Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/29

Rh impending catastrophe passed unheeded by the eyes and ears of those who were recklessly preparing it.

Who, indeed, could have foreseen the issue? Looking back upon events our blindness appears as insane as that of the man who should rear on his farm a litter of tigers. Yet history teaches that in all ages men have been sadly deficient in the prophetic instinct, and blind to all signs of the calamities they are bringing on themselves. When the bolt has fallen from the (to them) clear sky, then indeed all is plain enough.

The warnings to which I allude were of the following nature. On one occasion—and then on another and another in quick succession—-— [sic]it happened that a machine of some description, while fulfilling admirably the functions designed by its inventor, displayed powers or performed operations which that individual had certainly not contemplated. Thus, the newest class of locomotives were arranged to stop automatically whenever the signals were against them. But no provision has been made for a similar stoppage in presence of accidental obstructions. When therefore a railway train travelling at thirty-five