People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1893 — GOVERNMENT RAILROADS. [ARTICLE]

GOVERNMENT RAILROADS.

An Object Lesion Teachl»g What the Ballroads Could Do If They Would. While it is true that the nationalization of the railroads is not yet an accomplished fact, nevertheless the traveling public is sometimes treated to a taste of the benefits that would accrue from transportation at cost, based upon a large volume of business. Just at this time the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroads have pooled their issues and combined to give the public an opportunity to visit New Orleans during the Mardi Gras festivities at a cost which approaches the rates paid by the traveling public in AustroHungary where, under governmental ownership, the celebrated zone system is in operation. The cost for the round trip is almost exactly one and one-half cents a mile each way, from Kansas City to New Orleans. In Hungary, the cost for the zone from 149 miles to 454 miles, in first class compartment, express train, is 18.84, being “2.51 cents per mile for 149 miles; 2 cents per mile for 192 miles, and 0.84 cents per mile for 454 miles. In Austria the cost for from 155 miles to 188 miles, is 2.09 cents per mile. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Austro-Hungary rates are for a continuous ride over one road, while the trip to New Orleans is over two distinct roads, with a Mississippi river bridge and much costly engineering construction. Then the accommodations and equipage in Europe do not begin to compare in point of comfort and elegance with those of the United States. —The Memphis Appeal-Avalanche thinks that it is very singular that the people should have cast about 12,000,000 votes against the people’s party. It is singular, to be sure; yet not so much so when one takes into consideration the kind of people that did it Evidently the Tennessee editor never heard of Carlyle’s description of the people of one of the so-called greatest nations of Christendom. Great Britain, he said, was a nation composed of about 27,000,000 of people—mostly fools. —Hartford (Conn.) Examiner.

A gas well recently drilled at Kokomo presents a spectacle attracting wide interest. Along with the gas came a strong flow of artesian water, emerging with such force as to shoot beyond the top of the derrick ninety feet in height. The weather being bitter cold the water froze wherever it struck, and in a short time the derrick -was completely covered with ice, resembling a huge crystal obelisk, with grottos, caverns, recesses and stalactites, forming a beautiful picture in the sunlight. Trees in the vicinity were covered with ice, the weight of which broke them to the ground. The huge mountain of clear ice, more than one hundred feet high, is attracting great crowds to the scene. The Paris Beacon gives vent to the feelings of the brethren of the press on the question of subscription as follows: “Suppose a farmer had a thousand bushels of corn and should sell one bushel each to one thousand of his neighbors on one year’s time. Some would pay cash down, some wait one. two, three or six months and a great many never pay anything. Coming in such small and scattered installments the money would be -«pent as fast as received and scarcely any substantial benefit would be derived from it. t ‘ould any American farmer afford to raise corn on those conditions? We think every one will answer “no.” And yet this is just the principle that the editor supplies his paper to the people.