TOPICS OF THE DAY.
Not every Aimrudlk A Millionaire's millionaire Downfall. achieved fatae JS^* tune with rapidity contrives to "keep his baiuH»«r : "<y once the dizzy eminence is reached. • a/% book which has just baeu published in Hii*/ S£ York, "My Life in Many Stake Foreign Lands,' , by George Francis shove that there are exceptions to tl» > rule, even if they are se'dom heard of. On,\S~ oasionally, at any rate, the sudden rise fr ■"■>' followed by a fall as rapid. PK>baol»,>l there are comparatively few to-day tJ-'V whom the name of George F. Train k'?> at all familiar. Yet he was the of the numerous company of American liouaires who have attacked British servatism with their huge schemes founded on enormous Pierpont Morgan of thirty years agoT ■was a partner in several enterprise* wifljlfj Lairds, the great ship builders, he ganised a clipper line that rounded (JHt/Jpi Horn, he plamwd the Union PaciJio RaU. v?, , way and , the Credit Mobilier, made afCfe rangemente for building a monster can hotel in the Strand (but was from purchasing the land), was the mj"&> founder, according to his own coaim, oitfci""' 1 ;' Savage Club, and promoted large and ■■■>*£• cesaful enterprises in Australia, China, «fti Europe. When ihe came to England W"^ : was amazed to see a country which m^ without tramways, and in spite of loasVf'Y regulations which hampered Mm on em* Jr : side, he eet ■ himself to work at once ta';f' remedy the defect. The first line to opened in London was from Marble to Bayswater, and others quickly Press, Parliament, and populace, fought fiercely against the innovation, mj|.l§ after a boy had been killed by & way accident and Train had bSsn arrest*! M for manslaughter, even tie indomiUMij|| American had to give way, and were token up. When the well-known JBiltJf lionaire suddenly disappeared from oamfk mon knowledge, most people thought he was dead. He is still living, aofjj |i ever, but in euch altered cinmnwtacijf': | that, almost unknown, he frequents a | lodging house in New York. In Traje'i; | character a wild enthusiasm ever straggl*) \ for mastery against the shrewdest buaiaitl g talent, and finally the enthusiasm ooty | quered. He went from one reoklti 3 scheme to another, and in a ehort time ; I all hi* wealth. The book which lie sijji I just written contains 100,000 words, aji jj he dictated it in thirty-five hoars. Tni I was "a part of ell that he had •Mβ? Ijj and aside from the moral they convey, M f s> recollections form the absorbing vblvW j . it is said, which the man's expetkafct I | would lead one to expect. • M l | Holiday portmanteaux ' i» | The Spoils turn with their new "•/"■I \ of railway label* to \ Holiday, travels; tie Alpine ittaK | carriee another notoh | ing the joys of excursion; bicycle*- a|S j seeking repair for the honourable KtH' K|| \ by rock and river-bed. January , * making is past, and with next wttV<.M§| moat people, town conanon-pUces *31MS gin again. Pleasant apparitione country, however, remain for a Ohriftchurdh bowehaUk. Bash tain nowexs are not infrequent the shepherd* lily, oar of our mo***®!! daisy, suggesting an appropriate lorrtri|j|| for a Brobddgnagian Gratchen.' Tile *W|||| blossom was late enough- this J B * , many excursionist* to fare dv its scarlet company, di»*pp«l>tf|||||| dulled a* it may" grow by cCtt|a travel. Ferns stolen from streams are set to wither in suberban dese, or pressed in memory of a0 ¥ , . l with, a fuller, human happinem »' < bueh retreat. This handful of recalle the flaac-mill on the which green load* are carried d*Uy*!iiW.W||§ lake of wonderful refiectione, wU i country round eeeme still to poetic fead-e ac to the extinction of 'Htfsj||l bird-life, by the innumieraWe tuis their non«y-lovin,g bille into tiw come. School boy* are tr * Mß^ ' btttterflies, -weird stick ineeets, or ' I caterpillare—we should say also axe treaeuring guilty tiougltto O . exercises, but probably in ttase ai tarian days even teaobers grow 00 eionate, and do not exact holiday ***|||fH Antateur puotograpoers have on every Tariety of picnic party, darkly ing on beautiful soenes from bwaaJk variety of flop hai. Anecdote* of and adventure waken envy in *fl IMll|m fate detained then ibie last month, Bolitudee, only reMeved by the pearance from distant streams of < mente of spotted trout. And betfa day spoil, the returned travellers least for * time, a vigour of which, added to the country take* one bade each. February days before the town bond* minds that after all we are still r e r set of vigorous colonial*, ■' -;t||fl||l H..IH , n - — - A. *ignificaii» Electric Traction beginning to M*i§|||fj on eelf felt ia The Railways, transportation '•ji^SH There are those who «ay that th* the locomotive am numbered i motive power dor railway Jbennftg* % future .will be obtained from eleotaii |S|l stead of from steam. At any rapid spread of electric tramway* m> ning to alarm the railway comp*JjrtMH|ffl find the competition growing: year, and in consequence serious ie being given to the question of trificaUoa of steam railways, i tererting to notice on how many jfc|j|Jß3ffl periments in thifai direction i*we are eboot to be, undertaken. Iβ afclßMßjll the North-Eastern ba* decided forty mile* of