A guard of a railway train, upon the late occasion of ahitch, which detained the passengers for some time, gave himself so much importance in commanding them, that one old gentleman took the wind out of his sails by calling him to the carriage door, and saying, “May I take the liberty, sir, of asking you what occupation you filled previous to being a railway guard?”
On a certain railway, the following notice appeared:—“Hereafter, when trains moving in opposite directions are approaching each other on separate lines, conductors andengineers will be required to bring their respective trains to a dead halt before the point of meeting, and be very careful not to proceed till each train has passed the other.”
My vocations led me to travel almost daily on one of the Great Eastern lines—the Woodford Branch. Every one knows that Müller perpetrated his detestable act on the North London Railway, close by. The English middle class, of which I am myself a feeble unit, travel on the Woodford branch in large numbers. Well, the demoralization of our class,—which (the newspapers are constantly saying it, so I may repeat it without vanity) has done all the great things which have ever been done in England,—the demoralization of our class caused, I say, by the Bow tragedy, was something bewildering. Myself a transcendentalist (as theSaturday Reviewknows), I escaped the infection; and day after day I used to ply my agitated fellow-travellers with all the consolations which my transcendentalism and my turn for French would naturally suggest to me. I reminded them how Julius Cæsar refused to take precautions against assassination, because life was not worth having at the price of an ignoble solicitude for it. I reminded them what insignificant atoms we all are in the life of the world. Suppose the worse to happen, I said, addressing a portly jeweller from Cheapside,—suppose even yourself to be the victim,il n’y a pas d’homme nécessaire. We should miss you for a day or two on the Woodford Branch; but the great mundane movement would still go on, the gravel walks of your villa would still be rolled, dividends would still be paid at the bank, omnibuses would still run, there would still be the old crush at the corner of Fenchurch street. All was of no avail. Nothing could moderate in the bosom of the great English middle class their passionate, absorbing, almost blood-thirsty clinging to life.
—Matthew Arnold’sEssays in Criticism.
A correspondent, writing from Amélia les Bains, says:—A very singular blunder was committed the other day by the officials of a railway station between Prepignan and Toulon. A gentleman who had been spending the winter here with his family, left last week for Marseilles, taking with him the body of his mother-in-law, who died six weeks ago, and who had expressed a wish to be buried in the family vault at Marseilles. When he reached Marseilles and went with the commissioner of police—whose presence is required upon these occasions—to receive the body from the railway officials, he noticed to his great surprise that the coffin was of a different shape and construction from that which he had brought from here. It turned out upon further inquiry that a mistake had been committed by the officials, who had sent on to Toulon the coffin containing his mother-in-law’s body, believing that it held the remains of a deceased admiral, which was to be embarked for interment in Algeria, while the coffin awaiting delivery was the one which should have been sent on. The gentleman who was placed in this awkward predicament, having requested the railway officials to communicate at once with Toulon by telegraph, proceeded thither himself with the coffin of the admiral, but the intimation had arrived too late. He ascertained when he got there that the first coffin had been duly received, taken on board, amid “the thunder of fort and of fleet,” the state vessel which was waiting for it, and despatched to Algeria. He at once called upon the maritime prefect of Toulon, and explained the circumstances of the case, but though a despatch-boat was sent in pursuit, the other vessel was not overtaken. He is now at Toulon awaiting her return, and I believe that he declines to give up the coffin containing the deceased admiral until he regains possession of his mother-in-law’s remains.
In July, 1877, a carrier-pigeon tried conclusions with a railway train. The bird was a Belgian voyageur, bred at Woolwich, and “homed” to a house in Cannon Street, City. The train was the Continental mail-express timednot to stop between Dover and Cannon Street Station. The pigeon, conveying an urgent message from the French police, was tossed through the railway carriage window as the train moved from the Admiralty Pier, the wind being west, the atmosphere hazy, but the sun shining. For more than a minute the bird circled round till it attained an altitude of about half-a-mile, and then it sailed away Londonwards. By this time the engine had got full steam on, and the train was tearing away at the rate of sixty miles an hour; but the carrier was more than a match for it. Taking a line midway between Maidstone and Sittingbourne, it reached home twenty minutes before the express dashed into the station; the train having accomplished seventy-six-and-a-half miles to the pigeon’s seventy, but being badly beaten for all that.
