Upon which the indignant passengers were with difficulty prevented from lynching the wretch; but he fled into the woods, and there for a time escaped pursuit.
But, two other railway journeys pressed more peculiarly on my mind; one was that of eight or ten weeks ago, from Canandaigua to Antrim. It was there a gentleman from Baltimore, fresh from Chicago, told me of a railway accident he had himself been witness to, only two days before I met
him. The 2.40 (night) train from Toledo to Chicago, in which he rode, was upset near Pocahontas by two logs that had evidently been wilfully laid across the rails. On inquiry at the next station, it was discovered that a farmer who had had, a week before, two stray calves killed near the same place, had been heard at a liquor store to say he would ‘pay them out for his calves.’ This was enough for the excited passengers, vexed at the detention, and enraged at the malice that had exposed them to danger and death. A posse of them instantly sallied out, beleaguered the farmer’s house, seized him after some resistance, put a rope round his neck, dragged him to the nearest tree, and would have then and there lynched him, had not two or three of the passengers rescued him, revolver in hand, and given him up to the nearest magistrate.”
CURIOUS NOTICE.
The following notice, for the benefit of English travellers, was exhibited some years ago in the carriage of a Dutch railway:—“You are requested not to put no heads nor arms out of te windows.”
OBTAINING INFORMATION.
But one of the most difficult things in the world is the levity with which people talk about “obtaining information.” As if information were as easy to pick up as stones! “It ain’t so hard to nuss the sick,” said a hired nurse, “as some people might think; the most of ’em doesn’t want nothing, and them as does doesn’t get it.” Parodying this, one might say, it is much harder to “obtain information” than some people think; the most don’t know anything, and those who do don’t say what they know. Here is a real episode from the history of an inquiry, which took place four or five years ago, into the desirability of making a new line of railway on the Border. A witness was giving what is called “traffic evidence,” in justification of the alleged need of the railway, and this is what occurred:—
Mr. Brown (the cross-examining counsel for the opponents of the new line)—Do you mean to tell the committee that you ever saw an inhabited house in that valley?
Witness—Yes I do.
Mr. Brown—Did you ever see a vehicle there in your life?