Notes Of Travel

It is decidedly refreshing for one who for weeks has been sweltering in a torrid zone with the murcury np in the nineties, surrounded by a dull dead calm of a suninier aniversity vacation, to have an outing and get out of town and out of ones self, niingle xvilh the outside world and see what it is made of. The railroad trip to Buffalo on the Canada Southern is ratber dreary until you reach Niágara Falls, where the train stops five minutes for the passengere to mount a raised platform and have a capital view of the falls and rapids above. Bnffalo is an old city of 341,000 inhabitants; was burned by the British in 1814 ; is very prosperous and wealthy, situated as it is at the terminal point of navigation on the great lakes ; and is a tremendous depot for sbipping purposes especially of grain, coal and rnerchandise, beside the freiglit facilities of twenty-six railroads. It has thirty-six elevators with a capacity of fifteen niillion and five hundred bushels of grain, the N. Y. Central and Erie railroads doing a very heavy business. In 1893 there was received at the port of Buffalo 127,000,000 busbels of grain, the Erie elevator alone in 1892 receiving 23,000,000, it being 140 feet in beight and having a capacity of elevating 5,000 busbels an hour, equal to ten car loads. lts wooden conductors are lined with inch steel plates and the grain goee through these conductors with such foree that holes are worn through these steel plates every year, and new ones have to bc put in. The Erie road has two vas', freight depots 1,200 feet in length, one for through traffic up and down the lakes and to aiul 'Mía eustern points; and the other for local and city traffic. These nionstrous freight depots and elevators are under the management of Wm. N. Perrine, one of the most efficiënt and capable agenta Buffalo bas ever bad - he has 100 clerks and 150 workinginen in bis ernploy. Buü'alo is a very cliarmingand beautiful city to live in, it bas 123 miles of electric street railways, 120 miles of stone, 150 miles of asphalt paveinent, and 19 more contracted for, giving Buffalo more asphalt streets than Paris or Washington or any other cityin theworld. The writer of these notes liad the exquisite pleasure, through the kindness of a lady relative, to ride with her in her elegant phaeton over 100 miles on this asphalt pavement, through all the beautiful shaded avenues and captivating p'arks. These pavements are a great but costly luxury, level as a house rloor with not a partiële of obsruction, and a carriage ruus over it ahnost as noiseless as a bicycle, wbile a person can ride over it for hours without becoming weary. But it is bard on borse shoes, for the bind shoes of a horse will wear down as thin as'a ribbon in two weeks and the fore shoes in a month. This city has 800 acres of p'arks and 17 miles of park driveways. The largest park has severa! hundred acres in it. A charming little lake winds way through it with here and there tiny islands interspersed with the deep foliage of their trees, while large nunibers of snow white swans gracefully move about the placid waters. At the head of this lake is a resort where the elite of the city with their elegant tornouts come at eventide to cool off and listen to the most excellent music of the 74th regiment band, which receives $1,300 for twenty open air concerts. We bad the good fortune wbile in port to visit the famous steamer, Xorthwest, the most magnificent floating palace on the great lakes. She is 375 feet in length, three stories high, and all finished inside in red and white ïnahogany. She cost se ven hundred thousand dollars, runs at a spead of 20 miles an hour, and goes to Duluth and return in six days. It takes a pocket of money to take a trip on her. First you pay your passage money, about thirty dollars for a round trip, then comes your state room for which you pay from twenty-five to sixty dollars, according to locality, size and furnishing, and lastly you purchase your meals on the European plan, which will cost you any where from three to nine dollars aLday. We saw the menu of this steamer and as a sample of cost noticed the price of a porter house steak was one dollar and twenty-five cents, which with all the other etc's for a full first class hotel dinner would make it cost three dollars. And vet there are plenty of people wholike thiskindof expensive traveling. It muy be of interest to souie to learn the capacity of the Buffalo water works. The plant is situated on the banks of the Niágara river and the water is pumped from a deep weü quite a distance froni the shore of the river. The works are on the Holly plan, the water being puniped direct to the customers, there are seven engines, two of which pump each day 20,000,000 gallons ; four pump each 15,000,000 and one 10,000,000, making 110,000,000 in all, daily. Two of the engines cost nearly ninety thousand dollars each. There is also a large resovoir at the east side of the city of some twenty acres, the water being thirty feet deep, and the whole enclosed by a large stone wall - it is kept for emergencies, in case of accident at the works, its cost was three million dollars. Near the cemetery we visitedacrematory, with its smal] chapel haviug iu it a beautiful little church orgau. Services are held here when a body is brought tor cremation. When the oven is heated to a white heat, the bod}' lying on a small platform with rollers under it, is rolled into the mouth of the oven and in two hours all that remains of the body is the ashes of the bones, which are quite heavy. Two hundred and eight cremations have occured since 1885. It costs twenty -five dollars tocremate. Fifty years ago we visited the Niágara Falls and to-day hear that same eternal roar and see that same awful plunge of old Niagara's waters to the fearful abyss below. Great changes have taken place within a few years. Únele Sam has purchased all the land in the vicinity of the Falls, has laid out captivating lawns and lovely drives all over Prospect Park and Goat Island, driven out the robber hackmen, and now onè can take an open bus, for fifteen cents, and visit all the points of interest as long as he pleases. The great water power created here is a wonderful production. The terrible rush of waters coming through the great tunnel has destroyed the huge water wheels and the company lias been compelled to send to Sweeden for wheels which will not break b}' the velocit}' and great body of water coming upon them. Some ]eople believe that the great amount of water going through tliis tunnel above the i'alls will decrease the amount of water going over the falls. If a person wishes to see the falls and the great chasin to the best advautage, he should, as we did, take a flne steamer atBuffalo, go down twenty miles on the Canada side of the river, land just above the old village of Chippewa, there take the electric cars and go down on the Canada side of the river fourteen miles to the village of Queenstown, near Lake Ontario. On this trip you first go by the whirliug, tumbling, roaring rapiils, above the falls, Uien the cars go so near the horse shoe cataract that you get a shower of spray. Here you have the finest view of both falls. You then pass along on the brink of the great chasin 150 feet below you, through the artistic Victoria Park, under the three suspension bridges, then by the whirl pool rapids and the great whirlpool itself, and on down to Queenstown. No one should omit this wonderful trip wlio visits the fall. On the homeward trip we took passage on the staunch iron steamer Japan, running to Jhiluth and had a delightfully cool voyage. The steamer landed at Cleveland, and remained long enough for passengers to ride over the city, cali on friends, and visit the great monument and last resting place of the lamented Garfield. il. C. President Cleveland says tlie senate bill which was passed is au act of " party perfidy and dishonor." If Grover thinks so harshly of this sectional, trust favoring iniquity wh at must the people think and say of it in the November elections. It pleasesnoone I and in three munths will be condemned i by every one. A Friemd in need - The Impoverisiied Quaker.