—All the Year Round.
Hans Hendrik, a native of Greenland, thus describes his first journey by rail in America:—“Then our train arrived and we took seats in it. When we had started and looked at the ground, it appeared like a river, making us dizzy, and the trembling of the carriage might give you headache. In this way we proceeded, and whenever we approached houses they gave warning by making big whistle sound, and on arriving at the houses they rung a bell and we stopped for a little while. By the way we entered a long cave through the earth, used as a road, and soon after we emerged from it again. At length we reached our goal, and entered a large mansion, in which numbers of people crowded together.” He likens the people going out of the railway-station to a “crowd of church-goers, on account of their number.”
—Good Words, April, 1880.
Will bad table manners vitiate legal grounds of action? A collision recently occurred while an Italian commercial traveller was eating a Bologna sausage in a railway train. The shock of the collision drove the knife so violently againsthis mouth as to widen it. He brought suit for damages. The defence was that the injuries were caused by the knife; that the knife should never be carried to the mouth, and that the plaintiff, having injured himself by reason of his bad habit of eating, must take the consequences and pay his own doctor’s bill. The case is not yet finally decided.
—Echo, Oct. 1st., 1880.
On one of the seats in a railway train was a married lady with a little daughter; opposite, facing them, was another child, a son, and a coloured “lady” with a baby. The mother of these children was a beautiful matron with sparkling eyes, in exuberant health and vivacious spirits. Near her sat a young lieutenant, dressed to kill and seeking a victim. He scraped up an acquaintance with the mother by attentions to the children. It was not long before he was essaying to make himself very agreeable to her, and by the time the sun began to decline, one would have thought they were old familiar friends. The lieutenant felt that he had made an impression—his elation manifested it. The lady, dreaming of no wrong, suspecting no evil, was apparently pleased with her casual acquaintance. By-and-by the train approached a tunnel. The gay lieutenant leaned over and whispered something in the lady’s ear. It was noticed that she appeared as thunderstruck, and her eyes immediately flamed with indignation. A moment more and a smile lighted up her features. What changes? That smile was not one of pleasure, but was sinister. It was unperceived by the lieutenant. She made him a reply which apparently rejoiced him very much. For the understanding properly this narrative, we must tell the reader what was whispered and what was replied. “I mean to kiss you when we get into the tunnel!” whispered the lieutenant. “It will be dark; who will see it?” replied the lady. Into earth’s bowels—into the tunnel ran the train. Lady and coloured nurse quickly change seats. Gay lieutenant threw his arms around the lady sable, pressed her cheek to his, and fast and furious rained kisses on her lips. In a few moments the train came out into broad daylight. White lady looked amazed—colouredlady, bashful, blushing—gay lieutenant befogged. “Jane,” said the white lady, “what have you been doing?” “Nothing!” responded the coloured lady. “Yes, you have,” said the white lady, not in an undertone, but in a voice that attracted the attention of all in the carriage. “See how your collar is rumpled and your bonnet smashed.” Jane, poor coloured beauty, hung her head for a moment, the “observed of all observers,” and then, turning round to the lieutenant, replied: “This man kissed me in the tunnel!” Loud and long was the laugh that followed among the passengers. The white lady enjoyed the joke amazingly. Lieutenant looked like a sheep-stealing dog, left the carriage at the next station, and was seen no more.
—Cape Argus.
The Midland Railway, on being extended to London, was the occasion of the removal of a vast amount of house property, also it interfered to a certain extent with the graveyard belonging to Old St. Pancras Church. The company had purchased a new piece of ground in which to re-inter the human remains discovered in the part they required. Amongst them was the corpse of a high dignitary of the French Romish Church. Orders were received for the transmission of the remains to his native land, and the delicate work of exhuming the corpse was entrusted to some clever gravediggers. On opening the ground they were surprised to find, not bones of one man, but of several. Three skulls and three sets of bones were yielded by the soil in which they had lain mouldering. The difficulty was how to identify the bones of a French ecclesiastic amid so many. After much discussion, the shrewdest gravedigger suggested that, being a Frenchman, the darkest coloured skull must be his. Acting upon this idea, the blackest bones were sorted and put together, until the requisite number of rights and lefts were obtained. These were reverently screwed up in a new coffin, conveyed to France, and buried with all the pomp and circumstance of the Roman Catholic Church.
