Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-07-08
Day cold and cloudy but without rain. I passed my time very quietly in reading at home, and in attending divine Worship. Heard Mr. Whitney. My life is if any thing still more quiet here than it used to be in town. I have no interruptions nor any of the anxiety which a family establishment of my own will necessarily give. The moment is exceedingly propitious for study, yet on the whole I have done little or nothing to answer for it. My time has been consumed by an article which appears to me tolerably indifferent. But now I feel at least as if something had been attempted, and I shall resume my regular studies 326with more satisfaction. I read today part of the report from Congress upon Steam Carriages, Roads, and Canals,1 and I continued Ludlow’s Memoirs that are amusing enough. The Child seemed somewhat better today.
In February the House of Representatives had ordered printed “the report of the committee of the British House of Commons on the application of steam carriages to common roads” and so much of the earlier printed report of its own Committee on Internal Improvements “as relates to the actual and relative utility and cost of railroads and canals” (
Register of Debates in Congress
, 8:1842). This document was published with the title, Report on Steam Carriages ... [with appended]Documents in Relation to the Comparative Merits of Canals and Railroads ... (22d Cong., 1st sess., House Exec. Docs., No. 101 [“Serial Set” No. 218]).