violated. The witnesses were seven or eight veteran railroad men, who looked upon the affair as perfectly proper and justifiable under the circumstances. It never entered the heads of these men that the affair should be reported to the management. That some of the best men in the service should behave in this way, as it were in the very shadow of the accident at West Canaan, is almost inconceivable. Of course, if these incidents stood by themselves their significance might be comparatively trifling; but as a matter of fact they are illustrations of a condition which is thoroughly typical of American railroads. This condition or situation may be briefly yet correctly outlined as follows:

There is practically no out-on-the-road supervision on American railroads.

Railroad managers depend upon the reports of employees for information in regard to violations of rules. But employees do not, and cannot be compelled to, report their associates, consequently negligence of all kinds is practically unchecked.

Finally: unchecked negligence can be shown to be the root and direct cause of nearly all preventable accidents, and loss of life therefrom, on American railroads.

Here we have a conclusion worth looking into. At a glance we perceive that negligence is the prime and fundamental fact. It is the direct cause of the trouble. The fact that the negligence is unchecked is important, yet secondary. It should be treated as a separate issue and it must stand or fall on its own merits.

But our conclusion that accidents result in almost all cases from unchecked negligence should be supported by evidence and proof. For examples in support of it, let us take two of the most disastrous wrecks in the history of New England railroads.

On November 26, 1905, at Baker Bridge in Lincoln, Mass., seventeen people were killed and thirty injured. An

express passenger train was following an accommodation train, which was somewhat late. Cautionary signals calling for reduced speed and careful running were passed at intervals by the express train, but, according to the evidence, the engineman paid no attention to them, hence the accident. Now the habitual negligence in regard to these cautionary signals was a matter of common knowledge. In fact, attention was called to the matter both before and after the accident by the writer. The unchecked negligence in this particular case was therefore directly responsible for the accident and the loss of life.

Again, on September 15, 1907, at West Canaan, N. H., twenty-five people were killed and forty injured. The unchecked negligence in this case is by no means so striking as in the previous example, and yet the evidence pointing in that direction is quite as significant. A mistake occurred in the transmission of an important train order. This mistake was the direct cause of the accident. For various reasons it was impossible to say by whom the mistake was made.

Now let us turn to our book of rules and take note of the following instructions to train dispatchers and operators. "In transmitting messages write slowly and firmly," etc.

With all proper consideration for hardworked and conscientious train dispatchers, I am compelled to confess that train orders are seldom if ever sent "slowly and firmly." Operators will bear me out in the statement that orders are transmitted by dispatchers as fast as the men can handle them. That is to say between veterans in the business they are rattled off at the highest limit of speed. The men concerned in the accident at West Canaan were veterans. Had the man at West Canaan been a "plug," that is, a green hand, in all probability the accident would not have occurred. While, of course, this is merely a supposition, yet the fact remains that the men would have been transmitting slowly and firmly,

and the chances for a mistake would have been reduced to a minimum.

I thoroughly understand and appreciate the difficulties with which the train dispatcher has to contend. I am quite aware that he is called upon to handle trains with the utmost dispatch; nevertheless, I insist that, in order to reduce chances of accident to a minimum, train orders should in all cases be transmitted slowly and firmly. I stand by the rules. The issue is between speed and safety, and in all cases the latter should be given the right of way.

Thoughtful railroad men who understand the situation on the railroads at the present day, are yet very slow in suggesting reinedies. They say, "It is up to the management to enforce the rules." On the other hand, if a superintendent can be persuaded to express an opinion he will retort, "It is up to the men to obey the rules. They are plain enough and sufficient for the purpose, but we cannot station a spy at every switch to make sure that the rules are obeyed. We have to depend on the personality and general intelligence of our employees."

It will, I think, be evident from the facts and conditions which we have been considering, that whatever secondary causes there may be for preventable railroad accidents, the trainmen themselves hold the key to the situation. They are at liberty to obey the rules and thus solve the problem in the only way in which it ever can be solved. Or, they can continue to place upon these rules a wrong interpretation and thus evade their manifest meaning and purpose. As matters stand to-day between labor organizations and railroad managers, it is very doubtful if by any practical system of supervision or discipline the rules for the safe and efficient running of trains can in all cases and at all times be adequately enforced. Thus the whole business resolves itself into a personal matter with us as conscientious railroad men. Singly and collectively, it is up to us to do the

square thing, if necessary, in spite of the management.

As the case stands to-day we railroad men are in a class by ourselves. We are well-paid, well-treated, well-educated, and well-organized. In all that pertains to our material well-being, we compare more than favorably with any other class of workers in the country; but considered as responsible individuals entrusted with the care of railroad property and the safety of the traveling public, our records are very unsatisfactory. The truth of this conclusion is not open to question. We cannot escape from the statistics and the figures; and, day by day, the evidence against us continues to accumulate.