An American correspondent writes:—“I have just finished reading a most amusing incident, and, as it occurs in a book not likely to fall into the hands of many of the members, I am tempted to relate it, although it might prove to be ‘stale.’ Well, to begin: It tells of a maiden lady, who, having arrived at the mature age of 51 without ever having seen a railway train, decides to visit New York. The all-important day having arrived, she seats herself calmly on the platform of the country station, and gazes with amazement as the train draws up, takes on its passengers, and pursues its journey. As she stares after it the stationmaster asks her why she did not get on if she wishes to go to New York. ‘Get on,’ says Miss Polly, in surprise, ‘get on! Why, bless me, if I didn’t think this whole concern went!’ Being placed on the next train, she proceeds on her way, when, finally, having seen so many wonderful things, she concluded not to be astonished, whatever may happen. A collision occurs and the gentleman next to her is thrown to the end of the car among a heap of broken seats. She supposes it to be the usual manner of stopping, and quietly remarks: ‘Ye fetch up rather sudden, don’t ye?’”
The suit of William O’Connor against the Boston and Lowell Railroad at Lawrence has resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff in $10,000, one-half the amount sued for. This suit grew out of an accident which occurred August 27th, 1880. The plaintiff was the father of a child then between five and six years old. He and his brother, three years older, were crossing a private way maintained by the railroad for the Essex Company, and the younger boy, while walking backward, stepped between the rail and planking of the roadway inside and was unable to extricate his foot. At that moment the whistle of a train was heard within a few hundred feet and out of sight around a curve, and it appeared from the evidence that the older brother, finding himself unable to relieve his brother, ran down the track toward the train; but finding that he could not attract theattention of the trainmen to his brother’s condition, and that he must be run over, ran back to him, and, telling him to lie down, pulled him outward and down and held him there until the train had passed. Both feet of the little fellow were cut off or mangled so that amputation was necessary. The theory of the defence was that the boy was not caught, but while running across the track, fell and was run over. But the testimony of the older brother was unshaken in every particular. It would be difficult to match the nerve, thoughtfulness, and disregard of self displayed by this boy, who at that time was less than nine years old.
An interesting application of the instantaneous method of photography was recently made by a firm of photographers at Henley-on-Thames. These artists were successful in photographing the Great Western Railway express train familiarly known as the “Flying Dutchman,” while running through Twyford station at a speed of nearly sixty miles an hour. The definition of this lightning-like picture is truly wonderful, the details of the mechanism on the flying locomotive standing out as sharply as the immovable telegraph posts and palings beside the line. The photographers are now engaged, we believe, in constructing a swift shutter for their camera which will reduce the period of exposure of the photographic plate to 1-500th of a second. The same artists have also executed some charming pictures of the upper Thames, with floating swans and moving boats, which cannot but win the admiration of artists and all lovers of the picturesque.
—Cassell’s Family Magazine, Nov. 1880.
Surely people are far morenervousnow than they used to be some generations back. The mental cultivation and the mental wear which we have to go through tends to make that strange and inexplicable portion of our physical construction a very great deal too sensitive for the work and trial of daily life. A few days ago I drove a friend whohad been paying us a visit over to our railway station. He is a man of fifty, a remarkably able and accomplished man. Before the train started, the guard came round to look at the tickets. My friend could not find his; he searched his pockets everywhere, and although the entire evil consequence, had the ticket not turned up, could not possibly have been more than the payment a second time of four or five shillings, he got into a nervous tremor painful to see. He shook from head to foot; his hand trembled so that he could not prosecute his search rightly, and finally he found the missing ticket in a pocket which he had already searched half-a-dozen times. Now contrast the condition of this highly-civilized man, thrown into a painful flurry and confusion at the demand of a railway ticket, with the impassive coolness of a savage, who would not move a muscle if you hacked him in pieces.
