Chapter IV: Part 4

Robert Stephenson, while engaged in the survey of the above line, encountered much opposition from landed proprietors. Many years after its completion, when recalling the past, he said:—“I remember that we called one day on Sir Astley Cooper, the eminent surgeon, in the hope of overcoming his aversion to the railway. He was one of our most inveterate and influential opponents. His country house at Berkhampstead was situated near the intended line, which passed through part of his property. We found a courtly, fine-looking old gentleman, of very stately manners, who received us kindly and heard all we had to say in favour of the project. But he was quite inflexible in his opposition to it. No deviation or improvement that we could suggest had any effect in conciliating him. He was opposed to railways generally, and to this in particular. ‘Your scheme,’ said he, ‘is preposterous in the extreme. It is of so extravagant a character as to be positively absurd. Then look at the recklessness of your proceedings! You are proposing to cut up our estates in all directions for the purpose of making an unnecessary road. Do you think, for one moment, of the destruction of property involved by it? Why, gentlemen, if this sort of thing be permitted to go on you will in a very few years _destroy the nobility_!’”

OPPOSITION TO MAKING SURVEYS.

A great deal of opposition was encountered in making the surveys for the London and Birmingham Railway, and although, in every case, as little damage was done as possible, simply because it was the interest of those concerned to conciliate all parties along the line, yet, in several instances, the opposition was of a most violent nature; in one case no skill or ingenuity could evade the watchfulness and determination of the lords of the soil, and the survey was at last accomplished at night by means of dark lanterns.

On another occasion, when Mr. Gooch was taking levels through some of the large tracts of grazing land, a few miles from London, two brothers, occupying the land came to him in a great rage, and insisted on his leaving their property immediately. He contrived to learn from them that the adjoining field was not theirs and he therefore remonstrated but very slightly with them, and then walked quietly through the gap in the hedge into the next field, and planted his level on the highest ground he could find—his assistant remaining at the last level station, distant about a hundred and sixty yards, apparently quite unconscious of what had taken place, although one of the brothers was moving very quickly towards him, for the purpose of sending him off. Now, if the assistant had moved his staff before Mr. Gooch had got his sight at it through the telescope of his level, all his previous work would have been completely lost, and the survey must have been completed in whatever manner it could have been done—the great object, however, was to prevent this serious inconvenience. The moment Mr. Gooch commenced looking through his telescope at the staff held by his assistant, the grazier nearest him, spreading out the tails of his coat, tried to place himself between the staff and the telescope, in order to intercept all vision, and at the same time commenced shouting violently to his comrade, desiring him to make haste and knock down the staff. Fortunately for Mr. Gooch, although nature had made this amiable being’s ears longer than usual, yet they performed their office very badly, and as he could not see distinctly what Mr. Gooch was about—the hedge being between them—he very simply asked the man at the staff what his (the enquirer’s) brother said. “Oh,” replied the man, “he is calling to you to stop that horse there which is galloping out of the fold yard.” Away went Clodpole, as fast as he could run, to restrain the unruly energies of Smolensko the Ninth, or whatever other name the unlucky quadruped might be called, and Mr. Gooch in the meanwhile quietly took the sight required—he having, with great judgment, planted his level on ground sufficiently high to enable him to see over the head of any grazier in the land; but his clever assistant, as soon as he perceived that all was right, had to take to his heels and make the shortest cut to the high road.

In another instance, a reverend gentleman of the Church of England made such alarming demonstrations of his opposition that the extraordinary expedient was resorted to of surveying his property during the time he was engaged in the pulpit, preaching to his flock. This was accomplished by having a strong force of surveyors all in readiness to commence their operations, by entering the clergyman’s grounds on the one side at the same moment that they saw him fairly off them on the other, and, by a well organised and systematic arrangement, each man coming to a conclusion with his allotted task just as the reverend gentleman came to a conclusion with his sermon; and before he left the church to return to his home, the deed was done.

—Roscoe’s _London and Birmingham Railway_.

SANITARY OBJECTIONS.

Mr. Smiles, in his _Life of George Stephenson_, remarks:—“Sanitary objections were also urged in opposition to railways, and many wise doctors strongly inveighed against tunnels. Sir Anthony Carlisle insisted that “tunnels would expose healthy people to colds, catarrhs, and consumption.” The noise, the darkness, and the dangers of tunnel travelling were depicted in all their horrors. Worst of all, however, was ‘the destruction of the atmospheric air,’ as Dr. Lardner termed it. Elaborate calculations were made by that gentleman to prove that the provision of ventilating shafts would be altogether insufficient to prevent the dangers arising from the combustion of coke, producing carbonic acid gas, which in large quantities was fatal to life. He showed, for instance, that in the proposed Box tunnel, on the Great Western Railway, the passage of 100 tons would deposit about 3090 lbs. of noxious gases, incapable of supporting life! Here was an uncomfortable prospect of suffocation for passengers between London and Bristol. But steps were adopted to allay these formidable sources of terror. Solemn documents, in the form of certificates, were got up and published, signed by several of the most distinguished physicians of the day, attesting the perfect wholesomeness of tunnels, and the purity of the air in them. Perhaps they went further than was necessary in alleging, what certainly subsequent experience has not verified, that the atmosphere of the tunnel was ‘dry, of an agreeable temperature, and free from smell.’ Mr. Stephenson declared his conviction that a tunnel twenty miles long could be worked safely and without more danger to life than a railway in the open air; but, at the same time, he admits that tunnels were nuisances, which he endeavoured to avoid wherever practicable.”

