142 GEOGRAPHIC LITERA TURE 



its statistician. The formal excellence of the latter leaves nothing to be 

 desired, and the most critical statistician might well prefer to expend 

 whatever space can be given for review in praise rather than to call atten- 

 tion to its few shortcomings. It is no fault of Professor Adams that this 

 report affords so incomplete a presentation of the transportation busi- 

 ness, that the accounts upon which it is based are by no means uni- 

 form, that important agencies of railway transportation are excluded, 

 that it appears eighteen months after the close of the year to which it 

 relates, or that many of its averages are based upon such widely divergent 

 facts as to be much less representative of actual conditions than is both 

 practicable and desirable. These imperfections and inadequacies also are 

 results of legislative inertia. Until the frequently repeated recommenda- 

 tions of the statistician on these points receive the attention they merit, 

 he will be powerless to secure better results in either of these particulars. 



The statement that less work was done during 1896-'97 " by both pas- 

 senger and freight locomotives than during any previous year of which 

 this office has record," on page 24, is not supported by the summary to 

 which it refers on page 23. The latter shows the work of passenger loco- 

 motives to have been greater than during 1895, and that of freight locomo- 

 tives greater than during 1894 or 1895. It is difficult to believe that Pro- 

 fessor Adams would claim that any considerable value attaches to the 

 figure alleged to represent capitalization of new mileage given on page 

 49, or to the average derived therefrom. The foot-note on the same 

 page is also of questionable accuracy, as it very materially understates 

 the probable effect of changes in capitalization due to reorganizations. 



Exception must be taken also to the statement on page 61 that there 

 has been no reduction in railway passenger charges corresponding with 

 that in freight rates. While verbally accurate, this is not unlikely to 

 mislead those who are not students of transportation. The movement of 

 an article of freight between any two points is part of a commercial trans- 

 action that cannot be very materially varied. There are differences in 

 safety and speed ; but common carriers have always been insurers of the 

 goods they move, while the acceleration of the speed of freight trains, 

 even within the past fifty years, is a matter of more importance to the 

 railways in enabling them to handle increased traffic than to ordinary 

 shippers. The service of moving an individual by rail does, on the other 

 hand, admit of changes of great importance. Safety is a primary con- 

 sideration which no insurance can eliminate, while time and general com- 

 fort en route are elements of scarcely secondary importance. American 

 travelers have demanded and obtained improved facilities, superior sig- 

 naling apparatus and other safeguai'ds, more comfortable cars and more 

 rapid trains, rather than actual decreases in rates ; but the purchasing 

 power of their dollars, in connection with passenger transportation, has 

 none the less increased. One can illustrate this by comparing the charges 

 for such services with those for hotel accommodations during former and 

 recent years. When in 1848 the novel luxury and unprecedented'splendor 

 of the Astor House were greater marvels to the transient visitor to New 

 York than is the Waldorf-Astoria to his least sophisticated successor, the 

 rate per diem for meals and room at the former was^but two dollars. The 



