“When, near the close, we were most unexpectedly called on for a speech, what could we say but express the pleasure experienced in all we had seen and enjoyed this whole day. We had witnessed the solution of the greatest problem of the age, a problem that many say will never be solved, that will yet bring on universal revolution. We had to-day seen labor and capital--employer and employed--clasp hands in mutual sympathy and most friendly accord. We had seen, everywhere we travelled in the South, the Plant System men vie with each other in doing honor to their chief. His presence was the signal for willing hands and happy faces in any service they could render him. Men felt better for his presence. The Czar of all the Russias might well envy this modest, quiet, Connecticut man, the connecting link between North and South, the harmonizer of differences, and the promoter of peace and good-will among men; and around whom cluster the respect and manly affection of 12,000 employees and many more thousands of invalids who find lost health travelling in the luxuriant cars and dwelling in the luxuriant hotels of the Plant System. Mr. Plant was first led to Florida in 1854 in search of health for his invalid wife, whose life he believes was prolonged many years by her residence in the soft, balmy air of this State. Travel then was so uncomfortable, and hotel accommodations so poor, that he began to think what could be done to improve both. Verily, ‘There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may,’ and well is it when our own sufferings lead us to discover means of alleviating those of our fellow-men.”--_The Christian Intelligencer_, New York. [Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XVII. Some Changes that have Taken Place in the Configuration of the Globe--Islands Born and Buried--French Revolution--Napoleon’s Influence on Europe--England’s Long Wars--Barbarous Treatment of Prisoners--Slavery Abolished--English Profanity and Intemperance--Temperance Movements--Duelling--Penny Postage--Expansion of the Press--Canals, Erie and Suez--Railroads in England and the United States--First Steamer to Cross the Atlantic--First Steamship Line. The changes that have taken place on the globe itself, and in its inhabitants during the life of Mr. Plant, are varied, numerous, and wonderful.