THREE:Doctor Bronson and our young friends went from Yokohama to the capital by the railway, and found the ride a pleasant one of about an hour's duration. They found that the conductors, ticket-sellers, brake-men, and all others with whom they came in contact were Japanese. For some time after the line was opened the management was in the hands of foreigners; but by degrees they were removed, and the Japanese took charge of the business, for which they had paid a liberal price. They have shown themselves fully competent to manage it, and the new system of travel is quite popular with the people. Three kinds of carriages are run on most of the trains; the first class is patronized by the high officials and the foreigners who have plenty of money; the second by the middle-class nativesofficial and otherwiseand foreigners whose purses are not plethorie; and the third class by the peasantry, and common people generally. Frank observed that there were few passengers in the first-class carriages, more in the second, and that the third class attracted a crowd,[Pg 102] and was evidently popular. The Doctor told him that the railway had been well patronized since the day it was first opened, and that the facilities of steam locomotion have not been confined to the eastern end of the empire. The experiment on the shores of Yeddo Bay proved so satisfactory that a line has since been opened from Kobe to Osaka and Kioto, in the Westa distance of a little more than fifty miles. The people take to it as kindly as did those of the East, and the third-class carriages are generally well filled.I pointed to the door he had softly closed behind him: "How is it in there?"
