Surely people are far more _nervous_ now than they used to be some generations back. The mental cultivation and the mental wear which we have to go through tends to make that strange and inexplicable portion of our physical construction a very great deal too sensitive for the work and trial of daily life. A few days ago I drove a friend who had been paying us a visit over to our railway station. He is a man of fifty, a remarkably able and accomplished man. Before the train started, the guard came round to look at the tickets. My friend could not find his; he searched his pockets everywhere, and although the entire evil consequence, had the ticket not turned up, could not possibly have been more than the payment a second time of four or five shillings, he got into a nervous tremor painful to see. He shook from head to foot; his hand trembled so that he could not prosecute his search rightly, and finally he found the missing ticket in a pocket which he had already searched half-a-dozen times. Now contrast the condition of this highly-civilized man, thrown into a painful flurry and confusion at the demand of a railway ticket, with the impassive coolness of a savage, who would not move a muscle if you hacked him in pieces. —_Fraser’s Magazine_. A PROFITABLE RAILWAY. The shortest and most profitable railway in the world is probably to be seen at Coney Island, the famous suburban summer resort of New York. This is the “Marine Railway,” which connects the Manhattan Beach Hotel and the Brighton Beach Hotel. It is 2,000 feet in length, is laid with steel rails, and has a handsome little station at each end. Its equipment consists of two locomotives and four cars, open at the sides, and having reversible seats; and a train of two cars is run each way every five minutes. The cost of this miniature road, including stations and equipment, was 27,000 dols., and it paid for itself in a few weeks after it was opened for business. The operating expenses are 30 dols. a day, and the average receipts are 450 dols. a day the entire season, 900 dols. being sometime taken in. The fare charged is five cents. The property paid a profit last year of 500 dols. per cent on its cost. THE POLITE BRAHMIN.