the Pacific Railway. For hours in the long nights, as well as
in the day, he preferred standing outside on the platform, with the
thermometer from fifteen to twenty-five below zero, rather than encounter
the foul atmosphere and stifling heat within.

"Meanwhile the brave Chinamen were summoned to the rescue. They are
capital fellows to withstand the cold, and work with a will to clear a
passage. For a distance of two hundred miles the blockade existed, and
several trains were thus caught on the way. Eight hundred freight wagons
were detained at Cheyenne. At one period the cold was 30 degrees below
zero. The worst part of the road was toward Sherman, 8,252 feet above
the sea. Wyoming and West Nebraska were the coldest regions.

"In this great blockade, strange to say, the mortality was but small.
Three died during the imprisonment, and two in consequence of cold. But
an interesting compensation was made, for five births took place in this
season of trial. The principal sufferers were those in the second-class
carriages. Room, however, was made for the more delicate in the already
crowded first-class cars."

A SELL.

The _Indianapolis News_ is responsible for the following story. A
railroad official of Indianapolis had, among other passes, one purporting
to carry him freely over the Warren and Tonawanda Narrow-Gauge Railway.
Happening to be near Warren, he thought he would use this pass. Now, it
appears that some enterprising citizens of Pennsylvania once proposed to
lay a pipe-line for petroleum between Warren and Tonawanda. The
Legislature having refused to sanction their scheme, they "engineered" a
bill for building a narrow-gauge line, which passed, the oil capitalists
not conceiving that they had any interest in opposing it. It is needless
to say the narrow-gauge line was the "desiderated pipe-line." The
enterprising citizens carried their joke so far as to issue annual passes
over the road, receiving others in return. When the traveller sought for
the Warren station on this line he found a chimney, and for the
narrow-gauge an iron-lined hole in the ground. It is hardly surprising
that now he is moved to anger at the slightest reference to the "Warren
and Tonawanda Narrow Gauge."

AT FAULT.

It is rather a serious matter that our public companies, and especially
our railway companies, are doing their best to degrade our language. I
am not going to be squeamish and object strong