ELEVATED RAILWAYS.

In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for June, 1830, it is stated:—“There are at present exhibiting in Edinburgh three large models, accompanied with drawings of railways and their carriages, invented by Mr. Dick, who has a patent. These railways are of a different nature from those hitherto in use, inasmuch as they are not laid along the surface of the ground, but elevated to such a height as, when necessary, to pass over the tops of houses and trees. The principal supports are of stone, and, being placed at considerable distances, have cast-iron pillars between them. The carriages are to be dragged along with a velocity hitherto unparalleled, by means of a rope drawn by a steam engine or other prime mover, a series being placed at intervals along the railway. From the construction of the railway and carriages the friction is very small.”

EVIDENCE OF A GENERAL SALESMAN.

The advantages London derives from railways, in regard to its supply of good meat, may be gathered from the evidence given by Mr. George Rowley in 1834, on behalf of the Great Western Railway Company.

“You have been a general salesman of live and dead stock of all descriptions in Newgate Market 32 years?”—“Yes.”

“What is about the annual amount of your sales?”—“I turn over £300,000 in a year.”

“Would a railway that facilitated the communication between London and Bristol be an advantage to your business?”—“I think it would be a special advantage to London altogether.”

“In what way?”—“The facility of having goods brought in reference to live stock is very important; I have been in the habit of paying Mr. Bowman, of Bristol, £1,000 a-week for many weeks; that has been for sending live hogs to me to be sold, to be slaughtered in London; and I have, out of that £1,000 a-week as many as 40 or 50 pigs die on the road, and they have sold for little or nothing. The exertion of the pigs kills them.”

“The means of conveying pigs on a railway would be a great advantage?”—“Yes, as far as having the pigs come good to market, without being subject to a distemper that creates fever, and they die as red as that bag before you, and when they are killed in good health they die a natural colour.”

“Then do I understand you that those who are fortunate enough to survive the journey are the worse for it?”—“Yes, in weight.”

“And in quality?”—“Yes! All meat killed in the country, and delivered in the London market dead, in a good state, will make from 6d. to 8d. a stone more than what is slaughtered in London.”

THE ANXIOUS HAIR-DRESSER.

“Clanwilliam mentioned this evening an incident which proves the wonderful celerity of the railroads. Mr. Isidore, the Queen’s coiffeur, who receives £2,000 a year for dressing Her Majesty’s hair twice-a-day, had gone to London in the morning to return to Windsor in time for her toilet; but on arriving at the station he was just five minutes too late, and saw the train depart without him. His horror was great, as he knew that his want of punctuality would deprive him of his place, as no train would start for the next two hours. The only resource was to order a special train, for which he was obliged to pay £18; but the establishment feeling the importance of his business, ordered extra steam to be put on, and convoyed the anxious hair-dresser 18 miles in 18 minutes, which extricated him from all his difficulties.”

_Raike’s Diary from_ 1831 _to_ 1847.

SHARP PRACTICE.

Sir Francis Head, Bart., in his _Stokers and Pokers_, remarks:—“During the construction of the present London and North Western Railway, a landlady at Hillmorton, near Rugby, of very sharp practice, which she had imbibed in dealings for many years with canal boatmen, was constantly remarking aloud that no navvy should ever “do” her; and although the railway was in her immediate neighbourhood, and although the navvies were her principal customers, she took pleasure on every opportunity in repeating the invidious remark.

“It had, however, one fine morning scarcely left her large, full-blown, rosy lips, when a fine-looking young fellow, walking up to her, carrying in both hands a huge stone bottle, commonly called a ‘grey-neck,’ briefly asked her for ‘half a gallon of gin;’ which was no sooner measured and poured in than the money was rudely demanded before it could be taken away.

“On the navvy declining to pay the exorbitant price asked, the landlady, with a face like a peony, angrily told him he must either pay for the gin or _instantly_ return it.

“He silently chose the latter, and accordingly, while the eyes of his antagonist were wrathfully fixed upon his, he returned into her measure the half gallon, and then quietly walked off; but having previously put into his grey-neck half a gallon of water, each party eventually found themselves in possession of half a gallon of gin and water; and, however either may have enjoyed the mixture, it is historically recorded at Hillmorton that the landlady was never again heard unnecessarily to boast that no navvy could _do_ her.”

A NAVVY’S REASON FOR NOT GOING TO CHURCH.

A navvy at Kilsby, being asked why he did not go to church? duly answered in geological language—“_Why_, _Soonday hasn’t cropped out here yet_!” By which he meant that the clergyman appointed to the new village had not yet arrived.

SNAKES’ HEADS.

One of the earliest forms of rails used by the Americans consisted of a flat bar half-an-inch thick spiked down to longitudinal timbers. In the process of running the train, the iron was curved, the spikes loosened, and the ends of the bars turned up, and were known by the name of snakes’ heads. Occasionally they pierced the bottoms of the carriages and injured passengers, and it was no uncommon thing to hear passengers speculate as to which line they would go by, as showing fewest snakes’ heads.

PREJUDICE REMOVED.

