n the hands of Miss Ella B. Banning,
daughter of the president, who then christened the engine, saying: "With
the waters of the Pacific Ocean in my right hand, and the waters of Lake
Superior in my left, invoking the Genius of Progress to bring together,
with iron band, two great commercial systems of the globe, I dedicate
this engine to the use of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad,
and name it William L. Banning."

From St. Paul to Dubuque, as the boats had ceased running, a circuitous
route and a night of discomfort were inevitable. Leaving the main road
to Chicago at Clinton Junction, I had the pleasure of waiting at a small
country inn until midnight for a freight train. This was indeed dreary,
but, having Mrs. Child's sketches of Mmes. De Stael and Roland at hand,
I read of Napoleon's persecutions of the one and Robespierre's of the
other, until, by comparison, my condition was tolerable, and the little
meagerly furnished room, with its dull fire and dim lamp, seemed a
paradise compared with years of exile from one's native land or the
prison cell and guillotine. How small our ordinary, petty trials seem
in contrast with the mountains of sorrow that have been piled up on the
great souls of the past! Absorbed in communion with them twelve o'clock
soon came, and with it the train.

A burly son of Adam escorted me to the passenger car filled with German
immigrants, with tin cups, babies, bags, and bundles innumerable. The
ventilators were all closed, the stoves hot, and the air was like that
of the Black Hole of Calcutta. So, after depositing my cloak and bag in
an empty seat, I quietly propped both doors open with a stick of wood,
shut up the stoves, and opened all the ventilators with the poker. But
the celestial breeze, so grateful to me, had the most unhappy effect on
the slumbering exiles. Paterfamilias swore outright; the companion of
his earthly pilgrimage said, "We must be going north," and, as the heavy
veil of carbonic acid gas was lifted from infant faces, and the pure
oxygen filled their lungs and roused them to new life, they set up one
simultaneous shout of joy and gratitude, which their parents mistook for
agony. Altogether there was a general stir. As I had quietly slipped
into my seat and laid my head down to sleep, I remained unobserved--the
innocent cause of the general purification and vexation.

We reached Freeport at three o'clock in the morning. As the depot for
Dubuque was nearly hal