Illustrated in the History of Albany. 



103 



.Other roads followed the building of this one; the Schenectady 

 and Utica ; the Utica and Syracuse ; the Syracuse, Rochester and 

 Buffalo, and the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls railroads. 

 This chain of railways was complete in 1845, and the time from Albany 

 to Buffalo was reduced to fifteen hours. 



In 1853, these various lines were consolidated into the New York 

 Central under Erastus Corning as president. The Hudson River rail- 

 way was completed in 1851, and in 1869 was consolidated with the 

 New York Central, thus forming a continuous line under one man- 

 agement from New York city to the western limits of the State. 

 The growth of the railway interests here, and the necessity of through 

 transportation, suggested the construction of a bridge across the Hud- 

 son river. These facilities, including lines to Boston, to the north and 

 to the Susquehanna, have made Albany one of the great railroad cen- 

 ters of the country. 



In the continuation of my subject I might have had something to 

 say of the improvements in the communication of news ; the develop- 

 ment of the postal system of the country; the enormous and rapid 

 growth of the express business ; the rise of the telegraph, with its lines 

 by land and sea; the district telegraph, the telephone, photography, 

 printing, wood engraving, lithography, photo-lithography, and a hun- 

 dred other inventions and improvements which have now become the 

 necessaries of modern life. It is simply amazing ! we cannot grasp the 

 conception of what has been accomplished. Are we the same race, 

 with the same feelings and aspirations as the generation of a century 

 ago, and will another century see as great advances as the last? 



And yet it is a perfectly reasonable inquiry to ask, what has been 

 gained by all this. These material surroundings are not, after all, the 

 man himself, and it is pertinent to inquire whether all these changes 

 in his surroundings have changed him, the man. Instead of cabins 

 we live in palaces ; we are clothed in garments such as the kings and 

 nobles of the earth could not once have obtained. Instead of ox carts 

 we ride in palace cars, faster than the wind I What is the good of all 

 this? It is Emerson who utters the profound reflection, that the 

 question whether it is any advantage to a man to travel in a day, where 

 before he required a week, depends altogether on the fact whether he 

 would make a good use of the six days thus gained. Time gained is 

 not in itself an unmixed good. If the man is to use his time for base 

 uses, he had better be kept on the road. But these are ill-natured 

 reflections ; they go upon the principle that the evil is more powerful 



