Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 1 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881Russell, William Howard, Sir
History
Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 1 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881
Russell, William Howard, Sir
United States -- Description and travel
In the evening we went to the theatre, and were interested in a drama
with the title of "One hundred Wives," which had nothing whatever to
do with the play--a piece written for the purpose of bringing into
contempt the practices of the Saints in Utah, full of local incidents
and acted with very considerable spirit. The sentiment of the audience
was shown most unmistakably in the vigorous and sustained applause
which greeted any situation or sentiment in which the Mormon leaders
and their teachings were held up to contempt and hatred, and the
curtain came down, amidst loud cheering, on a fine situation, in which
half-a-dozen soldiers, in the uniform of the United States infantry,
appeared to execute justice and to establish the predominance of the
United States Constitution in the land of the Saints.
There was some friction connected with the arrangements for our
journey from Toledo to Detroit this morning. The general manager of
the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was anxious that our
train should run over his line instead of the Canada Southern, but Mr.
Snow, passenger agent, who had come from Buffalo, applied to the
customs authorities to pass the Fontaine engine across the border, in
order to take the Duke over the other line. Our train consisted of
what they call the combination baggage and smoking car, the Pullman
hotel car Buckingham, a Pullman saloon belonging to the Pennsylvania
Railway, and there was, moreover, the carriage of the general manager
of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the whole drawn by
the Fontaine engine, which is a production of the mechanical genius
and intelligence of a gentleman of that name in the Southern States.
We were bound by schedule to go forty-five miles an hour, and Mr.
Fontaine explained the mechanism and the advantages which he claimed
for his engine to the party. The Duke got upon the engine with him
and proceeded out of the station, with a confidence which it turned
out was quite justified, although I admit some persons, not quite so
experienced, were rather uneasy at the experiment. We should have gone
to pieces in very good company, and there would not have been wanting
representatives of the Press, of the Detroit and Toledo papers, to
have shared or to have recorded the ruin. The Duke drove the engine to
the great satisfaction of the engineer, Mr. Fontaine. Mr. Cornelius
Vanderbilt, informed of the proceedings, sent a telegram to know how
the party were getting on just as we were leaving Toledo. At 2 o'clock
we arrived safely in Detroit, where the mayor and several railway
officials, Ex-senator Baldwin, Mr. Lord, and others were waiting to
accompany the Duke and his friends in the "_Truant_" steam-yacht,
belonging to Mr. Macmillan, in which we took a cruise upon the
beautiful river that separates Canada from the United States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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