Chapter VII: Part 7

Many concussions give no warning of their approach, while others do, the usual premonitory symptoms being a kind of bouncing or leaping of the train. It is well to know that the bottom of the carriage is the safest place, and, therefore, when a person has reason to anticipate a concussion, he should, without hesitation, throw himself on the floor of the carriage. It was by this means that Lord Guillamore saved his life and that of his fellow passengers some years since, when a concussion took place on one of the Irish railways. His Lordship feeling a shock, which he knew to be the forerunner of a concussion, without more ado sprang upon the two persons sitting opposite to him, and dragged them with him to the bottom of the carriage; the astonished persons at first imagined that they had been set upon by a maniac, and commenced struggling for their liberty, but in a few seconds they but too well understood the nature of the case; the concussion came, and the upper part of the carriage in which Lord Guillamore and the other two persons were was shattered to pieces, while the floor was untouched, and thus left them lying in safety; while the other carriages of the train presented nothing but a ghastly spectacle of dead and wounded.

—_The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book_.

LIFE UPON THE RAILWAY, BY A CONDUCTOR.

The Western Division of our road runs through a very mountainous part of Virginia, and the stations are few and far between. About three miles from one of these stations, the road runs through a deep gorge of the Blue Ridge, and near the centre is a small valley, and there, hemmed in by the everlasting hills, stood a small one-and-a-half-story log cabin. The few acres that surrounded it were well cultivated as a garden, and upon the fruits thereof lived a widow and her three children, by the name of Graff. They were, indeed, untutored in the cold charities of an outside world—I doubt much if they ever saw the sun shine beyond their own native hills. In the summer time the children brought berries to the nearest station to sell, and with the money they bought a few of the necessities of the outside refinement.

The oldest of these children I should judge to be about twelve years, and the youngest about seven. They were all girls, and looked nice and clean, and their healthful appearance and natural delicacy gave them a ready welcome. They appeared as if they had been brought up to fear God and love their humble home and mother. I had often stopped my train and let them get off at their home, having found them at the station some three miles from home, after disposing of their berries.

I had children at home, and I knew their little feet would be tired in walking three miles, and therefore felt that it would be the same with these fatherless little ones. They seemed so pleased to ride, and thanked me with such hearty thanks, after letting them off near home. They frequently offered me nice, tempting baskets of fruit for my kindness; yet I never accepted any without paying their full value.

Now, if you remember, the winter of ’54 was very cold in that part of the State, and the snow was nearly three feet deep on the mountains.

On the night of the 26th of December, of that year, it turned around warm, and the rain fell in torrents. A terrible storm swept the mountain tops, and almost filled the valleys with water. Upon that night my train was winding its way, at its usual speed, around the hills and through the valleys, and as the road-bed was all solid rock, I had no fear of the banks giving out. The night was intensely dark, and the winds moaned piteously through the deep gorges of the mountains. Some of my passengers were trying to sleep, others were talking in a low voice, to relieve the monotony of the scene. Mothers had their children upon their knees, as if to shield them from some unknown danger without.

It was near midnight, when a sharp whistle from the engine brought me to my feet. I knew there was danger by that whistle, and sprang to the brakes at once, but the brakesmen were all at their posts, and soon brought the train to a stop. I seized my lantern and found my way forward as soon as possible, when what a sight met my gaze! A bright fire of pine logs illuminated the track for some distance, and not over forty rods ahead of our train a horrible gulf had opened its maw to receive us!

The snow, together with the rain, had torn the whole side of the mountain out, and eternity itself seemed spread out before us. The widow Graff and her children had found it out, and had brought light brush from their home below, and built a large fire to warn us of our danger. They had been there more than two hours watching beside that beacon of safety. As I went up where that old lady stood drenched through by the rain and sleet, she grasped my arm and cried:

“Thank God! Mr. Sherbourn, we stopped you in time. I would have lost my life before one hair of your head should have been hurt. Oh, I prayed to heaven that we might stop the train, and, my God, I thank thee!”

The children were crying for joy. I confess I don’t very often pray, but I did then and there. I kneeled down by the side of that good old woman, and offered up thanks to an All Wise Being for our safe deliverance from a most terrible death, and called down blessings without number upon that good old woman and her children. Near by stood the engineer, fireman, and brakesmen, the tears streaming down their bronzed cheeks.

I immediately prevailed upon Mrs. Graff and the children to go back into the cars out of the storm and cold. After reaching the cars I related our hair-breadth escape, and to whom we were indebted for our lives, and begged the men passengers to go forward and see for themselves. They needed no further urging, and a great many of the ladies went also, regardless of the storm. They soon returned, and their pale faces gave full evidence of the frightful death we had escaped. The ladies and gentlemen vied with each other in their thanks and heartfelt gratitude towards Mrs. Graff and her children, and assured her that they would never, never forget her, and before the widow left the train she was presented with a purse of four hundred and sixty dollars, the voluntary offering of a whole train of grateful passengers. She refused the proffered gift for some time, and said she had only done her duty, and the knowledge of having done so was all the reward she asked. However, she finally accepted the money, and said it should go to educate her children.

The railway company built her a new house, gave her and her children a life pass over the road, and ordered all trains to stop and let her get off at home when she wished, but the employés needed no such orders, they can appreciate all such kindness—more so than the directors themselves.

