f the Santa Fe route,--one of the longest
roads on earth. It begins at Chicago, strong like a man's wrist, with a
finger each on Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, and El Paso, and a
thumb touching the Gulf at Galveston.

The mileage of the system, at that time, was equal to one-half that of
Great Britain; and upon the companies' payrolls were ten thousand more
men than were then in the army of the United States. Fifteen hundred men
and boys walk into the main shops at Topeka every morning. They work
four hours, eat luncheon, listen to a lecture or short sermon in the
meeting-place above the shops, work another four hours, and walk out
three thousand dollars better off than they would have been if they had
not worked.

These shops make a little city of themselves. There is a perfect water
system, fire-brigade with fire stations where the firemen sleep, police,
and a dog-catcher.

Here they build anything of wood, iron, brass, or steel that the company
needs, from a ninety-ton locomotive to a single-barrelled mouse-trap,
all under the eye of the Englishman who came to America with a good wife
and three babies, a good head and two hands. This man's name is John
Player. He is the inventor of the Player truck, the Player hand-car, the
Player frog, and many other useful appliances.

This simple story of an unpretentious man came out in broken sections as
the special sped along the smooth track, while the General Manager
talked with the resident director and the General Superintendent talked
with his assistant, who, not long ago, was the conductor of a work-train
upon which the G.S. was employed as brakeman. I was two days stealing
this story, between the blushes of the mechanical Superintendent.

He related, also, that a man wearing high-cut trousers and milk on his
boot had entered his office when he had got to his first position as
master-mechanic and held out a hand, smiling, "Vell, you don't know me
yet, ain't it? I'm Martin the fireman; I quit ranchin' already, an' I
want a jobs."

Martin got a job at once. He got killed, also, in a little while; but
that is part of the business on a new road.

Near the shops at Topeka stands the railroad Young Men's Christian
Association building. They were enlarging it when I was there. There are
no "saloons" in Kansas, so Player and his company help the men to
provide other amusements.

ON THE LIMITED

One Sabbath evening, not long ago, I went down to the depot