November 2nd, 1885, marked an epoch in the annals of the prairie provinces. Although previously used for transportation of troops, it was the date when Canadian Pacific Railway equipment first rolled into Winnipeg under a schedule. The event was fraught with much import to Manitoba and forged an item of significance in the history of the Dominion. The national character of Van Horne’s project and the prestige of the sponsors of this great pioneer, western Canadian line attracted to it the major portion of freight traffic which had been moving via other channels, and by demanding the privilege of preferential passenger rates, based on newness, geographical position and inaccessibility, the patronage of the “Homeseeker” was diverted, practically en masse, from United States lines which had enjoyed the pickings unmolested for eight years. This reversal of conditions left not even all the “Dakota” business to the latter, and with a single exception, the Chicago-St. Paul and allied systems, one by one, abolished Canadian agencies and withdrew their representatives from active participation in the chase. Then it was that General Passenger Agents Carpenter, Charlton, St. John, Stennett and Barnes, in the seats of the mighty at Chicago and St. Paul, felt a temporary modification of interest in Canadian passenger affairs. Geo. Barnes afterwards resigned from the Northern Pacific Ry, entering commercial life as a piano manufacturer, and, I believe, made a fortune. [Illustration: S. H. PALMER, District Passenger Agent, Mich. Cent. Railway, St. Thomas, Civil War Veteran. Formerly connected with “Atlantic & Great Western,” “Erie & Pittsburg,” “Canada Southern.”] These changes, however, did not impair the business relations then budding between “U.S.” merchants and Canadian importers, and the railroads of the neighboring republic realized that it behooved them to look jealously after their individual share of lumber, broom corn and cotton goods from the Southwest, seeds, citrus and deciduous fruits from California, tinned salmon and shingles from the North Pacific Coast and consignments of matting, silks, bamboo, rice, etc., disembarked along Puget Sound. The man in the street might puzzle over the price of his breakfast orange if he reflected that some days 20 carloads of this marmalade fruit now and then gluts the local markets at Montreal and Toronto. A certain percentage of such incoming cars, after unloading, are returned laden with hides to Milwaukee’s greatest tannery, clay, cordage, fish, lumber and sand; pedigreed sheep for Idaho and Oregon ranchmen, hair for San Francisco plasterers, gums, glass, nuts, salt, and tinplate from Atlantic Coast wharves; also with ton upon ton of coveted Canadian woodpulp which reappears as the basis for newspaper headlines.