Mr. William Reed, a land agent, was called, in 1834, to give evidence in favour of the Great Western Railway. He was questioned as to the benefits conferred upon the localities passed through by the Manchester and Liverpool Railway. He was asked, “From your knowledge of the property in the neighbourhood, can you say that the houses have not decreased in value?” “Yes; I know an instance of a gentleman who had a house very near, and, though he quarrelled very much with the Company when they came there, and said, ‘Very well, if you will come let me have a high wall to keep you out of sight,’ and a year-and-a-half ago he petitioned the Company to take down the wall, and he has put up an iron railing, so that he may see them.”

A RIDE FROM BOSTON TO PROVIDENCE IN 1835.

The early railway enterprise in America was not regarded by all persons with feelings of unmixed satisfaction. Thus we read of the railway journey taken by a gentleman of the old school, whose experience and sensations—if not very satisfactory to himself—are worth recording:—“July 22, 1835.—This morning at nine o’clock I took passage in a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or six other cars were attached to the locomotive, and uglier boxes I do not wish to travel in. They were made to stow away some thirty human beings, who sit cheek by jowl as best they can. Two poor fellows who were not much in the habit of making their toilet squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew from their garments a villanous compound of smells made up of salt fish, tar, and molasses. By and bye, just twelve—only twelve—bouncing factory girls were introduced, who were going on a party of pleasure to Newport. ‘Make room for the ladies!’ bawled out the superintendent, ‘Come, gentlemen, jump up on the top; plenty of room there.’ ‘I’m afraid of the bridge knocking my brains out,’ said a passenger. Some made one excuse and some another. For my part, I flatly told him that since I had belonged to the corps of Silver Greys I had lost my gallantry, and did not intend to move. The whole twelve were, however, introduced, and soon made themselves at home, sucking lemons and eating green apples. . . The rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern improvement of travelling. The consequence is a complete amalgamation. Master and servant sleep heads and points on the cabin floor of the steamer, feed at the same table, sit in each other’s laps, as it were, in the cars; and all this for the sake of doing very uncomfortably in two days what would be done delightfully in eight or ten. Shall we be much longer kept by this toilsome fashion of hurrying, hurrying, from starting (those who can afford it) on a journey with our own horses, and moving slowly, surely, and profitably through the country, with the power of enjoying its beauty, and be the means of creating good inns. Undoubtedly, a line of post-horses and post-chaises would long ago have been established along our great roads had not steam monopolized everything. . . . Talk of ladies on board a steamboat or in a railroad car. There are none! I never feel like a gentleman there, and I cannot perceive a semblance of gentility in any one who makes part of the travelling mob. When I see women whom, in their drawing rooms or elsewhere, I have been accustomed to respect and treat with every suitable deference—when I see them, I say, elbowing their way through a crowd of dirty emigrants or lowbred homespun fellows in petticoats or breeches in our country, in order to reach a table spread for a hundred or more, I lose sight of their pretensions to gentility and view them as belonging to the plebeian herd. To restore herself to her caste, let a lady move in select company at five miles an hour, and take her meals in comfort at a good inn, where she may dine decently. . . . After all, the old-fashioned way of five or six miles, with liberty to dine in a decent inn and be master of one’s movements, with the delight of seeing the country and getting along rationally, is the mode to which I cling, and which will be adopted again by the generations of after times.”

—_Recollections of Samuel Breck_.

APPEALING TO THE CLERGY.

Mr. C. F. Adams remarks:—“During the periods of discouragement which, a few years later, marked certain stages of the construction of the Western road, connecting Worcester with Albany—when both money and courage seemed almost exhausted—Mr. De Grand never for a moment faltered. He might almost be said to have then had Western railroad on the brain. Among other things, he issued a circular which caused much amusement and not improbably some scandal among the more precise. The Rev. S. K. Lothrop, then a young man, had preached a sermon in Brattle Street Church which attracted a good deal of attention, on the subject of the moral and Christianizing influence of railroads. Mr. De Grand thought he saw his occasion, and he certainly availed himself of it. He at once had a circular printed, a copy of which he sent to every clergyman in Massachusetts, suggesting the propriety of a discourse on ‘The moral and Christianizing influence of railroads in general and of the Western railroad in particular.’”

AIR-WAYS INSTEAD OF RAILWAYS.

In the _Mechanics’ Magazine_ for July 22nd, 1837, is to be found the following remarkable suggestion:—“In many parts of the new railroads, where there has been some objection to the locomotive engines, stationary ones are resorted to, as everyone knows to draw the vehicles along. Why might not these vehicles be balloons? Why, instead of being dragged on the surface of the ground, along costly viaducts or under disagreeable tunnels, might they not travel two or three hundred feet high? By balloons, I mean, of course, anything raised in the air by means of a gas lighter than the air. They might be of all shapes and sizes to suit convenience. The practicability of this plan does not seem to be doubtful. Its advantages are obvious. Instead of having to purchase, as for a railway, the whole line of track passed over, the company for a balloon-way would only have to procure those spots of ground on which they proposed to erect stationary engines; and these need in no case be of peculiar value, since their being a hundred yards one way or the other would make little difference. Viaducts of course would never be necessary, cuttings in very few occasions indeed, if at all. The chief expense of balloons is their inflation, which is renewed at every new ascent; but in these balloons the gas once in need never to be let out, and one inflation would be enough.”

The same writer a few years later on observes:—“One feature of the air-way to supersede the railway would be, that besides preventing the destruction of the architectural beauties of the metropolis, now menaced by the multitudinous network of viaducts and subways at war with the existing thoroughfares, it would occasion the construction of numerous lofty towers as stations of arrival and departure, which would afford an opportunity of architectural effect hitherto undreamed of.”