The old lady frequently visits my home at H— and she is at all times a welcome visitor at my fireside. Two of the children are attending school at the same place.

—_Appleton’s American Railway Anecdote Book_.

A COUNTY COURT JUDGE’S FEELING AGAINST RAILWAYS.

In a County Court case at Carlisle, reported in the _Carlisle Journal_, of October 31st, 1851, the judge (J. K. Knowles, Esq.) is represented to have said:—“You may depend upon it, if I could do anything for you, I would, for I detest all railways. If they get a verdict in this case it will be the first, and I hope it will be the last.”

RAILWAY TICKETS.

A writer in that valuable miscellany _Household Words_, remarks:—“About thirteen years ago, a Quaker was walking in a field in Northumberland, when a thought struck him. The man who was walking was named Thomas Edmonson. He had been, though a Friend, not a very successful man in life. He was a man of integrity and honour, as he afterwards abundantly proved, but he had been a bankrupt, and was maintaining himself as a clerk at a small station on the Newcastle and Carlisle line. In the course of his duties in this situation, he found it irksome to have to write on every railway ticket that he delivered. He saw the clumsiness of the method of tearing the bit of paper off the printed sheet as it was wanted, and filling it up with pen and ink. He perceived how much time, trouble, and error might be saved by the process being done in a mechanical way; and it was when he set his foot down on a particular spot on the before mentioned field that the idea struck him how all that he wished might be done by a machine—how tickets might be printed with the names of stations, the class of carriage, the dates of the month, and all of them from end to end of the kingdom, on one uniform system. Most inventors accomplish their great deeds by degrees—one thought suggesting another from time to time; but, when Thomas Edmonson showed his family the spot in the field where his invention occurred to him, he used to say that it came to his mind complete, in its whole scope and all its details. Out of it has grown the mighty institution of the Railway Clearing House; and with it the grand organization by which the Railways of the United Kingdom act, in regard to the convenience of individuals, as a unity. We may see at a glance the difference to every one of us of the present organized system—by which we can take our tickets from almost any place to another, and get into a carriage on almost any of our great lines, to be conveyed without further care to the opposite end of the kingdom—and the unorganized condition of affairs from which Mr. Edmonson rescued us, whereby we should have been compelled to shift ourselves and our luggage from time to time, buying new tickets, waiting while they were filled up, waiting at almost every point of the journey, and having to do it with divers companies who had nothing to do with each other but to find fault and be jealous.

“On Mr. Edmonson’s machines may be seen the name of Blaycock; Blaycock was a watchmaker, and an acquaintance of Edmonson’s, and a man whom he knew to be capable of working out his idea. He told him what he wanted; and Blaycock understood him, and realized his thought. The third machine that they made was nearly as good as those now in use. The one we saw had scarcely wanted five shillings worth of repairs in five years; and, when it needs more, it will be from sheer wearing away of the brass-work, by constant hard friction. The Manchester and Leeds Railway Company were the first to avail themselves of Mr. Edmonson’s invention; and they secured his services at their station at Oldham Road, for a time. He took out a patent; and his invention became so widely known and appreciated, that he soon withdrew himself from all other engagements, to perfect its details and provide tickets to meet the daily growing demand. He let out his patent on profitable terms—ten shillings per mile per annum; that is, a railway of thirty miles long paid him fifteen pounds a year for a license to print its own tickets by his apparatus; and a railway of sixty miles long paid him thirty pounds, and so on. As his profits began to come in, he began to spend them; and it is not the least interesting part of his history to see how. It has been told that he was a bankrupt early in life. The very first use he made of his money was to pay every shilling that he ever owed. Ho was forty-six when he took that walk in the field in Northumberland. He was fifty-eight when he died, on the twenty-second of June last year.”

TAKEN ABACK.

Four young cavalry officers, travelling by rail, from Boulogne to Paris, were joined at Amiens by a quiet, elderly gentleman, who shortly requested that a little of one window might be opened—a not unreasonable demand, as both were shut, and all four gentlemen were smoking. But it was refused, and again refused on being preferred a second time, very civilly; whereupon the elderly gentleman put his umbrella through the glass. “Shall we stand the impertinence of this bourgeois?” said the officers to one another. “Never.” And they thrust four cards into his hand, which he received methodically, and looked carefully at all four; producing his own, one of which he tendered to each officer with a bow. Imagine their feelings when they read on each—“Marshal Randon, Ministre de Guerre.”

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.

The engineer of a train near Montreal saw a large dog on the track. He was barking furiously. The engineer blew the whistle at him, but he did not stir, and crouching low, he was struck by the locomotive and killed. There was a bit of white muslin on the locomotive, and it attracted the attention of the engineer, who stopped the train and went back. There lay the dead dog, and a dead child, which had wandered upon the track and gone to sleep. The dog had given his signal to stop the train, and had died at his post.

NARROW ESCAPES FROM BEING LYNCHED.

A writer in _All the Year Round_, observes:—“A dreadful accident down in ‘Illonoy,’ had particularly struck me as a warning; for there, while the shattered bodies were still being drawn from under the piles of shivered carriages, the driver on being expostulated with, had replied:

‘I suppose this ain’t the first railway accident by long chalks!’

