Most of the adverts for stuff are towards the end.

The bit I wanted turned out to be a letter on page 243 urging the extension of the recently opened tunnel line under the city to what was then the docks area at Alfandega. It was wanted to go around the coast to Leixões. It was never built.

Elsewhere there are list of train times in Portugal (page 255) an article on p.244 concerning the railway inspired 'swindles' affecting the building of the Panama Canal (didn't open until 1914), brief mention of a study to extend the railway in the Algarve to Lagos (opened in 1922) , news of an extra train from Faro to Tavira on Sundays and Holidays leaving Tavira at 11.15am to Faro arriving at 12.38, then returning from  Faro at 5pm arriving in Tavira at 6.25 and stopping at many places long since vanished.

There is an item about the railways of New York, in which one can read the words 'sordid and repugnant'. Nothing new there then, but this refers to the smoke and soot generated by the steam locos still used on the elevated railways. The first subway line had opened only in the previous year, 1904, so the 'El' was still in full operation.

Lots of German firms advertising steam engines of 2700 horses, you can buy the new Oldsmobile runabout car for 950,000 Reis and the Anglo Portuguese Telephone Company was open for business in Lisbon and the surrounding an area. A 5 minute call would have cost you 100 Reis.

(The real (plural reis) was replaced by the escudo in 1911 at the order of the new republic. A million reis became 1000 escudos.)

Thus endeth the lesson.