die of disease or be killed as they walked the streets.  For these reasons the streets of the Northern cities were paved and lighted and were guarded by policemen.  Then, too, great sewers carried away the refuse of the city, and enormous iron pipes brought fresh water to every one within its limits.  Horse-cars and omnibuses carried its inhabitants from one part of the city to another, and the railroads brought them food from the surrounding country.

[Illustration:  AN OMNIBUS]

[Sidenote:  Growth of the railroad systems.]

366.  Transportation.—­Between 1849 and 1858 twenty-one thousand miles of railroad were built in the United States, In 1860 there were more than thirty thousand miles of railroad in actual operation.  In 1850 one could not go from New York to Albany without leaving the railroad and going on board a steamboat.  In 1860 one continuous line of rails ran from New York City to the Mississippi River.  Traveling was still uncomfortable according to our ideas.  The cars were rudely made and jolted horribly.  One train ran only a comparatively short distance.  Then the traveler had to alight, get something to eat, and see his baggage placed on another train.  Still, with all its discomforts, traveling in the worst of cars was better than traveling in the old stagecoaches.  Many more steamboats were used, especially on the Great Lakes and the Western rivers.

[Illustration:  HORACE GREELEY]

[Sidenote:  Schools.]

[Sidenote:  Newspapers.]

[Sidenote:  Horace Greeley.]

367.  Education.—­The last thirty years had also been years of progress in learning.  Many colleges were founded, especially in the Northwest.  There was still no institution which deserved the name of university.  But more attention was being paid to the sciences and to the education of men for the professions of law and medicine.  The newspapers also took on their modern form.  The New York Herald, founded in 1835, was the first real newspaper.  But the New York Tribune, edited by Horace Greeley, had more influence than any other paper in the country.  Greeley was odd in many ways, but he was one of the ablest men of the time.  He called for a liberal policy in the distribution of the public lands and was forever saying, “Go West, young man, go West.”  The magazines were now very much better than in former years, and America’s foremost writers were doing some of their best work.

[Illustration:  THE FIRST SEWING MACHINE.]

[Sidenote:  The telegraph.]

[Sidenote:  The Howe sewing machine.]

[Sidenote:  Agriculture machinery.]

[Sidenote:  Stagnation in the South.]