GRAND ISLAND, Neb., Aug. 10, 1873. MESSES.WILSON & GREENE: I have been very much interested in your JOURNAL. I think it is improving greatly. I find some very interesting letters every month. I noticed in the last one (for the first time I think) a letter from Division No. 88, which in speaking of our engineers says: "They are never at home on Sunday, &c." And this we find too true. This is a beautiful Sabbath morning, and my friend left his loving wife and little ones for his usual work. Sabbath day seldom finds him at home, unless he comes down expressly to spend the day with his loved ones, and return again to his engine at night. Yet I do not agree with our friend from Division No. 88. The engineers are not obliged to "remain in the shop, or frequent saloons and other bad places." My impression is there are very few that do. Am very sorry if the lady's husband spends his Sabbaths in that way and certainly hope he will reform. May God bless them and bring them home safe to their families and friends. I remain your friend, ELLANORAS. THE true reformer agitates only as a means to the attainment of a higher moral end. He is inspired with an ideal good which all his efforts aim to realize. His discontent with what is, comes from the perception of something better; and he lives not to unmake, but to make anew. The real reformers disturb only to advance,criticise only to improve, and tear down only to build better. Every blow they strike is in the interest of morality and order, and every step they take is toward a higher civilization, THE LONG AGO. SELECTED BY MRS. 8. 8. Oh! a wonderful stream is the river Time, How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow, And the ear in the sheaf-so they come and they go On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow, Where the softest airs are playing: And the fumes with the roses are staying. And the name of this isle is the' Long Ago, There are fragments of songs that nobody sings' There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings, There are broken vows and pieces of rings, There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore By the mirage is lifted in air, And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar, Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before, All the days of life till night, When the evening comes with its beautiful smile, WEST SPRINGFIELD, MASS. } MESSRS. WILSON & GREENE: In Bro. W. J. R.'s communication in regard to adjusting valves I beg to differ with the brother on one point, or rather, I will inquire of him if this is not the right way, (or at least the better way). After you have obtained your centre mark on the wheel you slip the eccentric on the shaft until it brings the mark on the valve rod even with the end of the gauge. Then get on to the engine and pull the reverse lever over into the opposite position. If the eccentric is right, the mark on the valve rod will be the same as before at the end of the guage, but if there is a differ ence, you shorten or lengthen the eccentric rod to make it right in that position, and then pull over the reverse lever and you will find it will vary just the same as it did with the lever in the opposite posi. tion; but if you vary the eccentric rod enough to overcome one-half of the dif ference in the marks on the valve rod, then slip the eccentric enough to overcome the other half, your eccentric is in the right place on the shaft. Proceed with the others in the same manner, then fire up the engine, and if your hangers are of equal length, your valves are square, then move the eccentric enough to give the valve the necessary leads, and your engine is right-a much shorter way than to bar the engine over. The guage used here is oval, one end resting on the top of the gland against the face of the stuffing box, the other end laying on the top of the valve rod, is no better than one with points at each end. When you place the eccentric in the position to bring the valve rod so the point of the gauge will rest in the marks on the valve rod, then get on to the engine and reverse the lever, you find the valve will travel until the link reaches the centre, then it will travel back again, If it travels back far enough so the point of the gauge will rest in the mark again, your valve is right on that centre. Adjust the others in the Bame way and you will find the engine is square unless there is a defect in the hangers or lifters. It seems to be a shorter and much easier way than to bar the engine. Bro. W. J. R., what do you think of this? CONSTRUCTION. A RAILROAD FIRE-ENGINE.-The Virginia & Truckee Railroad Company has fitted a fire-engine on one of their locomotives in consequence of the frequent occurrence of fires along the road in depots wood-piles, etc. JACKSON, TENN., Aug. 21, 1873. Messrs. WILSON & GREENE: The Engineers of the Division here all seem very temperate; but if there should be an unfortunate one belonging to this worthy order, who indulges too freely in intoxicating drinks, one word to you: Dash the brimming cup aside, And spill its purple wine, Then touch, oh! touch not the wine. We should all strive to do our duty, especially we the wives of Engineers, for little do we know the hardships and trials our dear husbands have to bear for our sakes. They have to get up and go out at all hours of the night and in all kinds of weather. Then she ought to pray that God will watch over and take care of him and bring him home safe and well again. Be gentle to the husband Remember all day long, He battles with the throng. No wonder that the noble brow Growsclouded with the care, That presses on his heart and hands, And when the night has gathered J. B. C., Div. 93. ANAGRAMS.