Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1893 — Sit in the Middle Cars. [ARTICLE]

Sit in the Middle Cars.

“l’m very particular,” said a commercial traveler to a Washington Star reporter, “what car of the train I select. I travel thousands of miles a year, and have made it a rule to observe in the accounts of railroad accidents which cars of the train are the most often demolished. The result of my experience—for I have been in a dozen smash-ups—and observations are that the middle cars arc the safest I never under any circumstances ride in the rear c&r. I avoid the car next to the baggagecar, though this is selected by many as the safest The greatest danger at present in railroad traveling Is telescoping. When a man has been in a wreck and has seen the engine of the colliding train half way inside of the rear car, or rather what’s left of it, It impresses him most forcibly. The baggage-car is usually heavily loaded, and in the collision its weight, together with the ponderous engine, generally smashes the next car to splinters, while the central cars are comparatively uninjured. When the train Is derailed the baggage-car and next coach, as a rule, go over. The roadbeds of our great transcontinental lines are so solid, each section Is so carefully examined, the rolling stock Is so much improved, that a broken wheel or axle and like mishaps are reduced to a minimum. But where trains follow on a minute or two leeway and the blocks or automatic signals don’t work—well, look in the Star the next day for farther particu. lars and see if my judgement Is not correct ” About 1570, women adopted a kind of doublet, or breeches, to be worn undei the gown, that they might the more easily use men’s saddles and stirrups. In 1800 plague visited Morocco; 1.008 died in one day.