LITERARY NOTES. A thouroughly revised edition of "Prehistoric | Brown's School Days," is said to be busy upon Man," by Prof. Daniel Wilson, of University a work on the present aspect of the Church of College, Toronto, is announced for publication England. this autumn, by Messrs. Macmillan & Co, London. The same firm have in preparation a Library Edition, in three volumes, of Green's "Short History of the English People," which has met with so favourable a reception in its one volume shape. The work, we learn, has undergone a thorough revision, and has been considerably extended, particularly in the treatment of the history of the 18th and 19th centuries. John Hill Burton, whose History of Scotland to the extinction of the last Jacobite insurrection is so well known, is engaged on a "History of the Reign of Queen Anne.” A complemental volume to Mr. W. F. Rae's "Wilkes, Sheridanļand Fox," is about to appear in a volume from the same author, to be entitled, "George Washington; the American opposition to George III." Mr. Ashton Dilke's work on "The Russian Power," is approaching completion, and will be ssued at an early day. The Marquis of Lorne, it is said, has a narrative poem of considerable length in the press, ntitled, "Guido and Leta: a Tale of the Riviera." The story is founded on an incident in one of the Saracen inroads, which troubled the coast of Provence during the tenth century. Á second edition, with supplement completing the work to the present time, of Cates's Dictionary of General Biography, with classified and chronological index of principal names, has just issued from the press. Messrs. Appleton have just published a reprint of Darwin's Insectivorous Plants, which has lately appeared in England; also, a cheaper edition of the same author's "Descent of Man." Messrs. Longmans, of London, announce as in preparation for publication, "The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," by his nephew, G. O. Trevelyan, M. P. The work will be issued in two volumes, and will probably appear in the early part of the book season. Mr. John Forster, the biographer of Dickens, is, we understand, engaged on the Life of Dean Swift, and is about to issue a new edition of his Life of Goldsmith, and other of his works. Mr. Thomas Hughes, M. P., and author of "Tom Mr. R. G. Haliburton, a native of Nova Scotia, and the son of the Judge of that name, who has given us the creation of " Sam Slick," is about to issue in London, a Volume of Essays on Colonial subjects. The most important contribution to the volume is a paper entitled, "How We Lost an Empire a Hundred Years Ago." A work of some interest is these times of stirring ecclesiastical excitement, appears from the press of Messrs. Longmans, entitled, “The New Reformation: a narrative of the old Catholic movement, from 1870 to the present time." It appears with an historical introduction by Theodorus, and is a good sized octavo volume, published at twelve shillings sterling. The English Publishers Circular has the following paragraph, concerning the Revision of the Scriptures now being undertaken by a committee of scholars in England: "The New Testament of the Revisers has, it would seem, reached that stage at which we may sum up what has been done, and take stock of the work. The well-known Unitarian scholar, Dr. Vance Smith, is the first of the Revisers to break silence, and to tell us where we stand irrespective of those curt bulletins which note only how many chapters they have read, and at what verse they have stopped. The most important portion, the four Gospels, Mr. Smith says, have been completely revised, with the exception of two disputed points yet to be decided. The Acts of the Apostles and small Epistles have been revised once, but have to undergo a second revision. The Epistles of St. Paul come next, and would take a long time. The Revisors, twenty in number, met for a week, once a month during ten months in the year. They had been engaged five years, and he estimated that their work would take them five years longer. The travelling expenses only, of the Revisers, were paid from a fund formed by a sale of copyright to the University Press. He could not say whether the new version of the Testament would be published in parts. That question had not arisen. But there could be no doubt that the revision in question would be a great improvement-here improving the expressions, and there bringing out the meaning more clearly." ΤΗ Is HE Grand Trunk Railway reflects by | commence in an enquiry into the cause. its unprofitableness on the material there, then, any reason outside the line, interests of Canada. Mr. Potter's mistake any reason in the traffic resources of Canada, in arraying the line against the character why it should not yield dividends? The of the Canadian people and the progress of answer to this question can be given with Canadian development, does not alter the the authority of a demonstration by comfact that the financial result of its invest- paring