“Perhaps,” doubtfully returned the doctor. “You see, it’s this way. In the spring of the year that saw the outpouring of lava that invaded the villages of southern Italy, San Francisco suffered from a serious earthquake that ruptured the public structures of the city, dislocated miles of railroad tracks, ruined the beautiful Stanford University, shook out the fronts of buildings, and precipitated a fire that all but wiped out the Queen City of the Pacific coast. It has been feared that some such seismic terror might demolish the superb structures of the canal, and we are to learn to-night whether these earth movements threaten the new waterway at the isthmus.” “I have reason to believe,” rejoined Leacraft, “that this canal has been itself a source of political disturbance, and that it is likely to effect convulsions in your body politic as dangerous in a social way as those which brought about the financial and physical upset at San Francisco.” “Don’t worry on that score,” replied his companion. “I can tell you that the political texture of this country is not to be worn to a frazzle by any collision of interests. Such things adjust themselves, and the way out only means a new entrance to brighter prospects and bigger undertakings. Yes, I guess someone will be hurt, but individuals don’t count if the whole people are benefited.” “Still,” remonstrated Leacraft, “the people is made up of individuals, and it’s simply a fact that you can’t disturb the equilibrium of one part of society without jostling the rest.” “In a way, yes,” slowly answered the doctor. “But it is quite clear to my mind that the enormous advantages of the canal will hide from sight the losses that may be inflicted on the railroads, in the dislocation of rates, and even that will be temporary, as the new business raises our population, and their passenger traffic touches higher and higher averages.” “The canal has been an expensive enterprise,” suggested Leacraft. “It would be a great misfortune if it brought any kind of material reverses.” “Rubbish,” retorted the doctor; “this prating is the madness or the envy of croakers and cranks. Do you think that a connexion between the oceans that will shorten the route from one to the other by nearly 6,000 miles, and bring our eastern seaboard, with all its tremendous agencies of production within reach of a continent that is slowly becoming itself occidentalized, and demanding every day the equipment of the west, is a mercantile delusion? We are all gainers. It is a scheme of mutualization on a world-wide scale, but America distributes the profits and holds the surplus.”