"Why," said the Senator, "I paid seventeen dollars and a half for a ticket to take me through to Cincinnati, and before we're five miles out that fellow slips up and says he wants to see it, and when I get it out, he grabs hold of it and goes to tearing it up right before my eyes." Ample explanations were soon made, and the new passenger was duly initiated into the mysteries of the coupon system. The uniforming of railway employees was a movement of no little importance. It designated the various positions held by them, added much to the neatness of their appearance, enabled passengers to recognize them at a glance, and made them so conspicuous that it impressed them with a greater sense of responsibility and aided much in effecting a more courteous demeanor to passengers. * * * * * [Illustration: Boston Passenger Station, Providence Division, Old Colony Railroad.] Many conveniences have been introduced which greatly assist the passenger when travelling upon unfamiliar roads. Conspicuous clock-faces stand in the stations with their hands set to the hour at which the next train is to start, sign-boards are displayed with horizontal slats on which the stations are named at which departing way-trains stop, and employees are stationed to call out necessary information and direct passengers to the proper entrances, exits, and trains. A "bureau of information" is now to be seen in large passenger-stations, in which an official sits and with a Job-like patience repeats to the curiously inclined passengers the whole railway catechism, and successfully answers conundrums that would stump an Oriental pundit. The energetic passenger-agent spares no pains to thrust information directly under the nose of the public. He uses every means known to Yankee ingenuity to advertise his regular trains and his excursion business, including large newspaper head-lines, corner-posters, curb-stone dodgers, and placards on the breast and back of the itinerant human sandwich who perambulates the streets. Railway accidents have always been a great source of anxiety to the managers, and the shocks received by the public when great loss of life occurs from such causes deepen the interest which the general community feels in the means taken to avoid these distressing occurrences. American railway officials have made encouraging progress in reducing the number and the severity of accidents, and while the record is not so good on many of our cheaply constructed roads, our first-class roads now show by their statistics that they compare favorably in this respect with the European companies.