ed from
lynching the wretch; but he fled into the woods, and there for a time
escaped pursuit.

But, two other railway journeys pressed more peculiarly on my mind; one
was that of eight or ten weeks ago, from Canandaigua to Antrim. It was
there a gentleman from Baltimore, fresh from Chicago, told me of a
railway accident he had himself been witness to, only two days before I
met him. The 2.40 (night) train from Toledo to Chicago, in which he
rode, was upset near Pocahontas by two logs that had evidently been
wilfully laid across the rails. On inquiry at the next station, it was
discovered that a farmer who had had, a week before, two stray calves
killed near the same place, had been heard at a liquor store to say he
would 'pay them out for his calves.' This was enough for the excited
passengers, vexed at the detention, and enraged at the malice that had
exposed them to danger and death. A posse of them instantly sallied out,
beleaguered the farmer's house, seized him after some resistance, put a
rope round his neck, dragged him to the nearest tree, and would have then
and there lynched him, had not two or three of the passengers rescued
him, revolver in hand, and given him up to the nearest magistrate."

CURIOUS NOTICE.

The following notice, for the benefit of English travellers, was
exhibited some years ago in the carriage of a Dutch railway:--"You are
requested not to put no heads nor arms out of te windows."

OBTAINING INFORMATION.

But one of the most difficult things in the world is the levity with
which people talk about "obtaining information." As if information were
as easy to pick up as stones! "It ain't so hard to nuss the sick," said
a hired nurse, "as some people might think; the most of 'em doesn't want
nothing, and them as does doesn't get it." Parodying this, one might
say, it is much harder to "obtain information" than some people think;
the most don't know anything, and those who do don't say what they know.
Here is a real episode from the history of an inquiry, which took place
four or five years ago, into the desirability of making a new line of
railway on the Border. A witness was giving what is called "traffic
evidence," in justification of the alleged need of the railway, and this
is what occurred:--

_Mr. Brown_ (the cross-examining counsel for the opponents of the new
line)--Do you mean to tell the committee that you ever saw an inhabited
house in that valley?