-A transposition of the letters of a name by which a new word is formed is called an anagram, and it is both an interesting and amusing exercise. When the house-mother cuts up old garments and makes them into new ones, there is still left enough of the original ar ticle to be recognized, but this transformation may be so complete that all identity is lost, and in other instances the new word may be very significant, bringing out an occult meaning of the old, as some of the following examples will show: [Angel. Florance Nightingale makes Flit on, cheering Old England Golden Land. Violence run forth. Great help. French Revolution Telegraph Poor house Soldiers O sour hope. Lo! I dress. AN ADDRESS TO RAILWAY DELIVERED AT AMBOY, ILL., FEB. 16TH, 1873, BY To one who can remember when the first Railroads were built in this country, nothing seems more marvellous than the extent to which Railway enterprise has been developed. If so much has been done in so short a time what may we not augur for the future? What are to be the limits to which this new profession, art and industry can be pushed? How are its business relations with other industries to be adjusted? What relations shall the great corporations that initiate and carry on these gigantic enterprises sustain to the people and the government? These are questions that occur to every reflecting mind as he looks upon the vast. actual and prospective extent of Railway adventure. However much I might be inclined to enter the enticing field which the discussion of any one of them might open, I feel compelled tonight to put them all aside to discuss another matter which crowds itself forward upon thoughtful minds. Not only has a new industry sprung up, but a vast army of men has been gathered into it. It constitutes the life business of these men. So far as exterior agencies go in making up men, (and that is a great way, this new business is making up a new class of men to appear in the social field. What manner of child shall this be ?" was a question once anxiously asked respecting a new being about to take his place in the activities of humanity. It is a question we are compelled to ask ourselves respecting this great body of Railroad operatives which has grown up so suddenly among us, and in which are evident so many elements of power. What shall be the character and influence of the Railroad man? By what terms is his class to be popularly described ? Current descriptive terms are in some respects indices of the marked characteristics of those to whom they are applied. We speak of a sterling yeomanry, of enterprising merchants, of learned professional men. The body of men attached to any pursuit, have it in their power to say what kind of suggestions shall arise in the minds of other men as their class is mentionedthey have it in their power to say what kind of generic epithets shall rise to the lips of men as descriptive of the most marked qualities of their class; for they have the power to say what their own qualities shall be. Perhaps Railroad men are waiting for their name to day, but the day of definite description will not long be delayed. As this industry be- comes more established and men more and more identified with it, the more will its impress on men be clearly seen-the more the kind of men made up by the particular class of forces prevalent in Railroading be known. An eye at all practiced in observing men and in noticing the class of men that go to certain occupations can see that the Railway business attracts to itself a particular class of men. many respects the class is an admirable one. In You will find in few occupations men of finer physical development, men whose blood runs fuller and stronger, and who can take in the exigencies of situations with quicker and truer glance. The natural selection of the business has already run through our population, and picked out men marked in these respects. The lazy and the naturally lame are not often found in the class of railway operatives. The business calls for clear heads and strong, deft limbs; and it needs but a glance to see that it has secured them, Like everything else, however, this business has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. It has its influences, which make against the upbuilding of the fullest type of manhood as well as those which make for it. It is more to these disadvantages that I shall look to-night than to any other aspect of the bearing of railroad life upon those engaged in it I speak of these matters of disadvantage that you who are in active railroad life may have the benefit of the criticism of an on-looker who is entirely outside it. If we could see ourselves as others see us, we should know much better when to put in corrections. We should see the places when we need to crowd on steam, and the tendencies against which it is necessary to put down the brakes. It is evident enough that this business of railroading is an absorbing one. A man can put a great deal of himself into it. That is just the reason why, under its manipulation, we may expect a new class of men to appear before us. Now, if I say to you that you ought to put yourselt into your business thoroughly-to master itto know everything that is to be known in it-to acquire executive skill over everything that is to be done in it. I should give you only the usual advice. But that is not a matter that I am very much troubled about So far I think men's ambitions may be trusted. Of course you will make good railroad men of yourselves. That is what you are about. That is what you mean. It is not so much the world that lies inside a man's busi ess that he needs exhortation to attend to as it is the world that lies outside. The great danger is not that you will not be good railroad men, but that you will be only railroad men. There can hardly be any business as broad as a man is. In fact, a man is injured for anything by being a mere specialist in it. The best professional man is he who knows something besides his profession. It is a bad sign for any of us when our occupations have so stamped us that everybody sees the occupation in us and nothing else. I can illustrate what I want to draw your attention to by a case concerning myself, Last summer a ministerial friend and myself went into a saloon, in a neighboring city, for creams and soda. While we were there a man came in, making all manner of apologies for intrusion, but saying that he had just made a bet with somebody over the way that we were ministers, and that he would like to know if we were. Now, do you