it* Newcastle with electric power, and the L*» B< flHp» and Yorkshire intends to do the **Oij«jS|fl|w the Liverpool-Soutbport line. Tiie Express" states that experiments Ac* carried out at Crewe which <bave object the electrification of tbe North-western line. The Brighton way CkMnpany, the Caledonian B«»l^^^ j and tbe Great Eastern aw each question of electric tractioD eerioai bion. Neither in England nor Aib«m»*BH|li any railway company as yet haulage of it* main h*»vy* nk ® o power, but according to the txperiment k about to be made by Northern an America. It is pM *j|'fllffß use electeio traction for eixty-eit the route—tbe roughest piece of the whole five thousand mike of *fr*J3Bj At pre»ent huge cUmbing en#imM baul the trains over this oivi«wPj fW Ml 'Jßwm U> save the costly bill for coal **** gjjj|M company ia planning to hanttat ***-?JjBRH bain cataract to turbine*, * n *.e ee *''l**3HH txicity to oarry to* train* «r*r *"*^^BHB
An electric rail-way hae just been completed between Chicago and Elgin, over which the trains ars scheduled to run at forty miles an hour. Another electric railway runs along the Hudson River between Albany and Hudson, and in the Eastern States the New Haven Railway has for a ] oa g time been operating some of i'a brmcbee by electricity. The most powerful jjihrtty engine in the world is an electric jooomotive in uso in the Baltimore tunnel, near the Atlantic seaboard. It will be evident from the examples given that electric traction oa the railways is making tapid strides. Tho Duko of Argyll, Some Real brother-in-law of the Qhoet Stories. King, has, it appears, the average human weakaeei for a ghost story. He is not, we ar« jsjurtd, a believtr >n gboete, but he probably possesses some share of the Celtio fo&doess for the weird and mysterious, and hie investigations into the. occult things bare brought him from authentic sources some really thrilling ghost sloriea. which gained timely publication in the December number of the "Royal Magazine." One of tliese stories deals with the '■eharminglydreseed and beautiful" ghost of a fine old manor house in Yorkshire, who was last • geen by an artist with profound disbelief in ghosts. He was staying there on a viSit, j and on the evening of Lie arrival he was going into hia room, "when, glancing over lik shoulder down the corridor, lw distinctly taw a lady in a beautiful blue aud yellow evening dre&s Btanding at the top of four steps that led to a door. He bowed, ehe returned his bow, and he retired to his room." Later on, he asked Lie hostess if the lady he had seen, in the corridor was not coming in to , dinner. All eagerness the family aaked him to describe her, and when he had done co they told him he had seen the family ghost. "Subsequently he learned that the beautiful apparition was the wife of a cavalier who had been killed in the Civil War." Sho had died of a broken heart, and often appeared in the corridor where the artist had seen her. Several of the Royal Palaces are reputed to poseesit ghosts. In one palace a maid servant not long ago told her mistreat, one of the Royal gueste, that she had Just seen a most extraordiiuuily-dreeeed jpCTBon in her room—"sucb an odd-looking peiuon, and so quaintly dressed. She wore a high, dark cap, with a long ecarf falling , from tine top of it." Curiously enough, in another part of the palace is a portrait of this person, representing the nurse of Edward VI., and the apparition is said to have been seen more than onoe in the room m which the maid saw her. More remarkable still was the etoVy told to the JXuke by a great artist. The latter had a lady friend, who was disturbed night after night by an extraordinarily vivid and unpleasant dream. "She dreamt 4hat her spirit left her body and passed to- an old house she had sever in her life seen before. There was nothing peculiar about the place; it waa empty save for the caretaker, an oia. woman. To the dreamer it seemed that her •pirit wae compelled to go up the stairs, along the oorridiore, and from room to room. fiha had the eeneation of being a ghost and haunting the place, and what particularly distressed lier was that the old caretaker not only perceived her but lived in terror of her appearance." The dream *t Must so tiTected her nervee that she and her husband went travelling for a time, and one day, when in some remote corner of England, they looked over an empty houae, wMoh struck the lady aa having a ■tfgngely familiar appearance. "She turned to the old woman who bad admitted her, and whom she ailao seemed to recognise. 'In this houee haunted?' she asked. 'Well, ma'am,' replied the caretaker, who regarded her with unconcealed aversion and fear, 'you ought to km>w, conaidwrin , a* it's yon that haunt* it! , " The story is all the more interesting because it is on much the same Mn«t as the strongly authenticated stories e< "dream houses" to which we referred tame month* ago.
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Press, Volume LX, Issue 11496, 31 January 1903, Page 6
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1,723TOPICS OF THE DAY. Press, Volume LX, Issue 11496, 31 January 1903, Page 6
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