PREJUDICE AGAINST CARRYING COALS BY RAILWAYS.

Rev. F. S. Williams in an article upon “Railway Revolutions,” remarks:—“When railways were first established it was never imagined that they would be so far degraded as to carry coals; but George Stephenson and others soon saw how great a service railways might render in developing and distributing the mineral wealth of the country. Prejudice had, however, to be timidly and vigorously overcome. When it was mentioned to a certain eminent railway authority that George Stephenson had spoken of sending coals by railway: ‘Coals!’ he exclaimed, ‘they will want us to carry dung next.’ The remark was reported to ‘Old George,’ who was not behind his critic in the energy of his expression. ‘You tell B—,’ he said, ‘that when he travels by railway, they carry dung now!’ The strength of the feeling against the traffic is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that, when the London and Birmingham Railway began to carry coal, the wagons that contained it were sheeted over that their contents might not be seen; and when a coal wharf was first made at Crick station, a screen was built to hide the work from the observation of passengers on the line. Even the possibility of carrying coal at a remunerative price was denied. ‘I am very sorry,’ said Lord Eldon, referring to this subject, ‘to find the intelligent people of the north country gone mad on the subject of railways;’ and another eminent authority declared: ‘It is all very well to spend money; it will do some good; but I will eat all the coals your railway will carry.’

“George Stephenson, however, and other friends of coal, held on their way; and he declared that the time would come when London would be supplied with coal by railway. ‘The strength of Britain,’ he said, ‘is in her coal beds; and the locomotive is destined, above all other agencies, to bring it forth. The Lord Chancellor now sits upon a bag of wool; but wool has long ceased to be emblematical of the staple commodity of England. He ought rather to sit upon a bag of coals, though it might not prove quite so comfortable a seat. Then think of the Lord Chancellor being addressed as the noble and learned lord on the coal-sack? I’m afraid it wouldn’t answer, after all.’”

AN EPITAPH ON THE VICTIM OF A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

A correspondent writes to the _Pall Mall Gazette_:—“Our poetic literature, so rich in other respects, is entirely wanting in epitaphs on the victims of railway accidents. A specimen of what may be turned in this line is to be seen on a tombstone in the picturesque churchyard of Harrow-on-the-Hill. It was, I observe, written as long ago as 1838, so that it can be reproduced without much danger of hurting the feelings of those who may have known and loved the subject of this touching elegy. The name of the victim was Port, and the circumstances of his death are thus set forth:—

Bright was the morn, and happy rose poor Port;
Gay on the train he used his wonted sport.
Ere noon arrived his mangled form they bore
With pain distorted and overwhelmed with gore.
When evening came and closed the fatal day,
A mutilated corpse the sufferer lay.”

AN ENGINE-DRIVER’S EPITAPH.

In the cemetery at Alton, Illinois, there is a tombstone bearing the following inscription:—

“My engine is now cold and still.
No water does my boiler fill.
My coke affords its flame no more,
My days of usefulness are o’er;
My wheels deny their noted speed,
No more my guiding hand they heed;
My whistle—it has lost its tone,
Its shrill and thrilling sound is gone;
My valves are now thrown open wide,
My flanges all refuse to glide;
My clacks—alas! though once so strong,
Refuse their aid in the busy throng;
No more I feel each urging breath,
My steam is now condensed in death;
Life’s railway o’er, each station past,
In death I’m stopped, and rest at last.”

This epitaph was written by an engineer on the old Chicago and Mississippi Railroad, who was fatally injured by an accident on the road; and while he lay awaiting the death which he knew to be inevitable, he wrote the lines which are engraved upon his tombstone.

TRAFFIC-TAKING.

Between the years 1836 and 1839, when there were many railway acts applied for, traffic-taking became a lucrative calling. It was necessary that some approximate estimate should be made as to the income which the lines might be expected to yield. Arithmeticians, who calculated traffic receipts, were to be found to prove what promoters of railways required to satisfy shareholders and Parliamentary Committees. The Eastern Counties Railway was estimated to pay a dividend of 23½ per cent.; the London and Cambridge, 14½ per cent.; the Sheffield and Manchester, 18½ per cent. One shareholder of this company was so sanguine as to the success of the line that in a letter to the _Railway Magazine_ he calculated on a dividend of 80 per cent. Bitter indeed must have been the disappointment of those railway shareholders who pinned their faith to the estimates of traffic-takers, when instead of receiving large dividends, little was received, and in some instances the lines paid no dividend at all.

MONEY LOST AND FOUND.

On Friday night, a servant of the Birmingham Railway Company found in one of the first-class carriages, after the passengers had left, a pocket book containing a check on a London Bank for £2,000 and £2,500 in bank notes. He delivered the book and its contents to the principal officer, and it was forwarded to the gentleman to whom it belonged, his address being discovered from some letters in the pocket book. He had gone to bed, and risen and dressed himself next morning without discovering his loss, which was only made known by the restoration of the property. He immediately tendered £20 to the party who had found his money, but this being contrary to the regulations of the directors, the party, though a poor man, could not receive the reward. As the temptation, however, was so great to apply the money to his own use, the matter is to be brought before a meeting of the directors.

—_Aris’s Gazette_, 1839.