suppose I rose aud broke his head for impertinence? On the contrary, did I not tell him he could bet high; that if he was going to make his fortune by bettig, his time had come? On reflection, the thing that interested me most was to know what kind of a fool it was that bad bet against him. Why, I could have bet on myself! There I was, in mid-summer, in a suit of infernal black. Nobody but a minister would be poor enough, or simple enough, to go in such an outrig at such a season. Now, I am not ashamed of being a minister. I had as lief be taken for a minister as for a member of any other profession or craft; but I did go into several queries with regard to myself that it may be profitable for you to look at. I asked myself whether this man bad bet on my clothes or on me. I thought I would like to go up and down that street, in my shirt sleeves with my pants in my boots, and see if strangers would bet on me as a minister. If they did, then I should know that the profession had stricken in-that I was thorough'y specialized by it. I like my profession, but I want to get it. I do not want it to get me. 1 MONTHLY JOURNAL. Now, do you know that it is almost as safe to bet on a railroad man as it is on a minister? There is a cap brigade, of whose members you may be as sure as you are of the threadbare, shiny doeskin of an impecunious clergyman. Now, the clothing we wear amounts to nothing in itself, but it may be significant of important facts deeper in. There is not the slightest objection to railway operatives wearing a uniform dress. If I were one, and that were the order or desire The same evil possibly besets railroad men as The point is this. There is not a man of you but that can be broader and greater than your business. There is not a man of you whom your business ought not to fail to express. There are peculiar dangers besetting railroad operatives ten ting to make them mere railroad men The business is absorbing and exacting. A man must give himself largely to it, to amount to anything in it. By just as much as this is the case, by so much must he take the greater care that he be not swallowed whole by it. I think special credit should be given Railway operatives for the spirit with which they perform Railway duties. Though there is no harder work done; and, though what is done must be done in exposure to all winds and weather, I hear as little grumbling from that class of the world's workers, as from any other with which I come in contact. I consider nothing more heroic than the nerve that takes our Railway trains through the freezing cold and violence of our winter storms. The sailor on tempested seas has no higher claim on our admiration for firmness and daring. The difficulties that lie in your way come from the exacting demands of the business itself, and from some of its peculiarities. But these difficulties must be met and turned, otherwise your craft will get you instead of you it. There is a tendency in the engrossing nature of the business itself, to cause those engaged in it to be a class by themselves, separate and distinct from the rest of society. Now this is a result not desirable for society nor for Railroad men themselves. The more all elements of society are mingled and fused together, the more healthy it is for it and all concerned in it. But the tendency of Railroad life is to take a man out of settled society-to make a waif of bim. We all need localization. We need to strike roots down somewhere. There is a certain enlarged experience which Yet comprehension of these things must come The carrying trade itself is not the acme of civilization. It is only the introduction to it. You strike civilization in its most meaning forms when you come to consumption. There is where the ultimate adaptions of things are made. The Tartar moves his shifting tent." By I know of no man who, if he gives himself up to the influences that surround him, is more likely to be the Tartar or the Bedouin of civilization than the railway operative The danger is that he will go only where his train goes, and identify himself with society nowhere except by paying his board bill. It is said that travel makes people cosmopolitan. It is all right if it does, but it often does the very reverse. It sometimes makes people tolerant toward everything except what their own locality produces. One of the most sickly sights is an Amerfean family that has traveled through Europe, and come back home to turn up their noses ever after on everything American. If a man can make himself more heartily American by his travel-can come back and identify himself all the more earnestly with his old neighbors in helping them solve the problems that weigh on their life. suggesting to them what his wider experience has enforced upon his noticesuch a man has received no detriment from his tours about the world But it is far from being cosmopolitan for a man to turn the cold shoulder of his old neighborhood just because he has seen something else, even if that something else is better. Now, it is possible for any of us to make the mistake of these foreign travelers of uplifted nose, with our own town as a base. And I do not know of any one more exposed to this danger than a railroad operative. He has a chance to see much that is better than his own town affords. He has the chance to slide out from care for society there. He can pick up all the acquaintances he wants along the road, discarding just whom he pleases. I say the temptation lies in this direction, and a man will be overcome by it unless he takes special pains to resist it. Wherever a man has his headquarters, so that he makes that place his home more than any other, there he needs to enter into the life of the place, to become a social force, to take his place with its people in wrestling with the difficulties of their situation, as well as to become the recipient of the blessings they can bestow. Every man needs this for his own development, for his own culture-needs it in order to make a man of himself-needs it that he may not be left a cer. tain kind of a man, but that he may be a man in all possible directions. Railroad