certain facts of railways in the United ments is a misfortune to this Dominion. A States with corresponding facts of the Grand duty to the continued growth of the country Trunk; and as recent discussion bases the demands that the failure of that gentleman's failure of that line upon the overdoing of road to reward its owners be placed upon railway construction in Canada, by applyits real merits; and that the placing be ing the comparison to the field in which done in a spirit of sympathy for him and that alleged overdoing takes its extreme them with a view to the reversal, as far as form-the Province of Ontario. is now practicable, of what is a disaster applying in common to English capital and to Canadian progress. In seeking a remedy for the unprofitableness of the Grand Trunk, the search should The following table is compiled mainly from "Poor's Manual" of 1873-4.* It may not be severely accurate, but is perfectly trustworthy as authority for the conclusions to which it points : * Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1873-4, by H. V. & H. W. Poor, New York, 1873. comparison on the basis of population may be held as disposing of the allegation of excessive length of railway in Ontario, whether as a matter of fact, or as an explanation of the failure of the Grand Trunk to yield dividends. Over-construction being inadmissible, what, then, is the cause, what are the causes, of the unprofitableness of the great highway of Canada to its proprietors? The gross receipts set opposite Ontario, in the table next preceding, do not, it will be seen by recurring to the first table, include new and unfinished lines. The earnings of 700 miles are thus, it may be repeated, omitted. The income per mile is, therefore, not $5,444 as set forth, but is in fact $8,186. Taking the figures of the table, however, regardless of this correction, they are good for the conclusion, that when the railways of New Hampshire, with receipts of $5,830 per mile, those of Maine, with receipts of $4,988 per mile, those of Wisconsin, with receipts of $4,224, those of Iowa, with receipts of $3,280, and even those of Minnesota, with receipts of but $2,113, all pay dividends on their stocks, the reason why Canadian railways do not, the reason why the Grand Trunk with receipts of $6,563 per mile does not, must clearly be sought for elsewhere than in the activity of the people as measured by the volume of the traffic. What of the severity of the Canadian climate? Does not that cause an extraordinary absorption of earnings in working expenses, and make thus the reasoning from the figures cited above illusive? As this suggestion has been addressed recently to popular misapprehension in England, it demands, in order to avert the injury which it is calculated to do the railway progress of the Dominion, an examination in fulness of evidence. The selection of American States presented in the last table has not been made in contemplation of a foregone conclusion. It has proceeded with the single purpose of eliminating from the question under review, at this point, any disturbing considerations of climate. It includes, be it observed, all the States that border upon the Dominion, from Nova Scotia to Manitoba. It embraces in its averages several lines which traverse regions whose winters are much more severe than the average winter of those traversed by the railways of Canada. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, are represented on the one hand, and Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, are represented on the other hand, by items of the table which exclude from the comparison with those of Ontario, any special application of the question of climate against that Province, for the reason, prima facie, that the first group being mountainous, and the latter group being situated on plains of greater elevation, they embody averages of higher altitudes, while a glance at a map of North America will show that both groups embody averages including even higher latitudes. The popular misapprehension as to the exceptional effect of climate on railway-working here, may be held disposed of by the foregoing figures under the reading of this explanation; but the special force necessary in proof which is designed to reason down what has not been reasoned up," demands, now that the consideration of the management of our great railway is being approached, that that misapprehension be met in direct issue on its merits in the special case of the Grand Trunk. The earnings apportioned to the great Canadian highway in Ontario yield, according to the first table given in this paper, an average per mile of $6,553. The working expenses of that line, although paid out of receipts higher than in the case of any of the averages given, stand, be it observed, in percentage of the gross earnings, at 80.4. Now, the value of climate in determining that percentage may be traced in general by a comparison with the corresponding facts in the country at each