support was not so effective as that of the great railroad company. Naturally enough, also, great hesitation was felt in adopting so complicated an appliance. It added yet another whole apparatus to a thing which was already overburdened with machinery. There was, also, something in the delicacy and precision of the parts of this new contrivance,--in its air-pump and reservoirs and long connecting tubes with their numerous valves,--which was peculiarly distasteful to the average practical railroad mechanic. It was true that the idea of transmitting power by means of compressed air was by no means new,--that thousands of drills were being daily driven by it wherever tunnelling was going on or miners were at work,--yet the application of this familiar power to the wheels of a railroad train seemed no less novel than it was bold. It was, in the first place, evident that the new apparatus would not stand the banging and hammering to which the old-fashioned hand-brake might safely be subjected; not indeed without deranging that simple appliance, but without incurring any very heavy bill for repairs in so doing. Accordingly the new brake was at first carelessly examined and patronizingly pushed aside as a pretty toy,--nice in theory no doubt, but wholly unfitted for rough, every-day use. As it was tersely expressed during a discussion before the Society of Arts in London, as recently as May, 1877,--"It was no use bringing out a brake which could not be managed by ordinary officials,--which was so wonderfully clever that those who had to use it could not understand it." A line of argument by the way, which, as has been already pointed out, may with far greater force be applied to the locomotive itself; and, indeed, unquestionably was so applied about half a century ago by men of the same calibre who apply it now, to the intense weariness and discouragement no doubt of the late George Stephenson. Whether sound or otherwise, however, few more effective arguments against an appliance can be advanced; and against the Westinghouse brake it was advanced so effectively, that even as late as 1871, although largely in use on western roads, it had found its way into Massachusetts only as an ingenious device of doubtful merit. It was in August, 1871, that the Revere disaster occurred, and the Revere disaster, as has been seen, would unquestionably have been averted had the colliding train been provided with proper brake power. This at last called serious attention there to the new appliance. Even then, however, the mere suggestion of something better being in existence than the venerable hand-brakes in familiar use did not pass without a vigorous protest; and at the meeting of railroad officials, which has already been referred to as having been called by the state commissioners after the accident, one prominent gentleman, when asked if the road under his charge was equipped with the most approved brake,