men need this kind of tuition, so that when the cap and coat are laid aside you have put off only what is significant of one feature of the man. It is no fortunate condition for any man to feel free from the burdens, restraints, cares and perplexities that press on some particular local society of human beings. If these things come not to a man, he, who wants to make the most of himself, will seek for them. It is no fortunate thing for a man to be outside the home life and the social life of all the world: and a man who by his business finds himself so, or likely so to be. must put forth of fort to counteract the influences which surround him. For his own sake he must work into local Society somewhere. I think I appreciate the difficulties of the situation. Many operatives are young men, unmarried They have no acquaintances in the place where they have their headquarters, or none, perhaps, beyond the limited circle of their boarding house. The town seems closed to them. They will see it is not, however, if they will only make use of such openings as they can find. If a man will go to every church ociable that he can hear of (such gatherings are always public.) in six months he will have the social life of a town at his service. He should go but everywhere-go to church-visit the schoolsattend the school examinations and exhibitions and mingle in all public meetings. Let a man start determinedly on any one of these threads and he will find the whole social fabric will unravel. Let a man try any way that his common sense will suggest and he will find that society will throw open its folding doors to him with all pleasantness of disposition. Sinceri ty, earnestness and honesty of meaning will make a man an accepted factor in respectable society anywhere. One great difficulty with young men, and especially with those in a business having the na tural tendency to segregate them from society that Railroading does, is that they are led to underrate themselves. Any man who means to make the most of himself may presume that other folks will become interested in him; and the man who acts upon this presumption, will never be disappointed. The sour misanthropic view of life that says, nobody cares for me," is not only uncomfortable but exceedingly unjust. The great mass of the men and the women in cultivated society like to come in contact with any body who is forthreaching after a richer and fuller life, Not only the doors but the hearts of society are open to any man who exhibits a generous im pulse. But if you want it to trust you, you must show that you trust it. If you want humanity to give its heart to you, you must show that you have faith in it. It is not modesty-it is misanthropy-it is an ungenerous misjudging of others, that makes a man say: "Nobody cares for me, therefore will I go near nobody." Everybody does care for the man who is evidently struggling to make something of himself. Open hearts make open hearts everywhere. Now my advice to any man who finds himself outside the social life of this place, or of any place he regards as his home, is, try to put yourself into it. The difficulties of your situation will yield to generous inclinations and a firm will. Bear in mind the difficulties are never removed to any great extent, except by those on whom they rest. You have something to do about the matter What is to be done can be done more easily and gracefully by yourself than by any one else. For instance, I know I have the kindest feelings toward every man who sleeps in a boarding house or a caboose, but it is awkward business for me to bunt you up. I cannot go on your engines to talk with you, if I do you will kick me off-and serve me right. I am afraid to go near the residence or boarding place of a Railroad man in the day time or the night time. I do not know your hours and I do not want to wake you up: for if there is anything I do want mortals to enjoy, together with the comforts of religion, it is undis turbed sleep. Then ten to one if I go out for you you think my object all the while is to give you a talking to on the subject of religion, and so you are never yourselves, and never give me a chance to be either. I heard once of a minister who, with a solemn face made up to a man and asked him if he was prepared to die. The man said Why, you ain't going to kill me are you?" and fled. You see the minister lost his man that time. I am afraid I might have some such luck, if I should make a pitch for you. But the case is bravely altered if you take the staff in your own hands. You can open on me and I can follow. If you want to converse on the subject of relig ion all well. Nothing would please me better. But I have sense of social propriety enough not to obtrude an unwelcome subject on any man. The point I wish to make is that the burden is upon any one, who wishes to get out into life, to get out into it. Society cannot hunt men_on their trains, and in their boarding houses. But they will always find free reception at the first indication on their part of disposition to affiliate with it There is danger to a man who limits his life to his business that he will grow sour, suspicious and misanthropic. And when a man comes to that pass that is the end of him, or ought to be. Men do not lose faith in humanity by mingling with their fellows in all condition of life, but by refusing so to do. There is one thing of which I wish to speak to railroad men, and that is the matter of Sabbath work. Now, I am no judge of what is necessary to be done on a railroad on the Sabbath day and what is not. But I take it for granted that there, just as everywhere else. what is called necessary work, could very largely be dispensed with, if there were the proper disposition on the part of everybody connected with the business. I see that the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, at their last meeting. took high and clear ground against Sabbath work. I am glad to see a movement in that quarter, and I want to impress it upon you all that you have a duty in this direction. I also call your attention to the fact that M. Nadaud, whose work on the condi. |