end of the line, and as far as may be, along its route, including even those lines which run from it 50 or 80 miles northerly into basins of greater elevation and higher latitude. A review of the question in that light presents it thus : Grand Trunk from Montreal to Quebec, consume gross earnings in the business to the extent of but 67.8 per cent. Several railways of the North-west of the United States operate in winters as severe as those of the Province of Quebec. Incorporated with other lines, they do not stand out in special facts, and are therefore excluded from use here. One however there is, which presents an extreme illustration of the value of climate on the lower sections of the Grand Trunk. the Grand Trunk. The Marquette, Houghton, and Ontonagon Railway is 49 miles in length. Making a connection at an intermediate point with the lines of Northern Wisconsin, it begins at one port of Lake Supe gan-a region situated at one end of the line-are worked at a cost of 17.9 per cent. less. It shows that with the exception of one railway managed by the Grand Trunk Company, all the lines of Maine-a region situated at the other end-are worked at a cost 8.2 per cent. less. It sets forth that the Great Western of Canada, including a trunk which runs within 20 miles of it for a distance of 180 miles, and a branch which extends to the north of it for 100 miles, are worked at a cost 20.7 per cent. less. Showing, besides these facts, that five tracks extending northerly from it in Ontario into the colder regions of Ottawa, Pembroke, Collingwood, transact their business at a cost 8 per cent. less, the conclusion is ir-rior, Marquette, and ends at another port of resistible that the excessive absorption of the receipts of the chief railway of the Dominion in working-expenses, does not find its explanation in climate. A comparison such as that just made is met by the hint that the extraordinary proportion of the working expenses of the Grand Trunk is referable mainly to the severity of the climate along its extension eastwardly from Montreal. That part of the line being but one-fourth of all, the cause that, operating on that length only, can affect the running cost on the whole to such an extent as it is said to do, must stand out very broadly in the case of other lines worked under similar conditions. What then are the facts of roads situated in the same latitudes? The European and North American Railway of the State of Maine begins in the latitude of Prescott, on the Grand Trunk, and ends in the latitude of Richmond, on the branch of that line to Quebec. One hundred and fourteen miles in length, it was worked at the date of the latest returns given in Poor's Manual of 1873-4, for a proportion of its gross earnings no greater than 55.0 per cent. The Intercolonial Railway includes in the results given for it the European and North American line of New Brunswick. The Government of the Dominion of Canada manages that line, and may be supposed to do so under the usual penalty of a control so remote and loose-extravagance. And yet what is the result in that case? Beginning at St. John's and running as far to the north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the 149 miles included in the report of that line by Poor, though they correspond in latitude almost exactly with the that lake, L'Anse. Situated on a peninsula swept in winter by winds from one icebound sea on the one side, and from another ice-bound sea on the other side, it runs, furthermore, through a region whose elevation above the banks of the St. Lawrence below Montreal must be held, according to Humboldt's equation of heights, to assign it a climate over two degrees more northerly than that proper to its parallel of latitude.* But waiving all consideration of its exposure and of its elevation, the Marquette, Houghton, and Ontonagon, if moved eastwardly along its geographical parallels, would, placing one of its termini at Quebec, extend from that city towards Three Rivers, its whole length lying on the northern shore of the St. Lawrence. And yet while its gradients are highly unfavourable to cheap work, that line, which traverses a climate more severe perhaps than any known to settlement in the Province of Quebec, transacted its business for the year represented by its last report in Poor's Manual, at a cost to its gross earnings of but 56.2 per cent.+ Facts in the States containing its eastern and its western termini, and in the country along its route, show that our chief highway *The isothermals of the maps rest, in reference to this region, on no data. Mere fillings in at ranthey are worth nothing against the above inference dom betweeen remote points known to observation, as to the climate of the Michigan-Superior Peninsula. + The detention of trains caused by snow on the Marquette, Houghton, and Ontonagon Railway during last winter-the severest known for 40 yearsaggregated, according to a letter of the officer charged with its superintendence, 851⁄2 hours. |