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Show GREAT RAILROAD EPOCH. i The beginning of the second half of 1002 pees the railroads of the United States cross the 200 000-mllc line. Coni structlon during the last six months was not especially ncllvc, though It was larger than list years' corcrspon-ding corcrspon-ding time but the total which had been renthed by the end of moi was ko near Ihe 200 000 mile mark thnt that lino was certain to be passed long before be-fore 1902 neared Its close. It Is only by comparing this mileage with that of some of the rest of the great countries coun-tries that Ihe American people cm fully realize the tremendous development develop-ment which has taken place In this field In their own land figures of rail-rond rail-rond activities for the world at large nic not very trustworthy, but taking those which are moat recent and rell-able rell-able the United States Is seen to be far nhead of any other country. Germany has shout 115 000 miles of main track; Russia. 000, France, 27 000, Austria-Hungary, Austria-Hungary, 23,000, Great Britain nnd Ireland, Ire-land, 22 000, while no other European country has ns many as 10 000 miles. All of Europo has about 175,000 miles of road, or considerably less than th United States, whllc.tho entire worlds mileage Is npproxlmately COO 000 of which the United States furnishes two- All this rallroid construction has come In about two generations of time. When John btevens In 1822 got a charier char-ier from the Pennsylvania Legislature to build n railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, on the Susquehanna in hlch was. never built) somebody asked one of the Pennsjlvnnli impels, "What Is a railroad, any how 7 -The editor nave It up. but said that perhaps per-haps some other correspondent can 1 It "is only seventy -four years on the rourth of July since work was started on tho- construction or the first of America a great roads, It Is only lllty one year, since the waters of the west It ilfke Erlo were first reached by through r rail from the Atlantic coast, ind ns leccnlly as Appomattox there wertr only 32 000 miles of main track n ,e' whole country, as compared I with 200 000 miles now. -St. Louis aiooe-nemocrat. |