He had really been concealed behind the wall when Malfi and his servant passed; but concluding that they were going to meet Mendez, and that his scheme was defeated, he had thought it both useless and dangerous to remain, and was intending to make off in another direction, when their sudden return surprised him.
A few hours more saw Antonio Guerra in Giuseppe Ripa's cell; and whilst the first paid the penalty of his crimes, the latter was rewarded for his sufferings by the hand of Bianca, to whom the Spaniard gave a small marriage-portion before finally quitting the country, which he did immediately after Antonio's trial.
Ripa said he had always had a strong persuasion that Guerra was the real criminal from two circumstances: the first was the hurried manner in which he was walking on the evening he met him at the gate of Forni, and some strange expression of countenance which he had afterwards recalled. The second was his answering them from the window when he and Malfi went to inquire for Mendez. If he thought it was his master, as he said, why had he not come down at once to admit him?
It is remarkable that the enmity of the Spaniard was not directed against the man that had aimed at his life, but against him who had wounded his pride.
INFLUENCES OF THE RAILWAY SYSTEM
By the application of steam as a motive agent an immense saving has been effected in the outlay required to be made in producing a given result in locomotion. This is the combined product of two causes. Such perfection has been attained in the construction of machinery, that by the aid of steam there can thence be obtained a continuity, combined with a rapidity of motion, which far exceeds what can be produced by any other means at present known to us. The fleetest racer equipped for speed alone, cannot equal, even for a single mile, the rate at which the locomotive engine, dragging after it a load of eighty tons, can, for hours together, be driven with ease and safety along its iron path. And this twofold
result can be secured at a comparatively small cost. Coal, iron, woodsubstances all to be easily obtained in nearly every quarter of the globecan be, and daily are, fashioned into working agents not merely fleeter, stronger, and more docile than any endowed with animal life, but agents likewise which it is far less costly to sustain in active usefulness. The food, medicines, and attention which animal life demands, form very serious items of expense in the case of beasts of burden, and so very materially impair their utility. It is otherwise with the locomotive engine. Money, ingenuity, and toil require undoubtedly to be expended in its original construction, attention and care must be given to avert or repair accident, and food of its own peculiar kind it does unquestionably consume; yet when all the original and working expenses of a locomotive are summed up, it is found that, compared with the income it produces, it is the cheapest of all motive agents.
No doubt the items of railway expenditure now mentioned do not nearly exhaust the amount of money required in their construction. In addition to expensive engines, there require carriages to be supplied for the transport of goods and passengers, houses and sheds to be built for their temporary accommodation, salaries to be paid for management and service; and in addition to all this, there must further be expended in the construction of the line itself sums far greater in amount than those spent in the formation and repair of roads and highways. All this is true; but in estimating the comparative costliness of the old and new methods of land-locomotion, regard must be had to the amount of their produce as well as of their outlay; and an opinion regarding their respective merits, in an economical point of view, must be formed by striking a balance between these two sides of the account. The result of such a comparison proves that in point of economy, not less than of speed and endurance, railways take precedence over all other known means of locomotion. This combined result of rapidity and cheapness of transit produces a double effect upon a mercantile community: it at once enables merchants to realise the fruits of a given speculation more quickly, which is nothing else than transacting more business in a shorter period than before; and it also enables them to do this increased amount of business with a smaller amount of actual outlaythat is, to extend with safety and profit the field of their operations beyond those boundaries which prudence formerly marked out as the proper limits of speculation.
When we consider the amount of travelling within the island which is requisite for carrying on the mercantile and general business of the country, and the double saving, therefore, of time on the one hand, and of money on the other, which is effected by means of railways, we cannot fail to perceive that even did this new system of locomotion economise time and labour in no other way than this alone, its effects upon commercial transactions and on business generally would be immense. But when we reflect that this system is exerting the very same influence upon tradeand in a much higher degree, so far as the outlay of money is concernedin reference to the carriage of goods, as in regard to that of passengers, we then come to comprehend in some measure how fertile the railway locomotive is in the production of the fruits of industry.