“Among the thousands who gathered at the Exposition yesterday to do honor to Mr. Henry B. Plant, the great ‘man of affairs,’ the officers and employees of the Southern Express Company formed a notable group, the central and most prominent figure of which was Mr. M. J. O’Brien, the vice-president and general manager. It was fitting that this great enterprise should be represented by its most prominent officials and a large delegation of its employees on this day, for it was as an express company employee that Mr. Plant began life, and the history of the express business in the South is almost identical with Mr. Plant’s great success. It was also appropriate that the representatives of the great army of Southern Express Company employees should be headed by the man whose master mind and admirable executive ability have contributed so largely to every success of the mammoth enterprise over which he presides with such marked distinction, for the history of the Southern Express Company is not only the history of Mr. Plant but of Mr. O’Brien, since the latter gentleman has been closely identified with the express business of Mr. Plant for the past thirty-five years, and its achievements have largely been his own. “HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY. “On July 5, 1861, a charter was granted for the Southern Express Company for fourteen years, with H. B. Plant as President; R. B. Bullock, Superintendent of the Eastern Division; E. Hulbert, Superintendent of the Central, and D. P. Ellwood, Superintendent of the Western Division, who, however, shortly resigned, and was succeeded by A. B. Small, with James Shuter as Assistant Superintendent. “As the Federal forces advanced into Dixie the Southern Express Company abandoned its lines, which were immediately utilized by the Adams Express Company. In fact, the Southern Express Company was operated under difficulties throughout those belligerent times, arising from the changing lines of armies, destructions of railroads, and from the conscription acts, until express employees were exempted from service in the army and navy. “At the close of the war another source of danger presented itself. Gangs of disbanded soldiery and raiding parties, ever ready to appropriate portable property wherever it could be found, in many cases plundered the express offices, their horses being taken and nothing valuable left. But it’s a long lane that has no turn. A reaction soon set in, and the marvellous prosperity of the ‘Sunny South’ has been only equalled by the growth and development of the Southern Express Company. To-day its service extends from Richmond, Louisville, and St. Louis on the North; Charleston and Savannah on the East; Springfield, Missouri, and Houston, Texas, on the West, and New Orleans, Mobile, and Tampa, Florida, on the South, reaching twelve States and embracing about three thousand agencies, with a through line to New York and direct communication with Cuba.