—Fraser’s Magazine.
The shortest and most profitable railway in the world is probably to be seen at Coney Island, the famous suburban summer resort of New York. This is the “Marine Railway,” which connects the Manhattan Beach Hotel and the Brighton Beach Hotel. It is 2,000 feet in length, is laid with steel rails, and has a handsome little station at each end. Its equipment consists of two locomotives and four cars, open at the sides, and having reversible seats; and a train of two cars is run each way every five minutes. The cost of this miniature road, including stations and equipment, was 27,000 dols., and it paid for itself in a few weeks after it was opened for business. The operating expenses are 30 dols. a day, and the average receipts are 450 dols. a day the entire season, 900 dols. being sometime taken in. The fare charged is five cents. The property paid a profit last year of 500 dols. per cent on its cost.
Owing to the various dialects in the South of India, as a matter of convenience the English language is much used for personal communication by the natives of different parts of the Presidency of Madras. Mr. Edward Lear, who hastravelled much in that part of the country, gives the following interesting account of a journey:—“I was in a second-class railway carriage going from Madras to Bangalore. There was only one other passenger beside myself and servant, and he was a Brahmin, dressed all in white, with the string worn over the shoulder, by which you may always recognise a Brahmin. He had a great many boxes and small articles, which took up a great deal of room in the compartment, and when at the next station the door was opened for another passenger to get in, the guard said:—
“‘You cannot have all those boxes inside the carriage; some of them must be taken out.’
“‘Oh, sir,’ said the Brahmin in good English, ‘I assure you these articles are by no means necessary to my comfort, and I hope you will not hesitate to dispose of them as you please.’
“Accordingly, therefore, the boxes were taken away. Then the newcomer stepped in; he was also a native, but dressed in quite a different manner from the Brahmin, his clothing being blue, green, red, and all the colours of the rainbow, so that one saw at once the two persons were from different parts of India. Presently he surprised me by saying to the Brahmin,
“‘Pray, sir, excuse me for having given you the trouble of removing any part of your luggage; I am really quite sorry to have given you any inconvenience whatever.’
“To which the Brahmin replied, ‘I beg sir, you will make no apologies; it is impossible you can have incommoded me by causing the removal of those trifling articles; and, even if you have done so, the pleasure of your society would afford me perfect compensation.’”
Mr. Spencer Walpole furnishes some interesting and amusing gossip about the late Mr. Frank Buckland, describing some of his many eccentricities, and telling many stories relative to his peculiar habits. He had, it seems, a great objection to stockings and boots and coats, his favourite attire consisting of nothing else than trousers and a flannel shirt. Boots were his special aversion, and he never lost an opportunity of kicking them off his feet.
“On one occasion,” we are told, “travelling alone in a railway carriage, he fell asleep with his feet resting on the window-sill. As usual, he kicked off his boots, and they fell outside the carriage on the line. When he reached his destination the boots could not, of course, be found, and he had to go without them to his hotel. The next morning a platelayer, examining the permanent way, came upon the boots, and reported to the traffic manager that he had found a pair of gentleman’s boots, but that he could not find the gentleman. Some one connected with the railway recollected that Mr. Buckland had been seen in the neighbourhood, and, knowing his eccentricities, inferred that the boots must belong to him. They were accordingly sent to the Home Office, and were at once claimed.”
An incident has occurred on one of the suburban lines which will certainly be supposed by many to be onlyben trovato, but it is a real fact. A lady, who seemed perfectly well before the train entered a tunnel, suddenly alarmed her fellow-passengers during the temporary darkness by exclaiming, “I am poisoned!” On re-emerging into daylight, an awkward explanation ensued. The lady carried with her two bottles, one of methylated spirit, the other of cognac. Wishing, presumably, for a refresher on the sly, she took advantage of the gloom; but she applied the wrong bottle to her lips. Time pressed, and she took a good drain. The consequence was she was nearly poisoned, and had to apply herself honestly and openly to the brandy bottle as a corrective, amidst the ironical condolence of the passengers she had previously alarmed.
—Once a Week.
