Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Transportation Building Dedication Addresses [PAGE 25]

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Just at this time there transpired one of those materializations that now and then confound men prone to unbelief in anything not at the onset understandable. The first vehiold to move by head of steam on earth was brought forth by a man never heard of in the circles where the evolution of the engine engrossed men's minds, or, as a matter of fact, was it known by anybody, apparently, that such construction had been conceived, let alone really perfected. Coming as a bolt from a clear sky

there was no premonition of such a snorting, wheezy and altogether startling thing as one bright day in 1769 suddenly appeared upon the streets of Paris. With no source of impulsion the eye could discover and attended by noises and a vaporing utterly beyond the comprehension of the bewildered people, panic followed the strange course of the Satanic suggesting fabrication which, while evidencing a thrillingly mysterious ability to dash hither and thither of its own volition seemed to have no fixed will as to where it purposed going. From street to walk, butting corners here and knocking over what came in its way there, the infernal corporeality, as it was declared to be, ultimately came to a dead stop against the wall of the revered Church of the Madeleine. "Twas all over then with the avant-ooureur Not again would the offspring of his

of locomotion by steam*

brain be permitted to shock the finer sensibilities of the populace; yet, strange to ohfoniole, the antipathy was

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