sought increased passenger rates. Despite the fact that many of its competitors have said that its local service is expensive and generous to an unwarranted degree, it found that its net profits on its passenger earnings were proportionately higher than those on its freight! This road runs parlor cars upon almost all of its local trains, sleeping cars where there is even a possibility of their getting traffic. A big eastern road has just begun to follow this parlor-car practice. It builds and maintains its own cars. There are no expensive patent rights to be secured in the making of a parlor car. A double row of comfortable wicker or upholstered chairs, a carpet, lavatory facilities, and a good-humored porter will do the trick. And the train and the road upon which such a simple, cleanly car travels at once gains a new prestige. In an age when travel demands a private bath with every hotel room, a manicure with the haircut, and a taxicab to and from the station, a parlor car is more of a necessity than a luxury. And it is surprising to notice its earning possibilities upon even the simplest of branch lines or on one local train. * * * * * One thing more--a rather intimately related thing, if you please. We have spoken of the railroad automobile which runs up the public highway from East Caliph to Caliph and return. Let us consider that particular form of transportation service of the automobile in still another light. A man who went up into one of the great national parks on the very backbone of the United States this last summer was tremendously impressed with both the beauty and the accessibility of the place. The one thing was supplemental to the other. This man was impressed by still another thing, however. The railroad which had brought him to a certain fine and growing city at the base of the mountains--a most excellent and well-operated railroad it chanced to be--had a branch line which ran much closer to the national park, upon which it was spending many thousands of dollars in advertising, both generously and intelligently. In other days park visitors took this branch--four-in-hands or carriages from its terminal for the thirty-mile run up through the canyon and into the heart of the park. With the coming of the automobile all this was changed. The motor car quickly supplanted the old-time carriages, even the four-in-hands themselves. In a short time it was running from the big city below the base of the mountains and the railroad was taking off one of its two daily trains upon the branch in each direction. Then, after only a little longer time, it was making a truce with its new competitor--so that its through tickets might be used, in one direction at least, upon the motor cars. An excellent idea, you say. Perhaps. But I know a better one.