There are many people who think that the intelligence and education of the 20th-century railroad man can be depended upon to guard against the shortcomings to which I have called attention. On the contrary, I am inclined to think that the intellectual independence of railroad men is in itself a danger to be guarded against. Standing by itself, the statement that knowledge is power is a fallacy. Knowledge is only a means. Its benefit to any one is always an open question. In other words, the secret of power is in the application of knowledge. Thus when we analyze a modern railroad accident we are forced to the conclusion that many railroad men take chances by reason of the supreme confidence which they possess in their own cleverness and ability to deal with an emergency, however sudden. This resourceful characteristic of Americans is a splendid thing from a general standpoint, but in the railroad business it has its stern limitations. Only too many of our accidents are illustrations not of lack of knowledge or resource, but of the downright misapplication of these intellectual features. In some cases we find an over-supply of self-confidence, in others a disinclination to knuckle right down to the observance of plain and positive instruction. In such cases a man cannot be called the

fortunate possessor of intellectual advantages, but their manifest victim.

Railroad managers, therefore, sooner or later will come to understand that the one thing needed in the railroad business at the present day is to educate employees to appreciate the fact that successful and safe railroading in the future will have to depend, not upon the

multiplication of safety devices or the reconstruction of rules, but upon the personal effort and conduct of conscientious, alert, and careful men.

Meanwhile, thought counts, and it is a good idea for practical railroad men to look into and study these problems, each according to his ability and the light that is in him.

THIS is not really the story of a child, though it began when Hypolite caught the measles at dancing-class. And when he was getting better, his uncle, who kept a business-like eye upon his health and his manners, sent him to Madame Dulac at Saint Jacques de Kilkenny, to grow strong in the air of the hills.

Hypolite was a little boy at the time, quiet and brown, with eyes like bronzepurple pansies. It was not his fault that his surname was Gibbs. Even at that age, he preferred to have it ignored. Madame called him "M'sieur Hypolite," or "le petit sieur." But then, Madame had served and loved his mother when that mother was Geneviève de Lemprière, before she married Anthony Gibbs, and before Hypolite was born, or Madame herself took in boarders. To Hypolite, two white shafts in a cemetery outside Montreal represented that illassorted father and mother. But before he had been a week in the village, his French began to return to him.

"It is yours by right," said Madame, who would hear nothing of the Gibbses. "What wouldst thou for thy dinner, mon ange?"

Madame fed him royally and made a baby of him, and told him stories of the long-ago days, and spoke to him of his mother. In a little while, the Gibbs part

seemed to have dropped out of his life. He loved Madame, and Telephore who chopped the wood, and André who worked in the garden. But most of all he loved Félice.

Félice was Madame's help in the kitchen, a girl who belonged to nobody, for whom nobody cared. Perhaps the incipient artist in Hypolite first rejoiced in her; she made an impression on him never effaced. His canvas in last year's Salon, that canvas full of brown and gold, was a far-off memory of her.

"She was Dian," I have heard Hypolite say, "Dian; not the stately goddess, queen of Nature, but the ever-young Artemis, slender as her own white crescent."

Hypolite ran about the straggling village and made friends with the children: and climbed the little hill beyond the Calvary, and looked at the great river running to the sea, wishing he might follow it.

"There are many nice things here," he said, invading the kitchen for cake, "and nice people. André is nice and Telephore is nice, and so is m'sieur le curé. But Maxime is nicest. I went to-day to see him. He lives in a little cabin all covered with vines, and he has two fields covered with mustard and flowers. He is tall and he has blue eyes.

Madame looked up from her cake and crossed herself, with wide eyes. "Hast thou made friends with Sorrow, mon petit?" she asked, gazing at him strangely. “I am grieved. Maxime and La Tristesse are not for thee."

"It was a very nice dog," said Hypolite, in the gruff tone that was his sole heritage from the Gibbses. Félice was beating eggs at the table. Her long gray eyes turned lazily towards the child, and then were bent upon her bowl again. Her wrists fascinated Hypolite as she whipped the froth, they were so small and strong and firm, sunburned to a creamy brown. He watched them while he ate the cake, and wondered what her cold eyes had tried to tell him.

"Why am I not to make friends with Maxime's La Tristesse ?" he demanded of old Telephore.

Telephore stared at him as Madame had done, and made the little sign against evil. "La Tristesse ?" he said. "La Tristesse? If you make friends with Sorrow, Sorrow will abide with you.”

"But she has not abided with me," put in Hypolite patiently, "she abides with Maxime." Telephore crossed his scarred, knotted hands upon the haft of the axe and leaned his chin upon them. "Not always," he said in a low voice, "ah! not always. Henri L'Ecossais, he was a strong man last Michaelmas. He stopped to speak with Maxime at his door, and patted on the head that La Tristesse, brute of ill name and ill omen. And she, that La Tristesse, she follows him home, beating with her tail and begging him to look at her, as some dogs will. And he laughs, and gives her bones, and she sleeps a night in his stable. In the morning she goes home, drifting like a black

ghost down the road. And Henri, little monsieur, what of Henri? In three days, look you, he is seized with a chill and a weariness, and in a week he is dead, mon Dieu! dead! And that is not all. If I had my will, Maxime and La Tristesse should be - eh! sent from here."