ORIGIN OF COOK’S RAILWAY EXCURSIONS.

Mr. Thomas Cook, the celebrated excursionist, in an article in the _Leisure Hour_ remarks:—“As a pioneer in a wide field of thought and action, my course can never be repeated. It has been mine to battle against inaugural difficulties, and to place the system on a basis of consolidated strength. It was mine to lay the foundations of a system on which others, both individuals and companies, have builded, and there is not a phase of the tourist plans of Europe and America that was not embodied in my plans or foreshadowed in my ideas. The whole thing seemed to come to me as by intuition, and my spirit recoiled at the idea of imitation.

“The beginning was very small, and was on this wise. I believe that the Midland Railway from Derby to Rugby _via_ Leicester was opened in 1840. At that time I knew but little of railways, having only travelled over the Leicester and Swannington line from Leicester to Long Lane, a terminus near to the Leicestershire collieries. The reports in the papers of the opening of the new line created astonishment in Leicestershire, and I had read of an interchange of visits between the Leicester and Nottingham Mechanics’ Institutes. I was an enthusiastic temperance man, and the secretary of a district association, which embraced parts of the two counties of Leicester and Northampton. A great meeting was to be held at Leicester, over which Lawrence Heyworth, Esq., of Liverpool—a great railway as well as temperance man—was advertised to preside. From my residence at Market Harborough I walked to Leicester (fifteen miles) to attend that meeting. About midway between Harborough and Leicester—my mind’s eye has often reverted to the spot—a thought flashed through my brain, what a glorious thing it would be if the newly-developed powers of railways and locomotion could be made subservient to the promotion of temperance. That thought grew upon me as I travelled over the last six or eight miles. I carried it up to the platform, and, strong in the confidence of the sympathy of the chairman, I broached the idea of engaging a special train to carry the friends of temperance from Leicester to Loughborough and back to attend a quarterly delegate meeting appointed to be held there in two or three weeks following. The chairman approved, the meeting roared with excitement, and early next day I proposed my grand scheme to John Fox Bell, the resident secretary of the Midland Counties Railway Company. Mr. Paget, of Loughborough, opened his park for a gala, and on the day appointed about five hundred passengers filled some twenty or twenty-five open carriages—they were called ‘tubs’ in those days—and the party rode the enormous distance of eleven miles and back for a shilling, children half-price. We carried music with us, and music met us at the Loughborough station. The people crowded the streets, filled windows, covered the house-tops, and cheered us all along the line, with the heartiest welcome. All went off in the best style and in perfect safety we returned to Leicester; and thus was struck the keynote of my excursions, and the social idea grew upon me.”

THE DEODAND.

It was a principle of English common law derived from the feudal period, that anything through the instrumentality of which death occurred was forfeited to the crown as a deodand; accordingly down to the year 1840 and even later, we find, in all cases where persons were killed, records of deodands levied by the coroners’ juries upon locomotives. These appear to have been arbitrarily imposed and graduated in amount accordingly as circumstances seemed to excite in greater or less degree the sympathies or the indignation of the jury. In November, 1838, for instance, a locomotive exploded upon the Liverpool and Manchester line, killing its engineer and fireman; and for this escapade a deodand of twenty pounds was assessed upon it by the coroner’s jury; while upon another occasion, in 1839, when the locomotive struck and killed a man and horse at a street crossing, the deodand was fixed at no less a sum than fourteen hundred pounds, the full value of the engine. Yet in this last case there did not appear to be any circumstances rendering the company liable in civil damages. The deodand seems to have been looked upon as a species of rude penalty imposed on the use of dangerous appliances, a sharp reminder to the companies to look sharply after their locomotives and employés. Thus upon the 24th of December, 1841, on the Great Western Railway, a train, while moving through a thick fog at a high rate of speed, came suddenly in contact with a mass of earth which had slid from the embankment at the side on to the track. Instantly the whole rear of the train was piled up on the top of the first carriage, which happened to be crowded with passengers, eight of whom were killed on the spot, while seventeen others were more or less injured. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of accidental death, and at the same time, as if to give the company a forcible hint to look closer to the condition of its embankment, a deodand of one hundred pounds was levied on the locomotive and tender.

AN UNFORTUNATE DISCUSSION.

Two gentlemen sitting opposite each other in a railway carriage got into a political argument; one was elderly and a staunch Conservative, the other was young and an ultra-Radical. It may be readily conceived that, as the argument went on, the abuse became fast and furious; all sorts of unpleasant phrases and epithets were bandied about, personalities were freely indulged in, and the other passengers were absolutely compelled to interfere to prevent a _fracas_. At the end of the journey the disputants parted in mutual disgust, and looking unutterable things. It so happened that the young man had a letter of introduction to an influential person in the neighbourhood respecting a legal appointment which was then vacant, which the young man desired to obtain, and which the elderly gentleman had the power to secure. The young petitioner, first going to his hotel and making himself presentable, sallied forth on his errand. He reached the noble mansion of the person to whom his letter of introduction was addressed, was ushered into an ante-room, and there awaited, with mingled hope and fear, the all-important interview. After a few minutes the door opened and, horrible to relate! he who entered was the young man’s travelling opponent, and thus the opponents of an hour since stood face to face. The confusion and humiliation on the one side, and the hauteur and coldness on the other, may be readily imagined. Sir Edward C—, however—for such he was—although he instantly recognized his recent antagonist, was too well-bred to make any allusion to the transaction. He took the letter of introduction in silence, read it, folded it up, and returned it to the presenter with a bitter smile and the following speech: “Sir, I am infinitely obliged to my friend, Mr. —, for recommending to my notice a gentleman whom he conceives to be so well fitted for the vacant post as yourself; but permit me to say that, inasmuch as the office you are desirous to fill exists upon a purely Conservative tenure, and can only be appropriately administered by a person of Conservative tendency, I could not think of doing such violence to your well-known political principles as to recommend you for the post in question.” With these words and another smile more grim than before, Sir Edward C— bowed the chapfallen petitioner out, and he quickly took his way to the railway station, secretly vowing never again to enter into political argument with an unknown railway traveller.

