may be turned in
this line is to be seen on a tombstone in the picturesque churchyard of
Harrow-on-the-Hill. It was, I observe, written as long ago as 1838, so
that it can be reproduced without much danger of hurting the feelings of
those who may have known and loved the subject of this touching elegy.
The name of the victim was Port, and the circumstances of his death are
thus set forth:--

Bright was the morn, and happy rose poor Port;
Gay on the train he used his wonted sport.
Ere noon arrived his mangled form they bore
With pain distorted and overwhelmed with gore.
When evening came and closed the fatal day,
A mutilated corpse the sufferer lay."

AN ENGINE-DRIVER'S EPITAPH.

In the cemetery at Alton, Illinois, there is a tombstone bearing the
following inscription:--

"My engine is now cold and still.
No water does my boiler fill.
My coke affords its flame no more,
My days of usefulness are o'er;
My wheels deny their noted speed,
No more my guiding hand they heed;
My whistle--it has lost its tone,
Its shrill and thrilling sound is gone;
My valves are now thrown open wide,
My flanges all refuse to glide;
My clacks--alas! though once so strong,
Refuse their aid in the busy throng;
No more I feel each urging breath,
My steam is now condensed in death;
Life's railway o'er, each station past,
In death I'm stopped, and rest at last."

This epitaph was written by an engineer on the old Chicago and
Mississippi Railroad, who was fatally injured by an accident on the road;
and while he lay awaiting the death which he knew to be inevitable, he
wrote the lines which are engraved upon his tombstone.

TRAFFIC-TAKING.

Between the years 1836 and 1839, when there were many railway acts
applied for, traffic-taking became a lucrative calling. It was necessary
that some approximate estimate should be made as to the income which the
lines might be expected to yield. Arithmeticians, who calculated traffic
receipts, were to be found to prove what promoters of railways required
to satisfy shareholders and Parliamentary Committees. The Eastern
Counties Railway was estimated to pay a dividend of 23.5 per cent.; the
London and Cambridge, 14.5 per cent.; the Sheffield and Manchester, 18.5
per cent. One shareholder of this company was so sanguine as to the
success of the line that in a letter to the _Railway Magazine_ h