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Show in Los Angeles, before he got out of the city, and it was explained that that engineer was making his first trip ; that the old engineer was detained at home I by illness. Now, ask ten men their oipnion of that, and nine of them will answer, "Why, the accident was going to happen. An engineer was to be killed. The Fates made one ill and kept him' at home and sent the other out to be killed, and you cannot help it" '. . ' , -When we flatter ourselves that superstition is dead, in this enlightened age we fool ourselves. It is no such thing. There is as much superstition as ever, and men who would rather see the new moon over the right shoulder than over the left are legion. ,It is because there are more things in heaven and earth than, most people ever dreamed of in their philosophy. philoso-phy. ' Be they ever so wicked and ever so depraved, down deep they have an idea that some occult force is directing their lives, and that what is to be will be and we cannot help it. V FAST TRAINS AND SUPERSTITION. The disastrous wreck at TVoodlawn of an electric flyer, through which twenty-one people were killed oulright and others wounded, supplies a text for the NewYork Sun to discuss speed in railroad travel. It Quotes from President Newman of the New York Central that "the public demands fast trains," and the proof is that a second Empire State Express had been, added to the New York Central schedule. The Sun wonders whether the real reason is that the putting on of fast trains results as much from a desire to break records as from a desire of the traveling trav-eling public for fast trains. r It seems to us they go hand in hand. The rail-- rail-- roads that run trains fastest are the ones that people patronize. If two trains, equally equipped, leave New York at the same moment, and it is known, that one will reach Chicago, for instance, in twenty-two hours, and the other in eighteen hours, nine out of every ten passengers will take the faster train, although al-though when they reach Chicago they may fool away three days before they begin business. 4 4 It. is useless to discuss the matter with railroad rhen. They are working for patronage. They take all kinds of chances, and if a train makes the distance dis-tance between two cities in a certain number of small hours, the opposition line wjll try to beat that. The only way to stop if is to reduce the speed by law, and then with that done to include in the same law not to hold engineers or conductors responsible, but the directors of the company. With such a Jaw as that they will give directions which will have the effect ef-fect of reducing the speed, and at the same time the danger. Still, we doubt the utility of such a law. No people on earth will take as many chances as the American people. Then, they are mostly fatalists, fatal-ists, when we get down close to them. When told that a train is dangerous they will say, "Well, I will get through all right, unless it is Fate that I am to he killed on this train. If it is, I will be killed any- way. If it is not, I will get through." We read yesterday where an engineer was killed,, , |