Upon which the indignant passengers were with difficulty prevented from lynching the wretch; but he fled into the woods, and there for a time escaped pursuit.

But, two other railway journeys pressed more peculiarly on my mind; one was that of eight or ten weeks ago, from Canandaigua to Antrim. It was there a gentleman from Baltimore, fresh from Chicago, told me of a railway accident he had himself been witness to, only two days before I met him. The 2.40 (night) train from Toledo to Chicago, in which he rode, was upset near Pocahontas by two logs that had evidently been wilfully laid across the rails. On inquiry at the next station, it was discovered that a farmer who had had, a week before, two stray calves killed near the same place, had been heard at a liquor store to say he would ‘pay them out for his calves.’ This was enough for the excited passengers, vexed at the detention, and enraged at the malice that had exposed them to danger and death. A posse of them instantly sallied out, beleaguered the farmer’s house, seized him after some resistance, put a rope round his neck, dragged him to the nearest tree, and would have then and there lynched him, had not two or three of the passengers rescued him, revolver in hand, and given him up to the nearest magistrate.”

CURIOUS NOTICE.

The following notice, for the benefit of English travellers, was exhibited some years ago in the carriage of a Dutch railway:—“You are requested not to put no heads nor arms out of te windows.”

OBTAINING INFORMATION.

But one of the most difficult things in the world is the levity with which people talk about “obtaining information.” As if information were as easy to pick up as stones! “It ain’t so hard to nuss the sick,” said a hired nurse, “as some people might think; the most of ’em doesn’t want nothing, and them as does doesn’t get it.” Parodying this, one might say, it is much harder to “obtain information” than some people think; the most don’t know anything, and those who do don’t say what they know. Here is a real episode from the history of an inquiry, which took place four or five years ago, into the desirability of making a new line of railway on the Border. A witness was giving what is called “traffic evidence,” in justification of the alleged need of the railway, and this is what occurred:—

_Mr. Brown_ (the cross-examining counsel for the opponents of the new line)—Do you mean to tell the committee that you ever saw an inhabited house in that valley?

_Witness_—Yes I do.

_Mr. Brown_—Did you ever see a vehicle there in your life?

_Witness_—Yes, I did.

_Mr. Brown_—Very good.

Some other questions were put, which led to nothing particular: but, just as the witness—a Scotchman—was leaving the box, the learned gentleman put one more question:—

_Q_.—I am instructed to ask you, if the vehicle you saw was not the hearse of the last inhabitant?

_Answer_—It was.

—_Cornhill Magazine_.

THE GOAT AND THE RAILWAY.

In Prussian Poland the goods and cattle trains are prohibited from carrying passengers under any conditions, and, however urgent their necessities, the only exception allowed being the herd-keepers in charge of cattle. So strictly is this regulation enforced that even medical men are not allowed to go by them when called for on an emergency, and where life and death may be the result of their quick transit. This is generally considered a great hardship, the more so as there are only two passenger trains daily on the above railroads. But the inventive genius of a small German innkeeper at Lissa has hit upon a clever plan of circumventing the government regulations in a perfectly legitimate manner. He keeps a goat, which he hires out to persons wanting to proceed in a hurry by a cattle train, at the rate of 6d. per station, the passenger then applying for a ticket as the person in charge of the goat, which he obtains without any difficulty. In this manner a well-known nobleman, residing at Lissa, is frequently seen travelling by the cattle train to Posen, in the passenger’s carriage, and the goat is so tame that a very slender silk ribbon suffices to keep it from straying.

THE FIRST RAILWAY IN THE CRIMEA.

During the Russian War, in 1854, when the whole country was horror-struck with the report of the sufferings endured by our brave soldiers in the Crimea, Mr. Peto, in the most noble and disinterested manner, and at the cost of his seat in the House of Commons for Norwich—which city he had represented for several years—constructed for the Government a line of railway from Balaclava to the English camp before Sebastopol, which at the end of the war, with its various branches, was 37 English miles in length and had 10 locomotives on it. In recognition of this patriotic service the honour of a baronetcy was, in the following year, conferred upon him by Her Majesty.

—_Old Jonathan_.

THE BALACLAVA RAILWAY.

The following interesting extract from a communication to the _Times_, by Sir Morton Peto, Bart., respecting the construction of the railway from Balaclava to the British camp is worthy of preservation. Sir Morton remarks:—“It was in the midst of the dreary winter of 1854, when the British army was suffering unparalleled hardships before Sebastopol, that it was resolved to construct a railway from Balaclava to the British camp. Let honour be given where honour is due.—The idea emanated from the Duke of Newcastle. His Grace applied to our firm to assist in carrying out the design. The sympathies of all England were excited at the time by the sufferings of our troops. Every one was emulous to contribute all that could be contributed to their succour and support. The firm of which I am a partner was anxious to take its share in the good work, and, on the Duke of Newcastle’s application, we cheerfully undertook to make all the arrangements for carrying his Grace’s views into execution, on the understanding that the work should be considered National; and that we should be permitted to execute it without any charge for profit.

