Diary in America, Series Two | Page 7

thrown open, and out rush the passengers like boys out of school, and crowd round the tables to solace themselves with pies, patties, cakes, hard-boiled eggs, ham, custards, and a variety of railroad luxuries, too numerous to mention. The bell rings for departure, in they all hurry with their hands and mouths full, and off they go again, until the next stopping place induces them to relieve the monotony of the journey by masticating without being hungry.
The Utica railroad is the best in the United States. The general average of speed is from fourteen to sixteen miles an hour; but on the Utica they go much faster. [See note 1.] A gentleman narrated to me a singular specimen of the ruling passion which he witnessed on an occasion when the rail-cars were thrown off the road, and nearly one hundred people killed, or injured in a greater or less degree.
On the side of the road lay a man with his leg so severely fractured, that the bone had been forced through the skin, and projected outside his trowsers. Over him hung his wife, with the utmost solicitude, the blood running down from a severe cut received on her head, and kneeling by his side was his sister, who was also much injured. The poor women were lamenting over him, and thinking nothing of their own hurts; and he, it appears, was also thinking nothing about his injury, but only lamenting the delay which would be occasioned by it.
"Oh! my dear, dear Isaac, what can be done with your leg?" exclaimed the wife in the deepest distress.
"What will become of my leg!" cried the man. "What's to become of my business, I should like to know?"
"Oh! dear brother," said the other female, "don't think about your business now; think of getting cured."
"Think of getting cured--I must think how the bills are to be met, and I not there to take them up. They will be presented as sure as I lie here."
"Oh! never mind the bills, dear husband--think of your precious leg."
"Not mind the bills! but I must mind the bills--my credit will be ruined."
"Not when they know what has happened, brother. Oh! dear, dear--that leg, that leg."
"D---n the leg; what's to become of my business," groaned the man, falling on his back from excess of pain.
Now this was a specimen of true commercial spirit. If this man had not been nailed to the desk, he might have been a hero.
I shall conclude this chapter with an extract from an American author, which will give some idea of the indifference as to loss of life in the United States.
"Every now and then is a tale of railroad disaster in some part of the country, at inclined planes, or intersecting points, or by running off the track, making splinters of the cars, and of men's bones; and locomotives have been known to encounter, head to head, like two rams fighting. A little while previous to the writing of these lines, a locomotive and tender shot down the inclined plain at Philadelphia, like a falling star. A woman, with two legs broken by this accident, was put into an omnibus, to be carried to the hospital, but the driver, in his speculations, coolly replied to a man, who asked why he did not go on?-- that he was waiting for a full load."
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Note 1. The railroads finished in America in 1835 amounted in length to 1,600 miles; those in progress, and not yet complete, to 1,270 miles more. The canals completed were in length 2,500 miles, unfinished 687 miles.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.
TRAVELLING.
The most general, the most rapid, the most agreeable, and, at the same time, the most dangerous, of American travelling is by steam boats. It will be as well to give the reader an idea of the extent of this navigation by putting before him the lengths of some of the principal rivers in the United States.
+=====================================================+======+ Y YMiles.Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YMissouri and Mississippi Y 4490Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YDo. to its junction with the Mississippi Y 3181Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YMississippi proper, to its junction with the MissouriY 1600Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YDo. to the Gulf of Mexico Y 2910Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YArkansas River, a branch of the Mississippi Y 2170Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YSt Lawrence River, including the Lakes Y 2075Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YPlatte River, a branch of the Missouri Y 1600Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YRed River, a branch of the Mississippi Y 1500Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YOhio River, Do. Do. Y 1372Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YColumbia River, empties into the Pacific Ocean, Y 1315Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YKansas River, a branch of the Missouri Y 1200Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YYellowstone Do. Do. Y 1100Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YTennessee Do. Ohio Y 756Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YAlabama River, empties into the Gulf of Mexico Y 575Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YCumberland River, a branch of the Ohio Y 570Y +-----------------------------------------------------+------+ YSusquehanna River, empties into Chesapeake Bay Y 460Y