Telephore's face was as superstitious and cruel as the faces of some of Millet's peasants, and he muttered to himself as the bright blade of his axe fell upon the wood, and the sweet white chips flew in showers like a tiny snowstorm.

"But that is all foolishness," said the round-eyed Hypolite, in the lordly tone Saint Jacques de Kilkenny had taught him. "La Tristesse is a nice dog, though she is so long and black and cries with her eyes. Once I had a little guinea-pig, un cochon d'Inde, black as Sorrow; but it died of an indigestion."

"Foolishness, is it?" muttered Telephore. "Then, little monsieur, there are many fools in Saint Jacques. As for the cochon d'Inde, that was different. Gabrielle has a black sucking-pig, and no one is troubled by it, though it visited every house in Saint Jacques. But this Sorrow of Maxime's Foolishness, is it? Eh, well! Pray the good saints you may not be taught its wisdom."

--

Telephore was cross and would not talk any more. André professed to have no opinion at all about La Tristesse. So, as was his way, Hypolite decided to go to headquarters for information.

He crossed one of Maxime's thriftless fields, and went up the path to the cabin. Once the path led through a garden of flowers, but now garden and fields were all one, overrun with blossoms grown small and hardy and wild, which could not be found elsewhere in Satnt Jacques. La Tristesse was lying by the door, in the sun, licking a long red scratch on her side. She put her lank paws on Hypolite's shoulders and thrust her melancholy nose against his cheek.

"Are you come for more flowers ? " asked Maxime, rising from among the wild raspberry canes. "There are pretty

flowers in the field beyond the patch of barley. I shall grow oats there next year, they are prettier than the barley, but the flowers are best. My grandfather brought the seeds of some of them from the other side of the world, and a few braved our snows and frosts. Pick all you want, little monsieur." He laughed at Hypolite, showing his white teeth, and yawned and stretched himself. He was tall and strong, with a fine tanned face and eyes of Breton blue softened by many dreams, and he was shabby to the point of rags.

“Thank you,” said Hypolite politely, "but I did not come for flowers to-day. I came to ask you why you call your dog Sorrow? Pardon, m'sieur, if I am too curious.”

Maxime bowed, ready laughter in his

"I am honored with monsieur's eyes. interest," said he. "I call her Sorrow because she has the look of it, as any but these ganders of Saint Jacques would understand. I found her roaming in the woods, starved, all over of a tremble. I took her home and fed her. That is all there is about her. She would harm no one. Yet, because of her color and her melancholy, she is a witch and a loupgarou and I know not what besides." He laughed angrily, and touched Sorrow's side gently. "Look you here!" he cried. "This was done last night. It is the mark of a bullet, — of a silver bullet, perhaps, they are such fools." Hypolite touched the scratch too, with fingers light and tender, and Maxime's face softened again.

"We have no friends, La Tristesse and I," he said sadly. "I suppose it is because we do not work or go to church. But those stuffy saints - And why should I work? I have no one to work for but myself."

"I'm not very fond of work," confessed Hypolite. "My uncle says I inust go into an engineer's office when I leave college, but I do not want to. I would rather paint pictures full of pretty colors."

"And I," said Maxime, "I also love

pretty colors. When I want them, I look at the fields and the skies and the hills, and I am content." They smiled at each other with perfect understanding.

"And I am a friend to you and La Tristesse if you will have me," said Hypolite.

"Monsieur honors us," said Maxime simply, "but Loneliness and Sorrow are an ill pair of friends.”

Hypolite dined with Maxime and La Tristesse, under the vines, with leaves for plates; dined off bread and baked potatoes and little trout from the brook and wild raspberries. "It is poor fare," said Maxime shyly, "but the air and the sun make it sweet."

"It is lovely," answered Hypolite ecstatically. "I should like to bake potatoes in a little oven and catch little fish for my dinner always. Oh, always."

"The bread is soft and white," went on Maxime, "feast-day bread, such as you are used to eating."

"It is the same as Madame Dulac's," said Hypolite with his mouth full.

"It is the same as Madame's," repeated Maxime, laughing.

Madame scolded Hypolite for the first time when she heard where he had been. "It is an ill place," she cried, "and those who dwell in it have an evil name. That black thing, called a dog, ran and barked at one of Gabrielle's cows yesterday, and already the cow has sickened. Go not near that La Tristesse, I beg of you, child, nor near her master."

"La Tristesse is a very nice dog," repeated Hypolite in the voice of the Gibbses, presenting so stony a front to her shrill vexation that Madame broke into tears and flounced away. When she had gone, Félice slipped over to the child and, without any change in her small, cold, beautiful face, kissed him. He gasped; feeling as if he had been kissed by a flower, so cool and soft were her lips.

Gabrielle's cow died, and the whispers against La Tristesse changed to silence, which was a bad sign. Hypolite did not