We accordingly placed at the disposal of Her Majesty’s Government the whole of our resources. We fitted out transports with the stores necessary for the construction of the railway; employed and equipped hundreds of men to execute the works; provided a commissariat exclusively for their use; engaged medical officers to attend to their health, and placed the whole service under the direction of the most experienced agents on our staff. These important preliminaries were arranged so effectually, and with so much despatch, that the Emperor of the French sent an agent to this country to instruct himself as to the mode in which we equipped the expedition.

Every item shipped by us for the works was valued before shipment at its selling price; and for all these items of valuation, as well as for the payments which we made for labour, we received the certificate of the most eminent engineer of the day (the late lamented Mr. Robert Stephenson). We undertook the execution of the Balaclava Railway as a ‘National’ work, agreeing to execute it without profit. We performed our contract to the letter. We never profited by it to the extent of a single shilling.

The works (nearly seven miles of railway) were executed in less than a month; an incredibly short space of time, considering the season of the year, the severity of the climate, and the difficulties to which, considering the distance from home, we were all of us exposed. It is a matter of history that they eventuated in the taking of the great fortress of Sebastopol. Before the railway was made, all the shot, all the shell, and all the ammunition necessary for the siege, had to be carried from Balaclava to the camp, a distance of five miles up hill, through mud and sludge, upon the backs of the soldiers. An immense proportion of our troops was told off for this most laborious service; of whom no less than 25 per cent per month perished in its execution. On the day the railway was opened, it carried to the camp of the British army, in 24 hours, more shot and shell than had been brought from Balaclava for six weeks previously.

To our principal agent in the Crimea, the late Mr. Beattie, the greatest credit was due for the way in which the arrangements were made, and the work executed on that side. Mr. Beattie’s labours were so arduous, and his efforts so untiring, that he died of fatigue within six weeks after the completion of the work—a victim, absolutely, to his unparalleled exertions. The only favour in connection with these works which the Duke of Newcastle ever granted at our request, he granted to the family of this lamented gentleman. Mr. Beattie left a widow and four children to deplore his loss, and through the favour of the Duke of Newcastle, the widow, who now resides with her father, an estimable clergyman in the North of Ireland, enjoys a pension as the widow of a colonel falling in the field.”

PASSENGERS AND OTHER CATTLE.

At the Eastern Counties meeting (1854) the solicitor cut short a clause about passengers, animals, and cattle, by reading it “passengers and other cattle.” We do not recollect passengers having been classed with cattle before. Perhaps the learned gentleman’s eyesight was defective, or the print was not very clear.

EXPANSION OF RAILS.

Robert Routledge, in his article upon railways, remarks:—“It may easily be seen on looking at a line of rails that they are not laid with the ends quite touching each other, or, at least, they are not usually in contact. The reason of this is that space must be allowed for the expansion which takes place when a rise in the temperature occurs. The neglect of this precaution has sometimes led to damage and accidents. A certain railway was opened in June, and, after an excursion train had in the morning passed over it, the midday heat so expanded the iron that the rails became, in some places, elevated to two feet above the level, and the sleepers were torn up; so that in order to admit the return of the train, the rails had to be fully relaid in a kind of zigzag. In June, 1856, a train was thrown off the metals of the North-Eastern Railway, in consequence of the rails rising up through expansion.”

A SMART REJOINDER.

An American railway employé asked for a pass down to visit his family. “You are in the employ of the railway?” asked the gentleman applied to. “Yes.” “You receive your pay regularly?” “Yes.” “Well, now, suppose you were working for a farmer, instead of a railway, would you expect your employer to hitch up his team every Saturday night and carry you home?” This seemed a poser, but it wasn’t. “No,” said the man promptly, “I wouldn’t expect that; but if the farmer had his team hitched up and was going my way, I should call him a contemptible fellow if he would not let me ride.” Mr. Employé came out three minutes afterwards with a pass good for three months.

COURTING ON A RAILWAY THIRTY MILES AN HOUR.

An incident occurred on the Little Miami Railway which outstrips, in point of speed and enterprise, although in a somewhat different field, the lightning express, “fifty-cents-a-mile” special train achievement which attended the delivery of the recent famous “defalcation report” in this city. The facts are about thus: A lady, somewhat past that period of life which _the world_ would term “young”—although she might differ from them—was on her way to this city, for purposes connected with active industry. At a point on the road a traveller took the train, who happened to enter the car in which the young lady occupied a seat. After walking up and down between the seats, the gentleman found no unoccupied seat, except the one-half of that upon which the lady had deposited her precious self and crinoline—the latter very modestly expansive. Making a virtue of necessity—a “stand-ee” berth or a little self-assurance—he modestly inquired if the lady had a fellow-traveller, and took a seat.

As the train flew along with express speed, the strangers entered into a cosy conversation, and mutual explanations. The gentleman was pleased, and the lady certainly did not pout. After other subjects had been discussed, and worn thread-bare, the lady made inquiries as to the price of a sewing machine, and where such an article could be purchased in this city. The gentleman ventured the opinion that she had “better secure a husband first.” This opened the way for another branch of conversation, and the broken field was industriously cultivated.

