To return to the enormous office work of the President of this great system of transfer and traffic, it is a marvel how he has stood it all these years. It is no unusual thing for him at Tampa to spend two hours in hard work in examining his mail before breakfast, then till luncheon, with perhaps an hour’s intermission, and then work until late in the afternoon. His numerous calls from all sorts and classes of people, are a constant strain upon brain and nerve, not to say heart at times. The secret of this endurance of long and fatiguing work, is found in the fact that to a sound constitution, inherited from a hardy, thrifty ancestry, Mr. Plant has added a temperate life and great moderation in the use of stimulants. While a man of quick intuition and keen sensibility, he has shown the most wonderful self-control in the most trying circumstances. When others would be agitated and wholly thrown off their balance Mr. Plant would remain calm, quiet, cool, and clear-headed to a degree that stilled the tempest all around, and effected an amicable adjustment of matters most important as they were most complicated and difficult of settlement. This self-control is joined with great fertility of resources, great charity for the peculiarities of men, and withal a kindliness of nature, a disposition not to hurt any one, that have enabled him to render services to his associates and to his country that may not now be told, and perhaps will never be known until the great day when the “cup of cold water” shall be rewarded. Mr. Plant is never in a hurry, much less is he ever flurried, chafed, or worried about anything. All he does is done deliberately, systematically, easily, and once done it seldom or never has to be gone over again. “Make the best of everything,” is his motto. A gentleman occupying a prominent position in the express department of the Plant System writes: “It affords me great pleasure to acknowledge the esteem and love of the Southern Express Company’s employees, known to me, for Mr. Plant, who has favored us so often with his kindness, liberality, and mercy even when we were at fault. My knowledge extends back about thirty years, having commenced with the Southern Express Company in North Carolina in 1866, and having worked in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi since that time, mingling very freely and socially with my fellow-employees. I have never heard one word of condemnation of Mr. Plant during all that time but, on the contrary, a hearty, free expression of respect and affection for the man who, by divine aid, had done so much for the whole South as well as the great number of employees in the Southern Express. “Faithfully “I. S. S. A.” In long years of intimate association with Mr. Plant I have never heard him utter a profane word or a bitter expression against any one.