masks, leg-guards, etc., etc., were inventions of a later day and substan- 

 tial improvements, for they greatly diminished the injuries suffered by 

 the players. In those days a baseball player's hands, in almost every case, 

 were an unpleasant sight, with their broken and dislocated fingers. 



The railroad line between New York and Philadelphia was then part 

 of the Camden and Amboy system, which in 1872 was leased by the 

 Pennsylvania. Still only a single track, it ran along the south bank of the 

 canal and the passing point for passenger trains was at Princeton Basin. 

 1'he engines burned wood and the tender looked like a box-car; the 

 smokestack was a huge, funnel-shaped affair, three feet or more in 

 diameter at the top. The first coal-burners, with their narrow cylindrical 

 stacks, began to come into use about 1863. The speed of "express" trains 

 was twenty miles an hour, making the time between New York and 

 Philadelphia four and one-half hours. In 1864 the line was relocated in 

 its present position and double-tracked, which made necessary the 

 building of the Princeton branch. Like most things that the Camden 

 and Amboy did, all this work was done in the cheapest possible way and 

 innumerable were the witticisms at the expense of our branch. The 

 service was by means of two "dummies," cars driven by their own steam 

 engines, which were vertical and condensing, so that they were noiseless, 

 whence the name dummy. 



The Princeton station was nearly on the spot where the one abandoned 

 in 1917 stood and was a dark, wretched, barn-like frame structure. Out- 

 side, on the top of a high post, was a large bell, which was loudly rung 

 five minutes before the departure of a dummy. The station at the 

 Junction was also a barn-like frame building, with high wooden bridge 

 over the tracks. In one respect, however, this primitive station was much 

 better than its modern successor and that was in having high platforms, 

 on a level with the car-floors, an English fashion, to which our railroads 

 are slowly returning. The word station, by the way, was seldom heard 

 in those days, depot (pronounced deepo) being universally used. To 

 make the new station accessible, a new street. Railroad Avenue, now 

 University Place, was opened, but was much shorter than at present. 



Another marked difference from the Princeton of modern times was 

 to be found in the large representation of handicrafts, most of which 

 were more or less directly connected with horses. There were carriage- 

 builders, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, saddlers and harness-makers; the 

 plumbers were also tinsmiths and made up quantities of tinware. Sev- 

 eral shoemakers made shoes to measure; the ready-made article was 

 unsatisfactory. The disappearance of those skilled artisans is a serious 



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