LETTER XVII.
WHAT THE BIG ENGINE HAS COST.
July 10, 1904.
My Dear Boy:—The progressive president of a rustling railroad has recently gone on record as regretting the too rapid introduction of big engines. To which from many an ancient office, from many a greasy round-house comes a loud amen. The fad for big engines, the slavery to the ton mile, the rack of the comparative statement, have cost the granger roads a pile of good coin. Procrustes, the highwayman of the ancients, fitted all his victims to stone beds, doubtless charging to other expenses the stretching of an arm or the cutting off of a foot. Nowadays we get our brains warped and our legs pulled just the same. The methods are more subtle, the operations more graceful. Our equanimity stands for almost any old thing, provided it is done in the name of progress, or is called a process of analysis. Able men devote their lives to the solution of problems of practical
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