"Yes, my daughter. We have already travelled in the last four years many thousand miles, and never experienced the slightest accident. I feel as safe on the cars as at home. There is as much danger of being injured by lightning or by falling downstairs as there is of being hurt by an accident on a train."

"I wish I felt so," remarked Mrs. Cartmell.

"Let me help you to feel so by quoting the figures. There are so few accidents on the cars that a person would have to travel twelve million miles before he would be injured, and fifty million before he would be killed; or to

put it in another way, a person can travel day and night at the rate of thirty miles an hour for one hundred and ninetyfour years before he could expect to be killed. This shows that railroad travelling is much safer than travelling in a carriage. If any one wishes anything safer he must walk."

"What makes it so safe?" Nellie asked.

"It is owing in the first place to the faithfulness of the persons who work upon the railroad. Our perfect safety in riding from Boston to Chicago a few days ago depended upon the faithful obedience to orders of ten thousand men

who were connected with the different roads over which we passed."

"How could that be, Father?" Fred asked.

"Think, my son, of the many men who made the cars and locomotives which brought us to Chicago. Each man was faithful in making the rods, valves, bolts, wheels, and boilers, and not one broke during our trip. Think of the thousands of men who laid the track and fastened each rail securely in its place; think of the thousands of men

who acted as watchmen and switchmen, and were faithful to their trusts; think of the constant vigilance of engineers and firemen in looking out for danger, and in reading and obeying signals. If one of these men had forgotten, made a mistake, slept at his post, cheated in his work, we should have encountered a terrible accident. Have I made out my case, Master Fred?"

Fred said that he was very well satisfied, and then asked his father to tell about some of the special devices for securing greater safety.

"I consider one of the most important is the Westinghouse vacuum-brake used on this train. These brakes are operated from the locomotive by the engineer, and are now in general use, even on freight trains. They are sometimes called air-brakes; but the above name is more appropriate, because they act when the pressure from the engine is reduced. If a train should break in two, these brakes would instantly stop it. A train running forty miles an hour can be stopped by these brakes in about five hundred feet. The old-fashioned hand-brake used twenty years ago would require four times as much space in which to stop the train.

"Not only are good brakes necessary for safety, but those in control of the train must be informed when danger is ahead by good signals, in order that they may know when it is needful to stop the train. Our best signals now are very simple and plain, a board moving on a pivot for the daytime, a red or a white light for night. Red light usually means danger. These signals and the movement of switches connected with them are all worked by men in signal-towers in connection with the block system."

“What is that, Papa?"

"The block system is an English method of securing safety on railroads, which has been adopted by a few roads in this country, and is so simple and valuable it ought to become general.

Suppose A, B, and C to be three block-signal stations on

A

B

C

the Pennsylvania Railroad. When the train passes A, the signal-man at that point at once puts his signal to danger, and this signal stands at danger till the train passes B, when that operator puts his signal at danger and telegraphs back to A to tell him that train No. 1 has passed out of block AB, and is protected by the signal at B. Then the operator at A changes his signal from danger to safety, and allows train No. 2 to enter the block. Train No. I has now passed from B to C, and the signals are changed at B and C as before. It will be seen at once that in this way no two trains can be on the same track, in the same block, at the same time."

Mrs. Cartmell said: "I think next in importance to what you have already mentioned are the means of protection at highway crossings. The English are wiser than we, in that they do not allow grade crossings. The ringing of a bell by electricity to announce the approaching train at these crossings and the lowering of gates by the flagman are very important."

"Fred, what business do railroads carry on?"

They carry freight, passengers and their baggage, and the mail. If a person has over one hundred and twenty pounds of baggage he is obliged on most roads to pay extra,