of their 

 nocturnal congeners, but it would be difficult to classify the quadru- 



* This article is made up from the text of Oswald's " Zoological Sketches " (noticed 

 in our pages last month), by permission of the publishers of the volume, Messrs. J. B. 

 Lippincott & Co., of Philadelphia, to whose courtesy we are also indebted for the accom- 

 panying illustrations. Eds. P. S. M. 