By the time the train arrived at the depot in this city, the gentleman had proposed and been accepted (although the lady afterwards declared she regarded it all as a good joke). The party separated; the gentleman, all in good earnest, started for a license, and the lady made her way to a boarding-house on Broadway, above Third, for dinner. At two o’clock the gentleman returned with a license and a Justice, to the great astonishment of the fair one, and after a few tears and half-remonstrative expressions, she submitted with becoming modesty, and the Squire performed the little ceremony in a twinkling. If this is not a fast country, a search-warrant would hardly succeed in finding one.

—_Cincinnati Commercial_.

THE MERCHANT AND HIS CLERK.

A London merchant resided a few miles from the City, in an elegant mansion, to and from which he journeyed daily, and invariably by third class. It happened that one of the clerks in his employ lived in a cottage accessible by the same line of railway, but he always travelled first class; the same train thus presenting the anomaly of the master being in that place which one would naturally assign to the man, and the man appearing to usurp the position of the master. One day these two alighted at the terminus in full view of each other. “Well,” said Mr. B—, in that tone of banter which a superior so frequently thinks it becoming to adopt, “I don’t know how you manage to ride first-class, when in these hard times I find third-class fare as much as I can afford.” “Sir,” replied the clerk, “you, who are known to be a person of wealth and position, may adopt the most economical mode of travelling at no more risk than being thought eccentric, and even with the applause of some for your manifest absence of pride. But, as for myself, I cannot afford to indulge in such irregularities. Among the persons I travel with I am reported to be a well-paid _employé_, and am respected accordingly; to maintain this reputation I am compelled to travel in the same manner as they do, and were I to adopt an inferior mode, it would be attributed to some serious falling off of income; a circumstance which would occasion me not only loss of consideration among my _quondam_ fellow-travellers, but one which, upon coming to the ears of my butcher, baker, and grocer, might seriously injure my credit with those highly respectable, but certainly worldly minded tradesmen.” Mr. B— was not slow in recognizing the full force of the argument, more particularly as the question of his own liberality was involved, nor did he hesitate to give it a practical application by immediately increasing the salary of his clerk; not only to the amount of a first-class season ticket, but something over.

—_The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book_.

REMARKABLE WILL.

Some years ago an old gentleman of very eccentric habits, Mr. John Younghusband, of Abbey Holme, Cumberland, died, and his will has proved to be of the most eccentric character. The Silloth Railway runs through part of his property, an arrangement to which he was most passionately averse; and though years have elapsed since then, his bitterness was in no way assuaged. In his will he leaves near £1000 to a solicitor who opposed the making of the railway; the rest of his money he bequeaths to a comparative stranger upon these conditions—that the legatee never speaks to one of the directors of the railway, that he never travels upon it, that he never sends cattle or other traffic by it; and should he violate any of these conditions, the estate reverts to the ordinary succession. To Mr. John Irving and the other directors of the Silloth line Mr. Younghusband has sarcastically bequeathed a _farthing_.

IMMENSE FRAUD ON THE GREAT-NORTHERN RAILWAY.

In the _Annual Register_ for 1856, November 14th, we read, “Another fraud connected with the transfer of shares and stock, but on a far grander scale, and by a much more pretentious criminal, has been discovered.

“Of late some strange discrepancies had been observed in the accounts of the Great-Northern Railway Company, and in particular that the amount paid for dividends considerably exceeded the rateable proportion to the capital stock. An investigation was directed. The registrar of shares, Mr. Leopold Redpath, expressed a decided opinion that the investigation into his department would be useless, and, on its being pressed, absconded. The investigation developed a long-continued system of frauds of vast amount, to the amount, it was said, of nearly £250,000.

“Mr. Leopold Redpath passed in society as a gentleman of ample means, great taste, and possessed of the Christian virtue of charity in no common degree. He had a house in Chester Terrace, handsomely furnished, and a “place” at Weybridge complete with every luxury that wealth could procure; gave good dinners with excellent wines; kept good horses and neat carriages. He was a governor of Christ’s Hospital, the St. Ann’s Schools, and subscribed freely to the most useful charities of London. His appointment on the Great-Northern was worth £300 per annum; but it was supposed that this was only of consequence to Mr. Redpath as affording him a regular occupation and an opportunity of operating in the share-market, in which he was known to have extensive dealings. The directors of the railway appear to have been perfectly aware that their servant was living far beyond his salary, but they considered him to be a very successful speculator. Upon this splendid bubble being blown up, Redpath fled to Paris; but, finding that the French authorities were not inclined to protect him, he returned to London and surrendered himself.

“The mode in which this gigantic swindler had committed his frauds is simple enough. Having charge of the books in which the stock of the company is registered, he altered the sum standing in the name of some _bonâ fide_ stockholder to a much larger sum, generally by placing a figure before it, by which simple means £500 became £1,500, or £2,500, or any larger number of thousands. The surplus stock thus _created_ Redpath sold in the stock-market, forging the name of the supposed transferer, transferring the sum to the account of the supposed transferee in the register, and either attesting it himself, or causing it to be attested by a young man, his protegé and tool, but who appears to have been free from guilty cognizance. In some instances the fraud was but the more direct course of making a fictitious entry of stock, and then selling it. By these processes the number of shareholders and the amount of stock on the company’s register became greatly magnified, while, as the _bonâ fide_ holders of stock remained credited with their proper investments, there was no occasion for suspicion on their part. How Redpath dealt with subsequent transfers of the fictitious stock does not appear. The prisoner was subjected to repeated examination before the police magistrates, when this prodigious falsification was thoroughly sifted, and the prisoner was finally committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court in the following year. It is said that the value of the leases, furniture, and articles of taste in Redpath’s house in Chester Terrace is estimated at £30,000, and at Weybridge at a still larger sum. It is also said that Redpath and Robson, whose forged transfer of Crystal Palace shares has been recorded in this chronicle, were formerly fellow clerks.

