Search -
Trip To The West Indies (The Works Of E. W. Howe - 15 Volumes)
Trip To The West Indies - The Works Of E. W. Howe - 15 Volumes Author:E. W. Howe Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: people believe I am trying to deceive them, although I am only pleading for common- sense and the best interests of all. I am convinced that I lack all the quali... more »ties necessary in a leader. Old Bill White can utter a clarion note in the Emporia Gazette, and, by the time it has appeared in the Kansas City Star, the State is aroused, but I can't do it. This morning I enjoyed the novelty of being shaved on a railroad train running eighty miles an hour. There is a difference: the barber takes short, quick strokes, and lifts the razor away from your face after every stroke. Trainmen who passed through the shop called the barber "Joe," and Joe was easily the autocrat of the train employe's. I was shaved while running down the Hudson river, and Joe pointed out objects of interest. The train stenographer came in while I was being shaved, and Joe spoke quite sharply to him, I thought. Joe also bossed the ladies' maid, and the Pullman conductor. Joe says it is quite difficult to learn to become a train barber; that some men are never able to learn the art, and quit in disgrace. The New York Central has four tracks between Buffalo and Albany; two between Albany and New York City, and they are almost perfect. Joe says the rails weigh one hundred and seventy-five pounds per (whatever the standard is for telling about the weight of rails). Faithful as I am to our own Central Branch, I am compelled to acknowledge that it has no such track as the New York Central has. Joe says that the ocean tide reaches a point a hundred miles above New York City; that at a point fifty miles above the city, the tide rises and falls six feet in the Hudson river. Ice-cutters were at work along the upper part of the river; thousands of them, and the view is almost ruined by icehouses, which are always ugly. At...« less