dy tired out by their long trip that was nearly at
its close, and for them those untimely meals were the last.

Of all men who ought to work with empty stomachs for the sake of the
best possible reach of the memory it is the railroad engineer and
conductor; so also every man who is in any way responsible for the
safety of the trains. If we had the history of all the derailments,
collisions, of cars with human freight converted into funeral pyres, a
frightful percentage of them could be traced to where "some one had
blundered" because of the torpor from handling meals when the brain was
compelled to higher services. Digestive, indigestive torpor is also
torpor of the sense of _responsibility_.

In the city where I live is the point between two divisions of the Erie
Railroad, each somewhat more than a hundred miles long. Before I began
the agitation of the No-breakfast Plan all trainmen felt that filling
their stomachs was the last duty before entering upon their taxing
trips, and tired wives would have to get up at all times of the night to
prepare general meals. In this city a mighty revolution for the good of
wives, for the good of men themselves, and for the safety of the trains
and the hapless passengers has been going on for some years.

In former times when these men came home from their rounds generally
tired out, and with a feeling that in proportion to the sense of
exhaustion was the need to eat, general meals had to be prepared at any
time of night. All this is changed in a large measure. Trainmen have
been finding out that the less food in their stomachs they take into bed
with them and on to their trains, the better it is for them in every
way.

More and more they are getting into the way of having a general meal
when they can eat it with leisure and leisurely digest it; and I predict
that a time will come when all who are in any way responsible for the
running of trains will have to know how to take care of their stomachs,
in order that they shall attain and maintain the highest efficiency for
services where human lives so much depend on the best there is in
memory, reason, and judgment. This will be a part of their preparatory
education.

The "block system" has wonderfully added to the safety of the trains,
but there should be a block system added to the stomachs of the
dispatchers and all whose duties are so grave as the handling of human
freight. There is no division so long that it cannot be doubled