“Lionel Redpath was tried, January 16th, 1857, at the Central Criminal Court, and, being found guilty, was sentenced to transportation for life. At the same time a junior clerk in his office, Charles Kent, was also charged as his partner in the crime. It appeared that Kent had acted on many occasions as attesting witness to the forged transfers which Redpath had employed to carry out his ends; but, as no guilty knowledge on the part of the former was shown, he was acquitted.

“The railway company at first attempted to repudiate the forged stock which Redpath had put into circulation, but pressing remonstrances, not unaccompanied by threats, having been made by the Committee of the Stock Exchange, they consented to acknowledge it. Then came the question by whom the loss was to be borne; a question which was not solved until after considerable litigation. The directors asserted that it ought to be paid out of the current income of the year, and so it was ultimately decided. This led to a further question between the guaranteed shareholders and the rest of the company. For the diminution of the year’s earnings caused by taking up the fictitious stock being so great as to render it impossible to satisfy the guaranteed dividends out of the residue, it was contended on the part of the holders of those shares that, by the provisions of the deed of settlement, the deficiency ought to be made up out of the next year’s profits, so that the guarantee that they should receive their specified dividends was not clogged with the condition in case a sufficient amount of earnings in each year was made to pay them. This dispute led to a Chancery suit, the decree in which was in favour of the holders of the guaranteed shares.”

A LOST TICKET.

“Now, then, make haste there, will you, an’ give up your ticket,” exclaimed a railway guard to a bandsman in the Volunteers returning from a review. “Didna I tell ye I’ve lost it?” “Nonsense, man; feel in your pockets, you cannot hae lost it.” “Can I no?” was the drunken reply; “man, that’s naething, I’ve lost the big drum!”

MELANCHOLY ACCIDENT.—SINGULAR ACTION.

The _Annual Register_ contains the following interesting case. July 25, 1857.—At the Maidstone Assizes an action arising out of a singular and melancholy accident was tried. The action, Shilling _v._ The Accidental Insurance Company, was brought by Charlotte Shilling, widow and administratrix of Thomas Shilling, to recover from the defendants the sum of £2000, upon a policy effected by the deceased on the life of her father-in-law, James Shilling. The husband of the plaintiff, Thomas Shilling, carried on the business of a builder at Malling, a short distance from Maidstone. His father, James Shilling, lived with him; he was nearly 80 years old, and very infirm, and his son used to drive him about occasionally in his pony chaise. In the month of March, last year, an application was made to the defendants to effect two policies for £2000 each upon the lives of Thomas Shilling and James Shilling, and to secure that sum in the event of either of them dying from an accident, and the policies were completed and delivered in the following month of June. On the evening of the 11th of July, 1856, about half-past 7 o’clock, the father and son went from Malling with a pony and chaise, for the purpose of proceeding to a stone quarry at Aylesford, where Thomas Shilling had business to transact, and they never returned home again alive. There where two roads by which they could have got to the quarry from Malling, one of which was rather a dangerous one to be taken with a vehicle and horse, on account of a steep bank leading to the river Medway being on one side and the railway passing close to the other; but this route, it appears, was much shorter than the other, which was nearly two miles round, and it was consequently constantly used both by pedestrians and carriages. About 8 o’clock the pony and chaise and the father and son were seen on this road, and upon arriving at the gate leading to the quarry, Thomas Shilling got out, leaving the pony and chaise in charge of his father. Mr. Garnham, the owner of the quarry, was not at home, and while one of the labourers was conversing with Thomas Shilling, the sound of an approaching train was heard, and the men advised him to go back to his pony, for fear it should take fright at the train, and he said he would do so, as it had been frightened by a train on a previous occasion. He accordingly went towards the gate where he had left the pony and chaise, and from that time there was no evidence to show what took place. The family sat up the whole night awaiting the return of their relatives in the utmost possible alarm at their absence; but nothing was heard of them until the following morning, when a bargeman found the drowned pony and the chaise and the dead bodies of the father and son floating in the Medway, near the spot where the chaise had been last seen on the previous evening. They were taken home, and a coroner’s inquest was held, and the only conclusion that could be arrived at was that the pony had taken fright at the noise of the train, which appeared to have passed about the time, and that he had jumped into the river, which at this spot was from 12 to 14 feet deep.

The policy on the life of the father had been assigned to the son, whose widow claimed the two sums insured from the defendants. That payable on the death of the son they paid: but they refused to pay that due on the father’s policy, and pleaded to the action several pleas, alleging certain violations of the conditions; and singularly enough, considering that they had not disputed the son’s policy on the same ground, they now pleaded that the death was not the result of accident, but arose from wanton and voluntary exposure to unnecessary danger.

The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.

A CATASTROPHE.

