CHAPTER XXXVII. 



THE BENEFITS CONFERRED BY RAILROADS. 



CONTINUATION or CONTRIBUTED ARTICLE, BY J. W. MIDGLEY, 

 ESQ., CHICAGO. 



The feeling against railroads has been so intense as to ig 

 nore their beneficial effects. Yet these are not insignificant. 

 Perhaps they can best be estimated by imagining our con 

 dition were we suddenly to be thrown back to the state of 

 locomotion existing forty years ago. Such return would 

 render personal travel intolerable, would suspend business, 

 and collapse thousands of enterprises originated and made 

 prosperous by railway facilities. 



With our fathers, a journey of three hundred miles was 

 an event in a lifetime, and was not undertaken until a man 

 had made his will. It is now easily, luxuriously, and expe- 

 tlitiously accomplished. Safety and speed are incomparable 

 benefits. Strange though it may seem in view of the nu 

 merous startling accidents, the number of persons killed or 

 injured on all the railways in Great Britain and Ireland is 

 less than the number killed or injured by ordinary vehicles 

 in London alone. The cost of traveling is also diminished 

 fully one-half. 



The untold benefits of safety, cheapness, and speed apply 

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