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severe, on two rows of piles, which rose only a few inches above the surface of the ice. This was merely intended for the three or four months during which it wd buttressed & strengthened by the ice. As soon as that? unclear begins to break up, it wd be swept away. In going Westward the train I was in was made to traverse it at a snails pace, for fear of shaking it to pieces, but even with this caution it wavered & groaned alarmingly. On returning some weeks afterwards when the ice was hourly expected to break up, the train I recrossed it in was the last to used it. Again we traversed it, at a snails' pace, feeling our way as we went; again we heard the creaking, & saw the bending & swaying of the rickety? fabric, many fearing that this last journey wd be the one too many, & that it wd not be swept away by the ice, but shaken to pieces by use. In no other country wd so reckless a disregard of risks, imperilling life, be tolerated. But here neither the public, nor the contrivers of these risks, nor the possible or actual sufferers by them, appear to give these unclear a thought; or is they do, they probably regard them from the commercial point of view, that it wd to hard to interfere with any one who was endevouring to make money; & that the public ought to be left to decide for themselves whether it is, or is not worth their while to run the risks to which they are invited. The day after I left Cincinnati the Magnolia steamer blew up, & more than eighty lives were lost. About the same time some terrific