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missives and missives tear-stained and kiss-diagram
ed ; written messengers scented in atta of roses and
illustrated with drawings of winged cupids and
pierced flaming hearts. They were mailed in Savan
nah or handed in by messengers.
This is no theatrical advertisement, but in .justice
to Mr. Farnum it has to be added that, unlike Hitch
cock, he made no attempt to appoint a place of ren
dezvous with any of his emotional admirers.
Instead, he is said to have handed all the love
laden sheets over to Mrs. Farnum. who
him, and it is further stated that both husband and
wife thought the whole affair very droll and
amusing.
Coax Uncle Sam to Build the Road to Tybee.
Amid all tin* earnestness, there are some persons
disposed to make merry over the sudden injection
of the Road-to-Tybee question into the list of mat
ters up for public consideration. But they should
not be regarded with seriousness.
It is an error to assume that a military road from
here to Tybee would benefit no one but the autoist,
or that it is urged exclusively in the interest of real
estate dealers. It ought to be possible for citizens
to reach Tybee on bicycles or upon vehicles drawn
by animals, it is absurd that the only access to or
(‘gross from a popular resort and a military garrison
should be confined to a single railroad which chooses
to pen its patrons up in antiquated closed cars which
have been worn out on its main line and should be
in the scrap-heap, if the Central of Georgia opposes
the project, as it is popularly believed it will, that
act should make the people all the more determined
to carry it through.
The road, if built, should be at the expense of
the national government. There may be no present
necessity for the road as an adjunct to the scheme |
of national defense, but none can foretell what
the future may bring forth. In this connection,
however. The Reason desires to disclaim endorse
ment of the views recently set forth in print, in the I
form of a communication to a local paper, that a !
militaiv road to Tybee is a crying need because a
future enemy would be sure to seize the Central of
Georgia tracks and cut off the only avenue of supply
open to the government fortifications. The corre
spondent did not see fit to show why an enemy pow
erful enough to cut the railroad tracks would be
unequal to the task of putting the military road out
of business.
The national government built a military road
from Chattanooga to the Chicamauga battlegrounds
in the early nineties. At that time it did not appear
that the highway would serve any other purpose
than to furnish facilities for tourists to reach that
historic spot. Yet in 1898 that road was of ines
timable value to the country when it became a great
factor in deciding the War Department to fix upon
Chicamauga as the chief camp of mobilization of the
Spanish war forces.
The national government has constructed, or is
building, a military road from Vicksburg to and
about the Shiloh battlefield. Tn this instance, noth
ing more tangible than sentiment could be advanced
in support of the project. Yet hundreds of thous
ands of dollars were appropriated for the purpose
without protest. Shiloh presents only one of many
parallel incidents which might be enumerated show-
THE REASON
ing where roads have been built solely upon the
appeal of historical societies, without expense to the
local communities benefitted.
There is no logic in the argument ad
vanced by some that Chatham county should
share in the expense of building a military
road to Tybee. The incongruity of a large
city having unpaved streets within three or
four blocks of tin* County Court House, knee-deep
in loose dirt, aiding the national government to build
a highway to connect one of its chief coast fortifi
cations with its nearest supply station is calculated
to agitate the risibilities of the most solemnly
inclined.
Chatham' county and Savannah ought to see to
it that the road to Tybee is built, but let it be at
the expense of the federal government.
The Farce of the Tybee Trains.
About everything in the line of public service
has improved within the last thirty or forty years
except the equipment on that branch of the Central
of Georgia Railroad connecting the City of Savan
nah with her seaside resort, Tybee.
Everything that is movable might fairly be ex
pected to get in motion once in a quarter of a cen
tury, except those divisions of the Central of Geor
gia Railway which are never called upon to face
any sort of competition. Even the passenger cars
on the Tybee road, such as they are, move only with
great deliberation, requiring forty-live minutes by
the (dock to be drawn over a distance of eighteen
miles, or at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour.
And we are well in the Twentieth Century, too!
An amateur bicyclist out for recreation could ride
in rings all around a Tybee train and then beat
it to its destination, that is, if he had a fairly good
country road to traverse.
But the country road is lacking and there are
no wharfage facilities at Tybee for steamboats.
These two circumstances tell the whole story of the
Central of Georgia's lassitude.
Some doubt prevails in the public mind as to the
reason why so much leisure attaches to the journey
of a train from here to Tybee. Some are converts
to the belief that locomotor ataxia afflicts the loco
motives. while others contend that these machines
are above suspicion, having been tried for a half a
century and never found wanting.
The last mentioned persons hold to he opinion
that it is the cars that are entitled to the credit for
the absence of undignified haste in getting down
to Tybee. These vehicles should not be required,
it is contended, after having seen honorable service
in the Civil War, to hurry and scurry thither and
yon as though they were new recruits.
The Central of Georgia, it seems, has no such in
stitution as a retired list for veteran equipment, but
reserves the Tybee branch as a sort of Home for the
Disabled from the whole system.
This is a beautiful sentiment, but the ribald
youth of the present day is not in sympathy with the
spirit of the thing, and desires to get a move on
when he heads for the “swimmin’ hole.”
People go away from Savannah and in other
cities up and down the coast find clean, breezy,
open up-to-date summer cars running frequently be
tween the centers of population and the seashore
bathing places and come back with a grouch against