128 



CAR-BUILDING. 



coast. The region south of the upper and mid- 

 dle Zambesi was still considered a prospective 

 field for German enterprise and a path by 

 which Germany might in the future reach the 

 Boers whom the hated English have walled in 

 from the outside world. The Delagoa Bay 

 Railroad is, indeed, a German enterprise, but 

 British influence is predominant at Lisbon, and 

 Delagoa Bay territory is likely soon to become 

 English by purchase. The British announce- 

 ment that the entire region south of the Zam- 

 besi, as far west as the actual bounds of Da- 

 maraland, is within the sphere of British inter- 

 ests was intended to warn the Germans away 

 from the rich but undeveloped commercial 

 field of central South Africa, and to hem in 

 the independent Boers on the north side also. 

 England bound herself by a memorandum 

 agreement not to extend her dominion west- 

 ward beyond the 20th meridian. She nosv 

 asserts her ultimate claim to the whole inte- 

 rior east of this line. A mere announcement 

 does not accomplish that object except in re- 

 spect to the Transvaal Republic, which dare 

 not now officially organize annexations north- 

 ward. But while the Germans are dreaming 

 of commercial routes across the Kalahari des- 

 ert, the English are extending the Northern 

 Cape Railroad to the Vaal river, and soon Eng- 

 lish companies will be working the gold-bear- 

 ing ledges that are known to exist in Khama's 

 kingdom and Mashonaland, where many locate 

 the gold-mines of ancient Ophir. Two syndi- 

 cates obtained conflicting mining rights in the 

 disputed tract between the two kingdoms, one 

 of them from Khama and the other from Lo- 

 bengula, but on the advice of Sir Theophilus 

 Shepstone both concessions were canceled. 

 The influx of English capital and settlers into 

 the Transvaal gold-fields promises in time to 

 give the Anglo-Saxon race the same social and 

 political ascendancy in the Boer republic that 

 they have at the Cape. Gold exists in South 

 Africa only in lodes of rock, and must be 

 worked with steam machinery and expensive 

 stamps. The emigration is therefore not of 

 the adventurous and migrating kind that is at- 

 tracted by alluvial washings, but consists of 

 skilled laborers who will be permanent resi- 

 dents unless the seams give out. The Trans- 

 vaal authorities maintain good order, and in 

 return the mine-owners willingly pay special 

 taxes, and not only support the greatly increased 

 expenses of Government, but fill to overflow- 

 ing the treasury of the republic, which a few 

 years ago was bankrupt, owing to the aversion 

 of the Boers to paying any taxes at all. The 

 British are desirous of using the Zambesi as a 

 route to the central parts of South Africa, but 

 are hindered by the tolls and import duties 

 exacted by the Portuguese Government. 



CAR-BUILDING. Fifty years ago a few 

 wheelwrights and carriage-makers were ex- 

 perimentally engaged in adapting the four- 

 wheeled road-wagon of the period for use on a 

 tramway. There was no " car-building indus- 



try" in existence. To-day more than 15,000 

 men earn their bread by constructing railway- 

 carriages of various kinds, and 500,000 earn 

 their living through the management of the car- 

 riages after they are built. There were then 

 in service a few tram-cars of comparatively 

 rude construction, drawn by horses for the most 

 part, and designed for the transportation of 

 passengers or freight over short distances. 

 Now it is estimated that there are in use about 

 78,000 cars, of all descriptions, drawn by nearly 

 30,000 locomotive-engines, over 150,600 miles 

 of track. These figures are substantially from 

 Poor's "Manual of Railroads," the accepted 

 authority on the subject. There are about 140 

 car- building establishments in operation in 

 the United States, and not only do these turn 

 out cars for ordinary passenger traffic and for 

 miscellaneous freight and merchandise, but 

 they build vestibule and palace " coaches," 

 restaurant or buffet cars, observation cars, 

 mail, express, refrigerating, and milk cars, 

 menagerie and circus cars, and cars for the 

 different kinds of live-stock. Some of these 

 latter are so complete in their special appoint- 

 ments that they are not inaptly termed "pal- 

 ace-cars" after their kind, the latest addition 

 to the list being a "palace-car for hens," de- 

 signed for the conveyance of from 3,500 to 4,500 

 live fowl, in comparative luxury. This car is 

 described as two feet higher than the ordinary 

 freight-car ; it has two aisles, one longitudinal 

 the other transverse. It is partitioned off into 

 116 compartments, each four feet square. 

 Food is carried beneath the car, and water in 

 a tank on top; the supply being sufficient for 

 a full load for a journey of 2,000 miles. The 

 " Car-Builder's Dictionary " specifies regular 

 car-types as follows : 



Baggage-car, boarding-car, box-car, tuffet-car, ca- 

 boose or'conductor's car, cattle or stock car, coal-car, 

 derrick-car, drawing-room car, drop-bottom car, 

 dump-car, express-car, fiat or platform car. gondola- 

 car, hand-car, hay-car, hopper-bottom car, horse-car, 

 hotel-car, inspection-car, lodging- car, mail-car, milk- 

 car, oil-car, ore-car, palace-car, passenger-car, pay- 

 car, post-office car, push-car, postal-car : refrigerator- 

 car, restaurant-car, sleeping-car, sweeping-car, tank- 

 car, tip-car, tool or wrecking car, three-wheeled 

 hand-car. 



This list is confessedly incomplete, for new 

 devices are continually added to meet the de- 

 mands of the time. 



J. E. Watkins, of the National Museum in 

 Washington, in his reports on the Department 

 of Transportation, gives a history of car-build- 

 ing, which places its origin at the beginning of 

 the century, when active brains in this coun- 

 try and in England perceived the advantages 

 of tramways for the transit of wheels. In 

 1812 John Stevens published a pamphlet ex- 

 plaining the advantages of railway travel, and 

 expressed the belief that passengers might by 

 this means be carried at the rate of one hun- 

 dred miles an hour. The highest speed yet 

 attained does not fully realize this dream, but 

 it would be rash to say that such a feat will 



