=The Evolution of the Sleeping Car.=--Mr. Husband has made a very interesting book of the story of the Pullman car and its evolution[116] in which he traces with much detail, step by step, the improvements from 1836, when the first sleeping car was offered to the traveling public, to the most modern parlor car now in use. The discomfort and inconvenience of travelers by rail was so much greater than that by canal that only the greater speed of the former caused it to forge ahead of the latter. As the mileage of the roads increased so also did the comforts of travel. It has already been noted that sparks set fire to the clothing of passengers. Soon box-like cars replaced the open carriages and bogie trucks replaced the rigid wheels, the former giving much more protection and the latter comfort while rounding curves. But yet passengers were herded like cattle on stiff-backed narrow benches in cars with scant head clearance and width. Clean stone ballast for the road bed had not yet been thought of and the dust blew in clouds through the open windows in the summer time, and a stove vitiated the air in the winter. There were no screens or vestibules. It is a far cry from the dim flaring candle to the brilliant white incandescent electric lights. Passenger cars were rapidly improved until by 1844 they had taken on something of the appearance of the present coach. George M. Pullman, a Chicago contractor, having experienced the inconveniences of railway travel and also being acquainted from close association with the Erie Canal and the sleeping arrangements of the canal boats, had visions of similar or better rail comforts. In 1858 he engaged Leonard Seibert, an employee of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, to remodel two coaches into the first Pullman sleeping cars. Mr. Pullman’s invention of upper berth construction whereby it could be closed during the day and serve as a receptacle for bedding was introduced into these cars, before which time sleeping car bunks had been stationary and on one side only. The success of his venture was such that he established a shop for the manufacture of the cars and employed technical skill to plan and make them. He had such organizing ability, however, that before his death he saw the Pullman Company holding a practical monopoly of all the sleeping cars in the country, with through cars scheduled so that change of Pullman was unnecessary from coast to coast, or if a change had to be made it was merely a transfer from one car to a connecting car on another route. A single ticket will carry a passenger from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco, by way of Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Los Angeles with only two changes of cars, namely, at New York and Washington, a total distance of 4,199 miles. It may be interesting to note that some 26,000,000 persons are annually accommodated by the 7500 cars operated by this company.