direct water route from Boston to New York by connecting Boston with the Connecticut River at this point. But the advent of railroads changed the whole system of travel and freight traffic. Springfield was transformed from a prosperous river-trading town to a railroad centre, and its growth was the more marked. When the steam roads came, the river trade began to decrease; and for years the Connecticut River has not borne a freight boat above Hartford.
      Springfield is a railroad centre of no mean importance. Five roads terminate at or run through the city. Three of these have double tracks; and the Boston and Albany is planning for four tracks from Albany to Boston. During the busy season, about one hundred and eighty passenger trains arrive at and leave the Union Station during the twenty-four hours. This is the intersection of the main lines from New York and the White Mountains, Boston and the West, and New York and Boston. Until four years ago, the Boston and Albany road crossed the city's main thoroughfare at grade. With all the trains passing on the railroad and thousands of teams and pedestrians crossing the tracks every day, not an accident of any importance is recorded. This was the result of constant and anxious care. But a grade crossing in such a place could not be longer tolerated. The magnificent new Union Station was built at an elevation, and the tracks carried across Main Street on an arch. The station and its approaches, the arch, walls, and embankments, required two years in building, and cost not far from $500,000. This Union Station is double, each side being equipped with all the needs of a railroad station, but the two fine granite buildings differing materially in architectural design. There is no finer railroad station in America, outside the great cities.
      The growth of the Springfield Street Railroad Company has been phenomenal. The company started in 1869 with a capital stock of $50,000; its total trackage was a little over two miles, and its rolling stock consisted of four cars, drawn by twenty-five horses. Ten years later the stock was increased to $100,000, with twenty-two cars, ninety-six horses, and about seven miles of track. Three years ago the entire line was equipped with electricity. Now, in the busy season, the daily mileage of transit on the thirty-five miles of tracks is equal to the distance from Springfield to San Francisco and half-way back. During the fiscal year closing Oct. 1, 1892, seven and one half million fares were taken. The improvement in transit is tending to extend the city. Running out for a distance of six or eight miles in three different directions, the roads make it possible for people to do business in the city and live outside.
      For a city of its size, Springfield has some very large stores. Haynes & Co.'s clothing house is the largest in the state outside of Boston. Meekins & Packard, Forbes & Wallace, and Smith & Murray are large dry-goods dealers. The first firm started in 1875, with only one boy to help them. At present their building consists of seven floors, a hundred feet square, and their employees number over two hundred. Forbes & Wallace's store is still larger. It may be wondered how three such establishments can prosper in a city of only fifty thousand inhabitantso but Springfield is the centre of a territory which contains several cities and large villages.
      While not a large manufacturing town, Springfield has some important establishments. The three most widely known are probably the Smith & Wesson Pistol Works, R. F. Hawkins's Iron Works, and the Wason Car Manufactory. The first began to manufacture revolvers in 1857. From the small beginning of seventy-five men, with an annual output of only a few thousands, the works have grown to be the largest of their kind on the globe, employing from four to five hundred men, with an annual output of over eighty thousand weapons. The "rim fire" metallic cartridge, used so generally throughout the world, was patented by Smith & Wesson, Aug. 8, 1854. Five years later they patented a revolver that was to use that kind of a cartridge. The pistols made by this firm are of a fine, order, and are used by the Russian and other governments. Hawkins's bridges and boilers are widely known. Many of the iron road and