Under Such
Circumstances The Railway Is Everything.
It is the first necessity
of life, and gives the only hope of wealth.
It is the backbone of
existence from whence spring, and by which are protected, all the
vital organs and functions of the community. It is the right arm of
civilization for the people, and the discoverer of the fertility of
the land. It is all in all to those people, and to those regions.
It has supplied the wants of frontier life with all the substantial
comfort of the cities, and carried education, progress, and social
habits into the wilderness. To the eye of the stranger such places
as Seymour and Crestline are desolate and dreary. There is nothing
of beauty in them - given either by nature or by art. The railway
itself is ugly, and its numerous sidings and branches form a mass of
iron road which is bewildering, and, according to my ideas, in
itself disagreeable. The wooden houses open down upon the line, and
have no gardens to relieve them. A foreigner, when first surveying
such a spot, will certainly record within himself a verdict against
it; but in doing so he probably commits the error of judging it by a
wrong standard. He should compare it with the new settlements which
men have opened up in spots where no railway has assisted them, and
not with old towns in which wealth has long been congregated. The
traveler may see what is the place with the railway; then let him
consider how it might have thriven without the railway.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 252 of 531
Words from 67441 to 67703
of 142339
