Note 118 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
A writer in one of the French journals, describing the passage of the first locomotive and train over the Mont Cenis, doubtless, having Switzerland and her legendary hero in his mind, says, that “the railway is laid on the system of the distinguished Swiss engineer, M. Guillaume Tell!” The Edinburgh Review, in 1865, described Mr. Fell as an American. He is, however, of English birth and of Saxon descent. In the course of an excellent description of the trial trip on the 26th of August, published in one of the London papers, reference is made to the railway over the Brenner, and the writer adds that, in point of precedence, the Austrian engineers had beaten their English confrères, but the printers, by omitting one letter, made it appear as if the Austrian engineers had eaten those of England!