A horse for every mile of road was the allowance made by the best coachmasters on the great routes. On the corresponding portions of the railway system the great companies have put a locomotive engine per mile. If a horse earned a hundred guineas a year, out of which his cost had to be defrayed, he did well. A single locomotiveon the Great Northern Railway (and that company has 611 engines for 659 miles of line) was stated by John Robinson, in 1873, to perform the work of 678 horses—work, that is, as measured by resistance overcome; for the horses, whatever their number, could not have reached the speed of fifty miles an hour, at which the engines in questions whirled along a train of sixteen carriages, weighing in all 225 tons. There are now upwards of 13,000 locomotives at work in the United Kingdom, each of them earning on the average, £4,750 per annum. But we have at the same time more horses employed for the conveyance of passengers than we had in 1835. In omnibus and station work—waiting upon the steam horse—there is more demand for horseflesh than was made by our entire coaching system in 1835.
An Irish newspaper is responsible for the following:—“A deaf man named Taff was run down and killed by a passenger train on Wednesday morning. He was injured in a similar way about a year ago.”
An interesting glimpse into the inner working of State, and especially Russian, Government railways was afforded in a recent discussion on railway management in Russia, published by theJournalof the German Railroad Union. During this debate it appears that the details were published of the famous contract of the late American Winans with the Government concerning the Nicholas Railroad. By the use of considerable money, Winans succeeded in making a contract, to extend from July 1st, 1866, for eight years, by which the Government was to pay him for oiling cars and small car repairs at an agreed rate per passenger and per ton mile. In addition to this he received a fixed sum of about £15,000 (78,000 dols.) per year for painting and maintaining the interior of the passenger cars; £6,000 for keeping up the shops, and finally £8,000 yearly for renewing what rolling stock might be worn out. The St. Nicholas linewas eventually taken over by the Great Russian Company, which in 1872 succeeded in making the Government annul the contract by paying Winans a penalty of £750,000, which the Great Russian Company paid back with interest within four years. If the contract had been continued it would have cost the company more than one-third of its net earnings, since the saving amounts to nearly £523,000 per annum. Another contract which the Government had made for the same road with a sleeping-car company was settled shortly afterward by the Government taking from the company the few cars it had on hand, and paying £75,000 for them and £10,000 a year for the unexpired seven years of the contract.
The following is one of such stories, illustrative of one phase of Mr. Brassey’s character—his strict adherence to his word, under all circumstances.
When the “Sambre and Meuse” was drawing towards completion, Mr. Brassey came along as usual with a staff of agents inspecting the progress of the work. Stopping at Olloy, a small place between Mariembourg and Vireux, near a large blacksmith’s shop, the man, a Frenchman or Belgian, came out, and standing up on the bank, with much gesticulation and flourish, proceeded to make Mr. Brassey a grand oration. Anxious to proceed, Mr. Brassey paid him no particular attention, but good naturedly endeavoured to cut the matter short, with “Oui, oui, oui,” and at length got away, the Frenchman apparently expressing great delight.
“Well, gentlemen, what are you laughing at, what is the joke?” said he to his staff as they went along.
“Why, sir, do you know what that fellow said, and for what he was asking?”
“No, indeed, I don’t; I supposed he was complimenting me in some way, or thanking me for something.”
“Hewascomplimenting you, sir, to some tune, and asking, as a souvenir of his happy engagement under the Great Brassey, that you would of your goodness make him a present of the shop, iron, tools, and all belonging!”
“Did he, though! I did not understand that.”
“No sir, but you kept on saying, ‘Oui, oui, oui,’ and the fellow’s delighted, as he well may be, they’re worth £50 or £60.”
“Oh, but I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean that. Well, never mind, if I said it, he musthavethem.”
It must be borne in mind, that at that time, at best, Mr. Brassey knew very little French, and his staff were well aware of the fact.”
Sep. 13, 1872.