—_The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book_.

DOG TICKET.

Shortly after telegraphs were laid alongside of railways, a principal officer of a railway company got into a compartment of a stopping train at an intermediate station. The train had hardly left, when an elderly gentleman, in terms of endearment, invited what turned out to be a little Skye terrier to come out of its concealment under the seat. The dog came out, jumped up, and appeared to enjoy his journey until the speed of the train slackened previous to stopping at a station, the dog then instinctively retreated to its hiding place, and came out again in due course after the train had started. The officer of the company left the train at a station or two afterwards. On its arrival at the London ticket platform the gentleman delivered up the tickets for his party. “Dog ticket, sir, please.” “Dog ticket, what dog ticket?” “Ticket, sir, for Skye terrier, black and tan, with his ears nearly over his eyes; travelling, for comfort’s sake, under the seat opposite to you, sir, in a large carpet bag, red ground with yellow cross-bars.” The gentleman found resistance useless; he paid the fare demanded, when the ticket-collector—who throughout the scene had never changed a muscle—handed him a ticket that he had prepared beforehand. “Dog ticket, sir; gentlemen not allowed to travel with a dog without a dog ticket; you will have to give it up in London.” “Yes, but how did you know I had a dog? That’s what puzzles me!” “Ah, sir,” said the ticket-collector, relaxing a little, but with an air of satisfaction, “the telegraph is laid on our railway. Them’s the wires you see on the outside; we find them very useful in our business, etc. Thank you, sir, good morning.” It is needless to tell what part the principal officer played in this little drama. On arrival in London the dog ticket was duly claimed, a little word to that effect having been sent up by a previous train to be sure to have it demanded, although, as a usual practice, dog tickets are collected at the same time as those of passengers.

—_Roney’s Rambles on Railways_.

THE ELECTRIC CONSTABLE.

The first application of the telegraph to police purposes took place in 1844, on the Great Western Railway, and, as it was the first intimation thieves got of the electric constable being on duty, it is full of interest. The following extracts are from the telegraph book kept at the Paddington Station:—

“Eton Montem Day, August 28, 1844.—The Commissioners of Police having issued orders that several officers of the detective force shall be stationed at Paddington to watch the movements of suspicious persons, going by the down train, and give notice by the electric telegraph to the Slough station of the number of such suspected persons, and dress, their names (if known), also the carriages in which they are.”

Now come the messages following one after the other, and influencing the fate of the marked individuals with all the celerity, certainty, and calmness of the Nemesis of the Greek drama:—

“Paddington, 10.20 a.m.—Mail train just started. It contains three thieves, named Sparrow, Burrell, and Spurgeon, in the first compartment of the fourth first-class carriage.”

“Slough, 10.50 a.m.—Mail train arrived. _The officers have cautioned the three thieves_.”

“Paddington, 10.50 a.m.—Special train just left. It contained two thieves; one named Oliver Martin, who is dressed in black, _crape on his hat_; the other named Fiddler Dick, in black trousers and light blouse. Both in the third compartment of the first second-class carriage.”

“Slough, 11.16 a.m.—Special train arrived. Officers have taken the two thieves into custody, a lady having lost her bag, containing a purse with two sovereigns and some silver in it; one of the sovereigns was sworn to by the lady as having been her property. It was found in Fiddler Dick’s watch fob.”

It appears that, on the arrival of the train, a policeman opened the door of the “third compartment of the first second-class carriage,” and asked the passengers if they had missed anything? A search in pockets and bags accordingly ensued, until one lady called out that her purse was gone.

“Fiddler Dick, you are wanted,” was the immediate demand of the police officer, beckoning to the culprit, who came out of the carriage thunder-struck at the discovery, and gave himself up, together with the booty, with the air of a completely beaten man. The effect of the capture so cleverly brought about is thus spoken of in the telegraph book:—

“Slough, 11.51 a.m.—Several of the suspected persons who came by the various down-trains are lurking about Slough, uttering bitter invectives against the telegraph. Not one of those cautioned has ventured to proceed to the Montem.”

RUNAWAY MATCH.

Sir Francis Head in his account of the London and North-Western Railway remarks:—“During a marriage which very lately took place at —, one of the bridesmaids was so deeply affected by the ceremony that she took the opportunity of the concentrated interest excited by the bride to elope from church with an admirer. The instant her parents discovered their sad loss, messengers were sent to all the railway stations to stop the fugitives. The telegraph also went to work, and with such effect that, before night, no less than four affectionate couples legitimately married that morning were interrupted on their several marriage jaunts and most seriously bothered, inconvenienced, and impeded by policemen and magistrates.”

A RAILWAY ROMANCE.

