CONVEYANCES FROM NEW-YORK TO FREDERICKSBURG. 55 



or Philadelphia ; after being again and again stalled " up to the hub," and occa- 

 sionally upset. Now you may travel chatting or reading as you go the whole 

 distance of two hundred miles from New-York to Baltimore, in little more than 

 twelve hours. But oblivious of past annoyances, like spoiled children, the more 

 we are indulged the more impatient and fretful we become. 



We had in the cars, from the City of " Brotherly Love," to the City of " Monu- 

 ments," a most venerable couple, types of the olden time, Mr. and Mrs. Cope, of 

 the Society of Friends, in Philadelphia, to whom these our modern contrivances 

 for the annihilation of time and space, must truly have appeared as the work of 

 Arabian enchantment. He is old enough to have enjoyed the acquaintance of 

 Doctor Franklin, to whom, he says, the idea of the " Telegraph " was familiar ; 

 but there is reason to believe that the recent suggestion of its feasibility, and 

 thence its actual establishment, is in truth and justice more referable to the learn- 

 ed Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, than either he or others have allowed 

 the public to know. 



To be thrown, by whatever chance, into company with such choice specimens 

 of the better days of the Republic as those octogenarian friends, is one of the few 

 agreeable " incidents of travel " rarely to be picked up in the crowds and bustle of 

 universal locomotion nowadays. It was truly interesting to listen to this old gen- 

 tleman, as he was drawn out to speak of his personal recollections of Generai. 

 Washington and the old Congress, as it met in its wisdom in Philadelphia : aind 

 to hear him tell how proud he was, then a lad in a store, when charged with a 

 bundle to take home to Mrs. Washington, the lady of President Washington ! 

 alas ! then it was that the 7nan made the office ! 



One curious fact worth mentioning as to Mr. Cope, and indicative of the pro- 

 gress of our country in one lifetime : he whose name was the first on record as a 

 Philadelphia visitor to the White Sulphur Springs, is now wending his way with 

 his aged helpmate, to the same Hygeian fountain. What better proof need we 

 ask of the enduring virtue of its waters ! Here, Sir, you must give me leave to 

 mention an incident that if established as a common one, would help to stigma- 

 tize our national character. At one point on the road, this ancient couple, who 

 had wintered and summered each other for so many years, were for a moment 

 separated, and I observed that on his return a strapping young woman — for I 

 will not call her a lady — had got into his vacant seat, and refused to restore it, 

 saying there were other seats at his command. Seeing this, I proposed in vain 

 to two young people next in the rear, to offer their seats, for to part these old 

 people, it was obvious, would be like tearing the vine from its supporting tree ; 

 hut they also refused. I would have cheerfully have relinquished mine to the 

 old gentleman, who was still standing, and whom then 1 did not know from the 

 Pope of Rome — but that would not have satisfied the case. It was gratifying, 

 however, to see that this rude discourtesy to age, which everywhere commands 

 the spontaneous homage of all well-bred people, produced an evident feeling of 

 respectful sympathy among the passengers hard by, until the old patriarch and 

 his aged companion were again seated, as they had ever lived, like Abraham 

 and Sarah of old, by the side of each other. 



I ought not, perhaps, to have troubled your readers with an incident that may 

 seem somewhat commonplace, were it not that it may possibly prevent, in some 

 case, the recurrence of anything so unsightly and unbecoming as is every want 

 of respect to gray hairs ; and to take the same occasion to intimate to directors 

 and conductors of railroads, that something not yet established or generally un- 

 derstood, is now needed to regulate the rights and privileges of their passen- 

 gers in respect of the retention of their seats, the opening of windows, &c. Ought 

 not possession at the start, mauger a momentary absence on the way, to give a 

 right to a seat for the whole route ? And again : Have any lady, who takes a 

 whim to keep open a window, or any roue, who may wish to blow off the fumes 

 of an over-night's debauch, or to spit abroad his salivary extracts of tobacco, a 

 right to chill and kill all around them with a piercing current of air: for you 

 must know that, as truly saith the Spanish proverb, " A current of air that will 

 put out a candle will kill a man !" Or is it even unto death itself that we must 

 leave every one to enjoy, ad libitum, the democratic right of doing whatever he 

 pleases ! 



While honor and gratitude are due, especially to the founders, and to the direc- 



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