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  The history of such development will be imperfect, unless it
can be shown how and to what extent, effect has responded to
effort, and results have satisfied the conditions which suggested
or demanded that railways be made.
  Without commerce, the arts and industries would languish
and perhaps perish. Without some systematic means of trans-
portation, commerce, in its modern character and import, would
be impossible. The intense and ceaseless competition pervading
all the industrial and commercial world, and by which commu-
nities are as much affected as individuals, makes the employ-
ment of the best and most perfect methods of transportation,
very largely, the measure of success; and every community
seeks an expression of its commercial necessities and wants in
an adequate railway system. The oft repeated assertion that
nothing of human institution can remain stationary in any form
or condition, may not be, and I believe is not, absolutely true.
But, unquestionably, a community may attain a certain stage of
material and commercial development, when non-progression
is not only relative but actual decadence, because its capital
and business will be attracted and absorbed by other commu-
nities which do employ improved methods. The effect may be
likened to that which would happen in modern warfare, should
one nation suddenly discover and use a fire-arm vastly superior
to any now known. All other nations would at once be rele-
gated very nearly to the condition of savage peoples whose
armies are equipped with bows and spears, and be virtually
incapacitated for contest with the possessor of the new weapon.
The railway has wholly abolished and taken the place of the
old methods of travel and carriage, by land, for great distances.
It has made possible travel and traffic which, a century ago,
no man could have imagined; has rendered easy and rapid
communication between points so remote that only the curious
and adventurous traversed the intermediate territory; and has
opened to civilization and commerce vast regions which, a gen-
eration since, were visited only by the explorer and hunter.
At the same time, in facilitating commercial intercourse, it has
so quickened industry, so expanded the needs and desires of
mankind, and, as a consequence, so immensely increased pro-
duction and trade, that it has multiplied many fold the traffic