A station not stopped at gives evidence of slovenliness in the agent. The next has flower beds in lovely bloom--the proof of a pride in his post for which the agent will receive a word of appreciation from a superior who does not forget that he is also a colleague. Crossing one of the fast-diminishing number of wooden trestles it is observed that the water barrels are not well filled. Further on a tank is leaking water--and money. During a stop at a division point the President hurries to the roundhouse, to get his own idea of the efficiency with which the power is being handled, and repairs made without undue delay. After a day of this description you arrive at a city where the City Council and the Board of Trade are waiting to press for a pledge of improvements which, to them, are most important items in a civic programme. In the afternoon, perhaps, you passed through a station of a small and juvenile town for which the local Board of Trade had urged the desirability of another express truck, and a larger cattle pen, so that passengers on the express trains might get a better idea of the magnitude of the business done at that point. Sometimes the difference between the small town and the big city is only of degree. Local patriotism is a mighty fine asset in every community. One finds no fault against the urgency with which local problems are pressed upon a harassed railway executive, with the remark, often heard, that what is asked is a very small matter for so large a railway. Many a mickle makes a muckle; and there are limits to what can be done with the revenues of a railway, every department of which has an Oliver-Twist-like propensity for demanding more. Take an instance of the problems that beset your railway president as he flits about the country--the passenger accommodation at St. John. The Intercolonial station is on low ground. It is one of the structures which do not reflect the magnificent ambitions of members of Parliament, whose chief end in public life is to get public money spent in their ridings--well spent on the whole, of course, but spent. Lately the train sheds that served the purpose of a metal umbrella, had collapsed, and temporary shelters over the platforms had to be put up. Long ago, plans were prepared for a rearrangement of the station accommodation, which would bring the passengers into a building on a higher level, discharge baggage at a lower elevation, improve the street railway facilities, and generally give to St. John what everybody admits St. John needs, on a business-like basis.