402 



The Review of Reviews. 



Xoremher 7, 1906. 



THE SINGLE. RAIL SUSPENDED RAILWAY. 



A German Success in City Transit. 

 An American view of suspended railways is given 

 bv Mr. John P. Fox in T/ic World s Work and Play. 

 He says that the cry everywhere to-day is for sub- 

 ways in our cities. New York is about to spend 

 sixt\- millions on construction alone. The elevated 

 railway as it has been in American cities is ■■ dead." 



A QTTIET " ELEVATED RAILWAY." 



Vet Berlin, twenty-five years ago, constructed an 

 elevated railway, with solid and ballasted floor, 

 which was free from the noise and other drawbacks 

 of the American elevated railway. The Berlin rail- 

 way is — 



eo quiet that tlie twopenny service in Pullman cara has 

 miide property gro up in value instead of down. 30 archi- 

 tertnral with its nionunieutal stations and richly carved 

 pillars as to beautifv even some of the palace-lined streets 

 01 the Oerman White City, .\lmost hidden by tre«B in 

 smnmer. tlie graceful arched structure is called the um- 

 brella of Berlin, and under its water-tight and li»ht^ 

 coloured floor the children play, and everyone finds shelter 

 from rain and snow and summer sun. The railway crosses 

 .^ river bridge, and the grass-bordered walk merges into a 

 vaulted cathedral .aisle, the steel changing to ooloured 

 brick, enlivened her and there witli bright mosaics. 



Reverting to subways, Mr. Fox refers to the heat 

 problem which thev create. The enormous amount 

 of electric current raises the temperature until in 

 one New York subway it reached 95 degrees. As 

 the traffic increases the temperature will rise. 



But Mr. Fox announces, besides the old elevated 

 railwav and the subway, a third alternative which 

 he considers will revolutionise urban and inter- 

 urb.in traffic. Over a river in Barmen and Elber- 

 feld a railway was devised some years ago ; the 

 cars hung from a single rail ; and the experiment 

 of this eight-mile line, carefully studied and tested, 

 is said to supply the key to our city traffic prob- 

 lems. Compared with a high-speed surface railway 

 the suspended car need weigh only 29 tons instead 

 of 100 tons, and required only 450 horse-power 

 motors instead of from 1000 to 3000 horse-power. 

 The suspended car is able to take far sharper cur\'es 

 at full speed, and the road-bed costs very much 

 less : — • 



When the high-speed line is built between Brussels and 

 Antwerp there will be some astonished railway men in ths 

 countrv— asitonished becanse we tailed so long to appreciate 

 the immense value for passenger transport of the sus- 

 pended principle seen in our ca,ble-ways and trolly con- 

 veyers. But it is for cltv service the suspended typo of 

 elevated railway offers the greatest advantages, too start- 

 ling .almost for belief, and yet there seems no escape from 

 the" verdict of some of the best authorities in this country 

 and Europe. First of all. it is even quieter tlian a surface 

 car. It costs less than any other elevated type, and only 

 from a fifth to a tenth of what a subway does. It can be 

 built with no flooring or sleepers of any kind to sliiit 

 out any light or collect snow, having slender girders stip- 

 pnrted by graceful arches, almost hidden by trees, if de- 

 sired, as over a street in Elberfeld. 



It is said to be the safest railway know-n : — 



A oar with twice the seats of a surface car can be run 

 at, twice the speed for half the cost, there being a gre.at 

 skiving in weight, especially from the simplicity of the 

 trucks. Switching can be so simplified that local and ex- 

 press trains can change tracks or cross way over at will. 

 withoBt loops. 



i'iie advantages in comfort as well as in safety 

 md speed are said to be very great: — 



The people, instead of having to ride in the dark cellars 

 of the streets, into which are drifting down the dirt and 

 dust of ill-cleaned highways, can be up where they can 

 see without dim artificial light at mid-day, and can breathe 

 without the help of costly fans. The unnatural burying of 

 passengers in heat and darkness will be succeeded by 

 thoroughfares open to light from top to bottom for every 

 class of traffic. Sewers, pipes and wires can monopolise 

 the grouria level undisturbed, as they should. .\nd future 

 needs of traffic can be met without such overturnings of 

 streets us the past haS seen. 



These facts will doubtless have been considered 



by the L.C.C. before it launches out into any new 



expenditure in electrified tramcars. 



COUNT TOLSTOY ON WOMAN'S MISSION. 



A Ridiculous " Non Sequitur." 

 Count Tolsto), in tht; Fortnightly Rn'ici^, in an 

 afterword, printed after a translation of Tchekoff's 

 short story, •• Darling," lifts up his voice against the 

 Woman's movement of our time. He says : — 



Long ago I happened to read in a paper an excellent 

 article bv Mr. Ata about women. The writer expressed a 

 remarkably clever and profound tlionght. 



"Women," he says, "try to prove to us that they can d.. 

 all that men can do. Far from disputing this," says tue 

 writer, ' I am ready to agree that women can accomplish 

 all that men do, and perhaps accomplish it better, but the 

 point it that men cannot do anything that approaches that 

 which women can do. 



Yes, this is undoubtedly so, and it concerns not merely 

 the giving birth to children, and their rearing and early 

 education, but men cannot accomplish that highest and best 

 work which brings them nearest to God— the work of love, 

 of complete self-surrender to the one loved, which good 

 women h.ive done so well and naturally, are doing and will 

 always do. What would happen with the world, what j 

 wi-uld happen with us men. if women did not possess this ^ 

 quality and did not practise it? Without female doctors, 

 telegraphists, lawyers, scientists, and writers we might get 

 on, but without mothers, feminine companions, and con- 

 solers who love in man that which is best in him, and by 

 unconscious influence stimulate and support in nim all this 

 best— without such women life on earth would be poor 

 indeed. Jesus would not have had Mary and the Magda- 

 lene- Francis of Assiai would not have had Clare; the 

 Decembrists would not have had their wives with them in 

 their penal servitude; the Doukhobors would not have had 

 their wives, who did not restrain their hnsbands. but sup- 

 ported them ill the martyrdom for truth- There would not 

 be those thonsjinds and thous.ands unknown, and like all 

 that is unknown, the very best, women, consolers of drun- 

 ken, weak, and dissolute men, who are more than anyone 

 el.«o in need of the consolations of love. In this love. 

 whether 't be directed to Koukin or to Jescs, lies the most 

 important, the greatest, and the entirely irreplaceable 

 power of woman. ,, ». ■ n , 



What an amazing misapprehension is all this so-calle<i 

 Women's question, which, as is inevitably the case with 

 every triviality, has taken hold of the majority of women 

 and even of men ! - 



' Woman desires to improve herself— what can be more 

 legitimate and desirable than this. 



But woman's purpose, by her very calling, is different 

 from that of man's. And therefore woman's ideal of per- 

 fection cannot be the same as man's. Admitting th.at we 

 know what the ideal is, at all events it is certain that it 

 is not the ideal of man's perfection. And yet it is to this 

 man's ideal that the absurd and mischievous activity of the 

 fashionable women's movement which so entangles women 

 is now being directed. 



What nonsense the dear old prophet of Yasnaya 

 Polina sometimes talks! As if .allowing women 

 liberty to pursue their natural bent, untrammelled by 

 male 'interdicts, would impair their capacity to ac- 

 complish the work of love. If the power of woman 

 is so important, great and irreplaceable, as I agree 

 it is, whv deprive any department of human life of 

 its beneficent influence? 



