A very few years ago it was not uncommon to hear men say that this wonderful communication, the greatest triumph of modern skill, was not a blessing;--for the machinery had put somebody out of employ. Baron Humboldt, a traveller in South America, tells us that, upon a road being made over a part of the great chain of mountains called the Andes, the government was petitioned against the road by a body of men who for centuries had gained a living by carrying travellers in baskets strapped upon their backs over the fearful rocks, which only these guides could cross. Which was the better course--to make the road, and create the thousand employments belonging to freedom of intercourse, for these very carriers of travellers, and for all other men; or to leave the mountains without a road, that the poor guides might gain a premium for risking their lives in an unnecessary peril? But, looking at their direct results, we have no doubt that railroads have greatly multiplied the employments connected with the conveyance of goods and passengers. In 1853 there were eighty thousand persons employed upon the railroads of the United Kingdom in various capacities. We do not include those employed in working upon lines that are not open for traffic, which class in England amounted to twenty-five thousand persons in 1853. But the indirect occupations called into activity by railroads are so numerous as to defy all attempts at calculating the numbers engaged in them. No doubt many occupations were changed by railroads;--there were fewer coachmen, guards, postboys, waggoners, and others, on such a post-road as that from London to York. But it is equally certain that throughout the kingdom there are far more persons employed in conducting the internal communication of the country, effecting that great addition to its productive powers, without which all other production would languish and decay. The census returns of 1851 give the number of three hundred and eighty-six thousand males so employed, including those engaged on our rivers, canals, and coast traffic. [Illustration: Reindeer.]