An incident of an amusing though of a rather serious nature occurred some years ago on the London and South-Western Railway. A gentleman, whose place of residence was Maple Derwell, near Basingstoke, got into a first-class carriage at the Waterloo terminus, with the intention of proceeding home by one of the main line down trains. His only fellow-passengers in the compartment were a lady and an infant, and another gentleman, and thus things remained until the arrival of the train at Walton, where the other gentleman left the carriage, leaving the first gentleman with the lady and child. Shortly after this the train reached the Weybridge station, and on its stopping the lady, under the pretence of looking for her servant or carriage, requested her male fellow-passenger to hold the infant for a few minutes while she went to search for what she wanted. The bell rang for the starting of the train and the gentleman thus strangely left with the baby began to get rather fidgety, and anxious to return his charge to the mother. The lady, however, did not again put in any appearance, and the train went on without her, the child remaining with the gentleman, who, on arriving at his destination took the child home to his wife and explained the circumstance under which it came into his possession. No application has, at present, it is understood, been made for the “lost child,” which has for the nonce been adopted by the gentleman and his wife, who, it is said, are without any family of their own.

GIGANTIC POWER OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES.

Sir Francis Head remarks:—“The gigantic power of the locomotive engines hourly committed to the charge of these drivers was lately strangely exemplified in the large engine stable at the Camden Station. A passenger engine, whose furnace-fire had but shortly been lighted, was standing in this huge building surrounded by a number of artificers, who, in presence of the chief superintendent, were working in various directions around it. While they were all busily occupied, the fire in the furnace—by burning up faster than was expected—suddenly imparted to the engine the breath of life; and no sooner had the minimum of steam necessary to move it been thus created, than this infant Hercules not only walked _off_, but without the smallest embarrassment walked _through_ the 14-inch brick wall of the great building which contained it, to the terror of the superintendent and workmen, who expected every instant that the roof above their heads would fall in and extinguish them. In consequence of the spindle of the regulator having got out of its socket the very same accident occurred shortly afterwards with another engine, which, in like manner, walked through another portion of this 14-inch wall of the stable that contained it, just as a thorough-bred horse would have walked out of the door. And if such be the irresistible power of the locomotive engine when feebly walking in its new-born state, unattended or unassisted even by its tender, is it not appalling to reflect what must be its momentum when, in the full vigour of its life, it is flying down a steep gradient at the rate of 50 miles an hour, backed up by, say, 30 passenger carriages, each weighing on an average 5½ tons? If ordinary houses could suddenly be placed in its path, it would, passengers and all, run through them as a musket-ball goes through a keg of butter; but what would be the result if, at this full speed, the engine by any accident were to be diverted against a mass of solid rock, such as sometimes is to be seen at the entrance of a tunnel, it is impossible to calculate or even to conjecture. It is stated by the company’s superintendent, who witnessed the occurrence, that some time ago an ordinary accident happening to a luggage train near Loughborough, the wagons overrode each other until the uppermost one was found piled 40 feet above the rails!”

NOVEL NOTICE TO DEFAULTING SHAREHOLDERS.

In the early days of railway enterprise there was often much difficulty in obtaining the punctual payment of calls from the shareholders. The Leicester and Swannington line was thus troubled. The Secretary, adopting a rather novel way to collect the calls, wrote to the defaulters:—“I am therefore necessitated to inform you, that unless the sum of £2 is paid on or before the 22nd instant, your name will be furnished to one of the principal and most pressing creditors of the company.” The missives of the Secretary generally had the desired effect.

A QUICK DECISION.

The elder Brunel was habitually absent in society, but no man was more remarkable for presence of mind in an emergency. Numerous instances are recorded of this latter quality, but none more striking than that of his adventure in the act of inspecting the Birmingham Railway. Suddenly in a confined part of the road a train was seen approaching from either end of the line, and at a speed which it was difficult to calculate. The spectators were horrified; there was not an instant to be lost; but an instant sufficed to the experienced engineer to determine the safest course under the circumstances. Without attempting to cross the road, which would have been almost certain destruction, he at once took his position exactly midway between the up and down lines, and drawing the skirts of his coat close around him, allowed the two trains to sweep past him; when to the great relief of those who witnessed the exciting scene, he was found untouched upon the road. Without the engineer’s experience which enabled him to form so rapid a decision, there can be no doubt that he must have perished.

—_The Temple Anecdotes_.

THE VERSAILLES ACCIDENT IN 1842.

