The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

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PRIZE FOR BEST LOCOMOTIVE. 137
Britain and the United States, in the suhmission of their differ-
ences to' arbitration ; and not to expect to reform social evils by-
combinations designed to force either side into the acceptance of
unpalatable terms by the stern, logic of starvation and indiscrimi-
nate ruin.
" Reform, to be of any permanent value, must be based upon
personal virtue, not force ; and it seems to me that the millennium:
vdll not be far off when each individual shall set about reforming
himself, rather than society, and conforming his life to the great
law of loving God and his fellow-man.
" While I thank you again, my young Mends (I had almost
said my children), for this manifestation of your respect and grati-
tude, so touching because so full of love, let me ask you to accept
of this feeble but heart-felt reply, as a kind of last will and testament
of the garnered experience of an old friend, whose days are>
almost numbered, and who asks only to be remembered as ' one
who loved his fellow-men.'
CHAPTER XXVI.
PRIZE FOE BEST LOCOMOTIVE.
We will now resume our history of tlie early locomotives
in America, believing that our readers will par-:
don our digression.
As it may be interesting to railroad engineers and
machinists, we insert here the conditions required and
the premium offered by the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
road Company for the best locomotive of American;
manufacture, which were referred to in Mr. Latrobs's
letter to the author
:
" Office of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Compant,
" January 4, 1831.
" The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, being desirous
of obtaining a supply of locomotive-engines of American manufac-
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