An old lady was going from Brookfield to Stamford, and took a seat in the train for the first and last time in her life. During the ride the train was thrown down an embankment. Crawling from beneath the _débris_ unhurt, she spied a man sitting down, but with his legs laid down by some heavy timber. “Is this Stamford?” she anxiously inquired. “No, madam,” was the reply, “this is a catastrophe.” “Oh!” she cried, “then I hadn’t oughter got off here.”

WEDDING AT A RAILWAY STATION.

Baltimore has had what it calls a romantic wedding at Camden Station. A few moments before the departure of the outbound Washington train, a gentleman accompanied by a lady and another gentleman, whose clerical appearance indicated his profession, alighted from a carriage and entered the depot. Upon the locks of the leader of the party the snows of fifty winters had evidently fallen, while the lady had apparently reached that age when she is supposed to have lain aside her matrimonial cap. Quietly approaching the officer on duty within the station, they asked for a room where a marriage ceremony might be privately performed. The request was readily granted, and under the leadership of the obliging officer, the party was conducted to the despatch room, a small lobby in the eastern part of the building, where in a few minutes the twain were made man and wife. With pleasant smiles, and a would-be-congratulated look upon their countenances, they mingled with the crowd in waiting; and when the gates were thrown open, arm in arm they boarded the train, their fellow-passengers all the while ignorant of the interesting ceremony.

—_Illustrated World_.

ENGINE FASCINATION.

The fascination which engines and their human satellites exercise over some minds is very great; and while speaking on the subject, I am reminded of a young man who haunted for years one of our chief termini: he was the son of a leading west end confectioner, so that his early training had in no way disposed him to an engineering life; but he was the most remarkable accumulation of statistics in connection therewith I ever knew. The line employed several hundreds of engines, and he not only knew the names of all of them, but when they were made, and who had made them; when each one had last been supplied with a new set of tubes at the factory—this last, of course only referred to the engines employed on the main line, which he had an opportunity of seeing, and would miss when they were laid up for repair—and how this had had the pressure on its safety-valve increased, and this had been diminished. He had such a retentive memory for these and kindred facts, that I have seen the foreman of the works appeal to him for information, which was never lacking. His penchant was so well known that he had special permission for access to the works.

—_Chambers’s Journal_.

COMPETITION FOR PASSENGERS.

Mr. Galt remarks:—“In the summer of 1857 the London and North-Western and Great Northern railways contended with each other for the passenger traffic from London to Manchester. First-class and second-class passengers were conveyed at fares, there and back, of seven and sixpence and five shillings respectively, the distance being 400 miles, and four clear days were allowed in Manchester. As might have been expected, trains were well filled, and, but for the fact that the other traffic was much interfered with, the fares would, it is said, have been remunerative. As it was, it is said the shareholders lost 1 per cent. dividend.

“Another memorable contest was carried on about the year 1853 between the Caledonian and the Edinburgh and Glasgow Companies. The latter suddenly reduced the fares between Edinburgh and Glasgow for the three classes from eight shillings, six shillings, and four shillings, to one shilling, ninepence, and sixpence. The contest was continued for a-year-and-a-half, and cost the Edinburgh and Glasgow Company nearly 1 per cent. in their dividends.”

ACCIDENT HOAX.

The following impudent hoax, contained in a letter which appeared in the _Times_ in 1860, was most annoying to the officials of the Great Northern Company. It is headed:—

“Accident on the Great Northern Railway.
“To the Editor of the _Times_.

“Sir,—I beg to inform you of a serious accident, attended by severe injury, if not loss of life, which occured to-day to the 8 o’clock a.m. train from Wakefield, on the Great Northern railway, near Doncaster, by which I was a passenger. As the train approached Doncaster, about 9 o’clock, the passengers were suddenly alarmed by the vehement oscillation of the carriages. In a few seconds the engine had run off the line, dragging the greater part of the train with it across the opposite line of rails. By this time the concussion had become so vehement that the grappling chains connecting the engine, tender, and first carriage with the rest of the train providentially snapped. This circumstance saved the lives of many. But the engine, tender, and first carriage were hurled over the embankment, all three being together overturned, and the latter (a second-class one) nearly crushed. The stoker was severely injured on the head, and his recovery is more than doubtful; the engine driver contrived to leap off in time to save himself with a few bruises. The shrieks of the passengers in the overturned carriage (three women and five men) were fearful; and for some time their extrication was impossible. One middle-aged woman had her thigh broken, another her arm fractured. One old man had one, if not two of his ribs broken. The passengers in the other carriages, in one of which I was travelling, were less seriously injured, though sufficiently so to talk about compensation, instead of assisting in earnest those with broken limbs. The line of rails was torn up for a considerable distance. Owing to the telegraph being out of gear, some delay in communicating with Doncaster was experienced. A surgeon and various hands at length arrived with a special train for the injured passengers, who, after long delay, were removed to Doncaster. I, of course, as a medical man, rendered what assistance I could. Those worst injured were conveyed to the Railway Arms, the recovery of more than one being doubted by myself. At length a fresh train started from Doncaster, and we reached London nearly two hours after due.

The carelessness of the Company will, I hope, be the subject of your severest animadversion. The accident was caused by the tire of one of the right wheels of the engine having flown off; and it is clear that the engine was not in a condition to ply between the stations of the Great Northern railway.