Mr. Charles F. Adams thus describes it:—“On the 8th of May, 1842, there happened in France one of the most famous and horrible railroad slaughters ever recorded. It was the birthday of the king, Louis Phillipe, and, in accordance with the usual practice, the occasion had been celebrated at Versailles by a great display of the fountains. At half-past five o’clock these had stopped playing, and a general rush ensued for the trains then about to leave for Paris. That which went by the road along the left bank of the Seine was densely crowded, and was so long that it required two locomotives to draw it. As it was moving at a high rate of speed between Bellevue and Menden, the axle of the foremost of these two locomotives broke, letting the body of the engine drop to the ground. It instantly stopped, and the second locomotive was then driven by its impetus on top of the first, crushing its engineer and fireman, while the contents of both the fire-boxes were scattered over the roadway and among the _debris_. Three carriages crowded with passengers were then piled on top of this burning mass, and there crushed together into each other. The doors of the train were all locked, as was then, and indeed is still, the custom in Europe, and it so chanced that the carriages had all been newly painted. They blazed up like pine kindlings. Some of the carriages were so shattered that a portion of those in them were enabled to extricate themselves, but no less than forty were held fast; and of these such as were not so fortunate as to be crushed to death in the first shock perished hopelessly in the flames before the eyes of a throng of impotent lookers-on. Some fifty-two or fifty-three persons were supposed to have lost their lives in this disaster, and more than forty others were injured; the exact number of the killed, however, could never be ascertained, as the telescoping of the carriages on top of the two locomotives had made of the destroyed portion of the train a visible holocaust of the most hideous description. Not only did whole families perish together—in one case no less than eleven members of the same family sharing a common fate—but the remains of such as were destroyed could neither be identified nor separated. In one case a female foot was alone recognisable, while in others the bodies were calcined and fused into an undistinguishable mass. The Academy of Sciences appointed a committee to inquire whether Admiral D’Urville, a distinguished French navigator, was among the victims. His body was thought to be found, but it was so terribly mutilated that it could be recognized only by a sculptor, who chanced some time before to have taken a phrenological cast of his skull. His wife and only son had perished with him.

“It is not easy now to conceive the excitement and dismay which this catastrophe caused throughout France. The new invention was at once associated in the minds of an excitable people with novel forms of imminent death. France had at best been laggard enough in its adoption of the new appliance, and now it seemed for a time as if the Versailles disaster was to operate as a barrier in the way of all further railroad development. Persons availed themselves of the steam roads already constructed as rarely as possible, and then in fear and trembling, while steps were taken to substitute horse for steam power on other roads then in process of construction.”

AN AMATEUR SIGNALMAN.

Mr. Williams in his book, _Our Iron Roads_, gives an account of a foolish act of signalling to stop a train; he says:—“An Irishman, who appears to have been in some measure acquainted with the science of signalling, was on one occasion walking along the Great Western line without permission, when he thought he might reduce his information to practical use. Accordingly, on seeing an express train approach, he ran a short distance up the side of the cutting, and began to wave a handkerchief very energetically, which he had secured to a stick, as a signal to stop. The warning was not to be disregarded, and never was command obeyed with greater alacrity. The works of the engine were reversed—the tender and van breaks were applied—and soon, to the alarm of the passengers, the train came to a ‘dead halt.’ A hundred heads were thrust out of the carriage windows, and the guard had scarcely time to exclaim, ‘What’s the matter?’ when Paddy, with a knowing touch of his ‘brinks,’ asked his ‘honour if he would give him a bit of a ride?’ So polite and ingenuous a request was not to be denied, and, though biting his lips with annoyance, the officer replied ‘Oh, certainly; jump in here,’ and the pilgrim was ensconced in the luggage van. But instead of having his ride ‘for his thanks,’ the functionary duly handed him over to the magisterial authorities, that he might be taught the important lesson, that railway companies did not keep express trains for Irish beggars, and that such costly machinery was not to be imperilled with impunity, either by their freaks or their ignorance.”

STEAM WHISTLE.

In the early days of railways, the signal of alarm was given by the blowing of a horn. In the year, 1833, an accident occurred on the Leicester and Swannington railway near Thornton, at a level crossing, through an engine running against a horse and cart. Mr. Bagster, the manager, after narrating the circumstance to George Stephenson, asked “Is it not possible to have a whistle fitted on the engine, which the steam can blow?” “A very good thought,” replied Stephenson. “You go to Mr. So-and-So, a musical instrument maker, and get a model made, and we will have a steam whistle, and put it on the next engine that comes on the line.” When the model was made it was sent to the Newcastle factory and future engines had the whistle fitted on them.

EXEMPTION FROM ACCIDENTS.

Mr. C. F. Adams, remarks:—“Indeed, from the time of Mr. Huskisson’s death, during the period of over eleven years, railroads enjoyed a remarkable and most fortunate exemption from accidents. During all that time there did not occur a single disaster resulting in any considerable loss of life. This happy exemption was probably due to a variety of causes. Those early roads were in the first place, remarkably well and thoroughly built, and were very cautiously operated under a light volume of traffic. The precautions then taken and the appliances in use would, it is true, strike the modern railroad superintendent as both primitive and comical; for instance, they involve the running of independent pilot locomotives in advance of all night passenger trains, and it was, by the way, on a pioneer locomotive of this description, on the return trip of the excursion party from Manchester after the accident to Mr. Huskisson, that the first recorded attempt was made in the direction of our present elaborate system of night signals. On that occasion obstacles were signalled to those in charge of the succeeding trains by a man on the pioneer locomotive, who used for that purpose a bit of lighted tarred rope. Through all the years between 1830 and 1841, nevertheless, not a single serious railroad disaster had to be recorded. Indeed, the luck—for it was nothing else—of these earlier times was truly amazing. Thus on this same Liverpool and Manchester road, as a first-class train on the morning of April 17, 1836, was moving at a speed of some thirty miles an hour, an axle broke under the first passenger carriage, causing the whole train to leave the rails and throwing it down the embankment, which at that point was twenty feet high. The carriages were rolled over, and the passengers in them turned topsy-turvy; nor, as they were securely locked in, could they even extricate themselves when at last the wreck of the train reached firm bearings. And yet no one was killed.”

RIVAL CONTRACTORS AND THE BLOTTING PAD.