SPECULATIVE RAILWAYS IN AMERICA.
Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1881, 26 July 1884, Page 4
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SPECULATIVE RAILWAYS IN AMERICA.
The long period of speculative railway building and of gener.il stock speculation, which began in the United States sotno seven yeais ago, appears to have readied its culminating point. The prune object of all railway manageis is to get the carrying of the ci ops fiom the west to the seaboard. While local carnage is, of course, vast and impoitant, it is wholly insufficient to sustain threefouiths, or peihapg even one half, of the railway system. It is tho thiough traffic which constitutes the grand puze that can be used to fiie the imagination of the public and draw money to railway enterpiises. Every new road aims directly or indirectly at becoming a part of some "trunk." line, of which one terminus must be a Chicago mid the other on the seaboaid between Boston and Baltimore. Over the trunk hues, it is gram and provisions that form the grater pait of the paying ti.xfllc. Up to last year, it was geneially believed that 32 cents per lOOlbs, or at the oist3o cents, was the lowest Lite at which grain could be brought to the seaboard. Last year they were forced down to an average of 25 cents. They had within the past month been bi ought to 15 cents, while large contracts have been made at 12} cents, and smaller ones are reported as low as o cents. These lates amount to 9 cents, 1 cents, and G. 3 cents per bushel of wheat. With the prevailing idea as to fi eights, which I have noticed, it has been a maxim, and almost an axiom, in Chicago, that dollar wheat was a good purchase at any time, and the Banks hae always read l/advancedSScentsa bushel on it. But during the last foitnight wheat diopped in Chicago to So cents a bushel, and it is plain that the roads would not have earned it foi fiom 7 cents to 10 cents a bushel, unless it had touched a veiy low iiguie in the maiket. At that iate, the shipments east weie cnoimous 53,000,000 bushels for the week cndiiu< March 29th— and the exports weie suffi cient to stop, tor the piescnt at least, the shipment ot gold. Tins notewoithy condition of things is a natiual consequence of the speculative mama in l.nlw building on the one hand, and the development of the wheat supply abioad on tho other. Neaily every mile of lails laid in the countiy for ten yearsbeaisa nominal cost fiom 30 per cent, to 50 per cent, moie than the actual cost. Money has been laised, not by paid sub^ciiptions to stock, but by bonds, which have realised only fiom three fouiths to half their face value. Cases aic know in which the capital and bonded debt of lailwa^s have amounted to four times the money actually invested. On such roads, a Aery modest nominal return lsaveiy large i etui n on real capital. The first ventiues in this kind were extravagantly piofitable, but they bicd imitation, and the spicad of the system has bi ought about a ciowd of railways, which cannot cain even a fair return on actual investment. It is the competition of these loads that has ma'ic lkcis^aiy the remaikable iati'B now Hiling. While Congicss and the Sr.ite legislnhnes hae mug with the clamour of the politicans for Stitc regulations ol railways, and foi the enfoiced l eduction of lates, the laws of tiade ami of human natuic have biought about results which no law-created commission would have daied to propose. Nine cents a bushel ior wheat, all by iail, 1000 miles, is worth aolume of statutes on the subject of stock watonng," and a year's sermon on the folly of them that make haste for nuhes."
A young man who sat upon a black piece of iron m a blacksmith's shop, and unceremoniously spiang seven feet in the air with a wild shnek of despair, bays he don't think much of Hot Spiings as a health resoi t. The following remaiks on riding, made by Fred Archer in an interview with an English spoi ting scribe, appealed in the Austtalasian It isn't the geting away Hist so much as how to get away, how you set your horse going, I mean that makes all the difference. You can't set a horse going at once if you have tight hold of his head, You often see a jockey at the pose in a fiVe-furlong race pulling at his horse, as nervous as can be, watching the starter. The flag fall?, and lie lets go of his reins, but his hoi se isn't leady to slip off at his host pace. I've always got my horse leady to go, but not pulling at him and then, when we do stai t, I'm at full speed at once It's a gieat mistake to knock a horse about, and I know that a few yeais back I was a severe rider. I've kaint better by experience. I rarely hit a horse more than twice in a finish now, and I rarely or never have rowels to my spurs. You can hurt a horse almost as much without, for the matter of that, if you want to, but it's bad policy to hurt them." The great jockey spoke regietfully of the break-up of Lord Falmouth's stud and remarked I owe most of my success to having been able to rido his horses with much confidence, knowing that if I did make a mistake m coming in a bit too soon or a bit too late there would be no complaint, and His Lordship would be sure I had ridden to the best of my ability." He also asserted that if Dog Fox had not gone wrong he would have ridden him in the Grand National Steeplechase. Rather risky this for so much-Bought-after a jockey on the flat. Rats and Mice.— lf you wish to dc'stroy them get a packet of Hill's Magic Vermin Killer in packets, Cd, 3d, and Is, to be obtained ,of all storekeepers, or from T. B. Hill by enclosing an extia stamp. Life in the Busn— Then and Now.— It is generally supposed that in the bush we have to put up with many discomforts and privations i a tfie shape of food. Formerly it was so, but now, thanks to T. B. Hill, who has "himself, dwelt in the bush, if food docs consist chiefly of tinned meats his Colonial Sauce gives to them a. most delectable flavour, making them as well of the M'am'esi food must enjoyable, and instead a* fc'sfrd biscuits and indigestible damper his ImjpkqwjdColonial Baking Powder makes .'tbjsi yery best bread, scones, cakes, and pastry far) jiuppripr, and more .wholesome than yeast; or by all storekeepers*. who caorob-