I have no objection to your use of my name if you think fit to publish it.

Your obedient servant,
Thomas Waddington, M.D., of Wakefield.
Morley’s Hotel, Charing Cross, March 26.

To the above letter the following reply was sent to the _Times_.

“Alleged Accident on the Great Northern.
“To the Editor of the _Times_.

“Sir,—The Directors of the Great Northern railway will feel much obliged by the insertion of the following statement in the _Times_ to-morrow relative to a letter which appeared therein to-day, signed ‘Thomas Waddington, M.D., of Wakefield,’ and headed, ‘Accident on the Great Northern railway.’

There was no accident whatever yesterday on the Great Northern railway.

The trains all reached King’s Cross with punctuality, the most irregular in the whole day being only five minutes late. No such person as Thomas Waddington is known at Morley’s Hotel, whence the letter in question is dated.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
Seymour Clark, General Manager,
King’s Cross, March 27.

In the _Times_ on the day following appeared a letter from the real Dr. Waddington, of Wakefield, (Edward not “Thomas”) confirmatory of the impudence of the hoax.

“The alleged Accident on the Great Northern railway.
“To the Editor of the _Times_.

“Sir,—My attention has been called to a letter in the _Times_ of yesterday (signed ‘Thomas Waddington, M.D., of Wakefield’) the signature of which is as gross and impudent a fabrication as the circumstances which the writer professes to detail. I need only say there is no ‘M.D.’ here named Waddington but myself, and that I was not on the Great Northern or any other Railway on the 26th inst, when the accident is alleged to have occured.

Having obtained possession of the original letter, I have handed it to my solicitors, in the hope that they may be enabled to discover and bring to justice the perpetrator of this very stupid hoax.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Edward Waddington, M.D.

Wakefield, March 28.

A’PENNY A MILE.

Two costers were looking at a railway time-table.

“Say, Jem,” said one of them, “vot’s P.M. mean?”

“Vy, penny a mile, to be sure.”

“Vell, vot’s A.M.?”

“A’penny a mile, to be sure.”

SINGULAR FREAK.

In October, 1857, Mr. Tindal Atkinson applied to Mr. Hammill, at Worship Street Police Court, to obtain a summons under the following strange circumstances:—

“Mr. Atkinson stated that he was instructed on behalf of the Directors of the Eastern Counties Railway Company to apply to the magistrate under the terms of their Act of Incorporation, for a summons against Mr. Henry Hunt, of Waltham-Cross, Essex, for having unlawfully used and worked a certain locomotive upon a portion of their line, without having previously obtained the permission or approval of the engineers or agents of the company, whereby he had rendered himself liable to a penalty of £20. He should confine himself to that by stating that in the dark, on the night of Thursday, the 1st instant, a locomotive engine belonging to Mr. Hunt was suddenly discovered by some of the company’s servants to be running along the rails in close proximity to one of the regular passenger trains on the North Woolwich line. So great was the danger of a collision, that they were obliged to instantly stop the train till the stranger engine could get out of the way, to the great terror of the passengers by the train, and as he was instructed it was almost the result of a merciful interposition of Providence that a collision had not occurred between them, in which event it would probably have terminated fatally, to a greater or lesser extent. He now desired that summonses might be granted not only against the owner of the engine so used, but also against the driver and stoker of it, both of whom, it was obvious, must have been well aware of their committing an unlawful act, and of the perilous nature of the service in which they were engaged when they were running an engine at such a time and place.

“Mr. Hammill said it certainly was a most extraordinary proceeding for anyone to adopt, and after the learned gentleman’s statement he had no hesitation whatever in granting summonses against the whole of the persons engaged in it.”

A.B.C. AND D.E.F.

A gentleman travelling in a railway carriage was endeavouring, with considerable earnestness, to impress some argument upon a fellow-traveller who was seated opposite to him, and who appeared rather dull of apprehension. At length, being slightly irritated, he exclaimed in a louder tone, “Why, sir, it’s as plain as A.B.C.” “That may be,” quietly replied the other, “but I am D.E.F.”

NATIONAL CONTRAST.

The contrast which exists between the character of the French and English navvy may be briefly exemplified by the following trifling anecdote:—

“In excavating a portion of the first tunnel east of Rouen towards Paris, a French miner dressed in his blouse, and an English “navvy” in his white smock jacket, were suddenly buried alive together by the falling in of the earth behind them. Notwithstanding the violent commotion which the intelligence of the accident excited above ground, Mr. Meek, the English engineer who was constructing the work, after having quietly measured the distance from the shaft to the sunken ground, satisfied himself that if the men, at the moment of the accident, were at the head of “the drift” at which they were working, they would be safe.

Accordingly, getting together as many French and English labourers as he could collect, he instantly commenced sinking a shaft, which was accomplished to the depth of 50 feet in the extraordinary short space of eleven hours, and the men were thus brought up to the surface alive.

The Frenchman, on reaching the top, suddenly rushing forward, hugged and saluted on both cheeks his friends and acquaintances, many of whom had assembled, and then, almost instantly overpowered by conflicting feelings—by the recollection of the endless time he had been imprisoned and by the joy of his release—he sat down on a log of timber, and, putting both his hands before his face, he began to cry aloud most bitterly.