A Sonnet
Improvement Era, vol. 6, no. 1, November 1902, p. 63
Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
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CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 63
of its grades. Wherever possible, curves have been diminished or cut out altogether, and the grades lessened on an average of one-half. When "Jim" Hill built the Great Northtrn, he insisted that there must be low grades, and the fewest possible curvatures. The expense at first was great; but it was discovered later that he could haul freight
cheaper than any of the other transcontinental lines. To reach the pace set by Hill, other lines are removing the obstacles to higher speed and greater loads. In the matter of high speed for passenger trains, France is now taking the lead. The fastest trains in the world are reported to be those from Paris to Amiens, at sixty-three and a half miles per hour: Paris to Arras sixty-one and a half per hour. The train from Paris to Calais runs one hundred and eighty-six and a half miles in one hundred and eighty-one minutes. In time, there will undoubtedly grow up two distinct classes of transportation. The electric lines will serve the local traveling public,
and convey local freights; while the great steam lines will devote them- selves to long hauls and great speed. Only the larger cities will receive the special attention of the latter. -The new changes in railroad economics must have very radical effects upon every other economic condition of our country, so that we are likely to face wholly unexpected as well as new conditions of life.
SONNET.
The mountain rills flow downward to the plain 'Mongst rock and bramble, where at every turn Grow silver lichens, moss and waving fern, Where echoes wake at every bird's refrain. They flow and join where noonday sunbeams burn To fields of gold and breath of dark green corn; So glide the laughing rills at night and morn. May I, when called upon to give return Of doings good and bad midst strife and woe, "I've done thy will," may every answer be; And peaceful as the gentle streamlet's flow Into the bosom of the great, gray sea, May I, whenever I am called to go, So glide into the vast Eternity. Selected.