THE SUCCESSOR OF THE RAILWAY. 753 



But, summary as the above statements appear, tlieso are only 

 the secondary and mechanical effects of this insidious little hum- 

 ming bee the trolley. The heavier and costlier revolution lies 

 behind its operation and even behind its construction. The legal 

 status of the trolley is that of a street railway. To construct 

 the railway (and it raa,y yet become convenient to adopt the Eng- 

 lish word " tramway," and apply hereafter arbitrarily the two, 

 making the word Railway signify the great lines operated by 

 steam, while the word Tramway signifies all lines operated by 

 other traction systems), first of all, that slow-moving branch of 

 the common law which we call "eminent domain" must be in- 

 voked with all its paraphernalia; and, of all large bodies, this 

 power of the State, this " eminent domain," moves far the slow- 

 est. The jealousy with which it is guarded by legislatures, the 

 reluctance with which it is authorized, the ten thousand and one 

 commissions, boards, and councils which watch with sleepless 

 eyes its control and its administration by the devoted railway 

 company, are as harassing as they are beyond escape. A paternal 

 Interstate Commerce Commission pre-empts the railway situa- 

 tion and pours out three or four octavo volumes a year of rules 

 and regulations. Then the boards of railway commissioners of 

 forty sovereign States take a hand apiece and issue each as many 

 more pandects, edicts, decisions, restrictions, and findings again ! 

 Next the boards of aldermen of cities intervene with their ordi- 

 nances and committees of investigation ; and, when there are no 

 boards of aldermen, the county supervisors, "boards of chosen 

 freeholders," town committees, and what not gather around ; and 

 no authority, however brief or minute, but has its word in rail- 

 way operation which, like Mr. Haggard's She, " must be obeyed ! " 

 Not only must all these be maintained sooner or later by taxes on 

 the earnings of the railway, with liberal subsidies paid on the 

 nail, but each and all of these are to be supported and placated 

 with " passes " ; courtesied to and consulted at every step ; salaried, 

 subsidized, and placated, too for the sole purpose of making laws, 

 rules, to restrict and never to benefit: to curtail but never to en- 

 large the earning powers of the long-suffering railway. For who 

 ever heard of a law, rule, edict, or ordinance in behalf of a railway 

 company-to bless and not to ban ? And even courts, which con- 

 strue a railway to be a quasi-public corporation, are most vigorous 

 in denying it any public right (except, perhaps, the right to be 

 bled and mulcted by everybody). But not so and such is the 

 primal legal career of the blithe little trolley ! Not only does it 

 harness an invisible horse who works for no board and no salary, 

 but the greater part of all this accumulated espionage and con- 

 trol is escaped. The "eminent domain" which it envoys comes 

 to it through the minor powers of annoyance and interference. 



VOL. XLVI. 56 



