PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S PRIVATE CAR. A National Belle Which Is Fast Going to Ruin. In the switch yards of the Union Pacific railway at Omaha, standing in the open air and rapidly going to decay, de-cay, is Lincoln's private car, a national relic, which, says the Illustrated Record, Rec-ord, should have been preserved for all time. On the contrary it is all but forgotten and gets no more notice than the Junk of the railroad scrap pile. t The old relic is 42 feet long and feet wide. It was built at the United Unit-ed States military car shops at Alexandria, Alex-andria, Va., during the latter part of the war and was used by the emancipator emanci-pator on his visits to many points during dur-ing the troubled-filled times of the civic civ-ic strife. No one to look at the battered bat-tered old hulk now would recognize in it what was the marvel of elegance among early railroad equipment. Originally there was but one entrance en-trance to the car, a door in the corner cor-ner of one end on one side. Entrance to the then separate roms was had from this passageway. The rear room was larger than the' others, and was used by President Lincoln for an office of-fice and study, and also as a reception room, in which he received the generals gen-erals of the army. It is safe to say that in this compartment Mr. Lincoln hastily wrote the notes for his famous speech at the field of Gettysburg. At any rate, the President occupied the coach on his trip to Gettysburg on that occasion. The old, battered and ill-looking hulk also carried President Lincoln's ; remains from Washington to Springfield, Spring-field, 111. It was in this car that the body lay during that memorable journey jour-ney which lasted from April 21 to May 3, 1865. For some time after this the car was placed in service and was used as a directors' car, but its great weight caused by the armor plate, with which ' it was protected, made it objectionable and it was removed to a shed in the yards at Omaha. There it stood for years, but, one by one, the boards of the covering 'place vanished and today, to-day, as above stated, the car is exposed ex-posed to all sorts of weather. There was talk in 1898 of inaugurating inaugurat-ing a movement among the colored population of the United States with a view of securing funds with which to purchase the car, restore it and to provide for it a suitable building in Washington, where it might be preserved. pre-served. Nothing, however, came of the idea.