practice, I believe, on many railroads. Because of this, engineers on
the Southern regard the locomotives to which they are regularly
assigned, as their personal property, and exercise their individual
taste in embellishing them. Brass bands, brass flagstaffs, brass eagles
over the headlight, and similar adornments are therefore often seen on
the engines of this road, giving the most elaborate of them a carnival
appearance, by contrast with the somber black to which most of us are
accustomed, and hinting that not all the individuality has been
unionized out of locomotive engineers--an impression heightened by the
Southern Railway's further pleasant custom of painting the names of its
older and more expert engineers upon the cabs of their locomotives.

* * * * *

Some cities are like lumbering old farm horses, plugging along a dusty
country road. When another horse overtakes them, if they be not
altogether wanting in spirit, they may be encouraged to jog a little
faster for a moment, stimulated by example. If, besides being stupid,
they are mean, then they want to kick or bite at the speedier animal
going by. Some cities are like that, too. If an energetic city overtakes
them, they are not spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so
to speak. Again, there are tough, sturdy little cities like buckskin
ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to have been badly broken.
There are old cities with a worn-out kind of elegance, like that of
superannuated horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fashioned
barouche. There are bad, bucking cities, like Butte, Montana. And here
and there are cities, like Atlanta, reminding one of thoroughbred
hunters. There is a brave, sporting something in the spirit of Atlanta
which makes it rush courageously at big jumps, and clear them, and land
clean on the other side, and be off again. Like a thoroughbred, she