S. S.
In a leading article in theBirmingham Post, Nov. 12th, 1880, the writer remarks:—“The report of Major Marindin on the collision which took place between two Midland trains, in Leicestershire, about a month ago, has just been published, but it adds nothing to the information given at the time when the accident happened. The case was, as the report says, one of a remarkable, if not unprecedented nature, for the collision arose from a passenger train running backwards instead of forwards nearly half-a-mile, without either driver or stoker noticing that its movement was in the wrong direction. Shortly after the train had passed the village station of Kibworth, where it was not timed to stop, the driver observed a knocking sound on his engine. He pulled up the train in order to ascertain the cause of this, and finding that nothing serious was the matter, proceeded on his journey again, or rather intended to do so, for, by an extraordinary mistake, he turned the screw the wrong way, so as to reverse the action of the engine, and to direct the train back to Kibworth. There, a mineral train was making its way towards Leicester, and as the line was on a sharp incline the result might have been a most destructive collision. It was, however, reduced to one of a comparatively mild description by the promptness and efficiency with which the brakes were applied to both the trains. Had not the mineral train been pulled up, and the passenger train lowered from a speed of twenty to three or four miles an hour, probably the whole of the passengers would have been crushed between the two engines. Thepassengers, therefore, owed their safety to the excellent brake-power which was at command. The excuse offered by the driver of the passenger train for turning the engine backwards was the shape of the reversing screw, which was of a construction not commonly used on the Midland line, though many of the company’s engines were so fitted. The fireman had also his apology for making the same oversight. He said he was at the time stooping down to adjust the injector. Major Marindin, though admitting that the men were experienced, careful, and sober, refuses to accept either of these excuses; but he can supply no better reason himself for the amazing oversight they committed. The only satisfactory part of the report is that in which the working of the brake mechanism is spoken of. The passenger train had the Westinghouse brake fitted to all the carriages, and such was its efficiency that, had it extended to the engine and tender as well, Major Marindin believes the accident would have been entirely prevented.”
Among strange mental feats the strangest perhaps yet recorded are the following singular feats of memory for sound, related in theScientific American. In the city of Rochester, N. Y., resides a boy named Hicks, who, though he has only lately removed from Buffalo to Rochester, has already learned to distinguish three hundred locomotive engines by the sound of their bells. During the day the boy is employed so far from the railway that he seldom hears a passing train; but at night he can hear every train, his house being near the railroad. To give an idea of his wonderful memory for sounds (and his scarcely less wonderful memory for numbers also) take the following cases. Not long ago young Hicks went to Syracuse, and while there, he, hearing an engine coming out of the round-house, remarked to a friend that he knew the bell, though he had not heard it for five years: he gave the number of the engine, which proved to be correct. Again, not long since, an old switch-engine, used in the yards at Buffalo, was sent to Rochester for some special purpose. It passed near Hicks’ house, and he remarked that the engine was numberso and so, and that he had not heard the bell for six years. A boarder in the house ran to the railroad, and found the number given by Hicks was the correct one. To most persons the bells on American locomotives seem all much alike in sound andtimbre, though, of course, a good ear will readily distinguish differences, especially between bells which are sounded within a short interval of time. But that anyone should be able in the first place to discriminate between two or three hundred of these bells, and in the second place to retain the recollection of the slight peculiarities characterising each for several years, would seem altogether incredible, had we not other instances—such as Bidder’s and Colburn’s calculating feats, Morphy’s blindfold chess-play, etc.—of the amazing degree in which one brain may surpass all others in some special quality, though perhaps, in other respects, not exceptionally powerful, or even relatively deficient.
—Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1880.
Max. O’Rell, the French author, in his bookJohn Bull at Home, writes English people are very great on words; lying is unknown. I was travelling by rail one day with an English bishop. There were five in our compartment. On arriving at a station we heard a cry, “Five minutes here!” My lord bishop, with the greatest haste, set to work to spread out travelling-bag, hat-box, rug, papers, &c. A lady appeared at the door, and asked, “Is there room here?” “Madam,” replied the bishop, “all the seats are full.” When the poor lady had been sent about her business, we called his lordship’s attention to the fact that there were only five of us in the carriage, and that, consequently all the seats were not taken. “I did not say that they were,” answered my lord; “I said that they werefull.”
In an advertisement by a railway company of some unclaimed goods, the “l” dropped from the word “lawful,” and it reads now, “People to whom these packages are directed are requested to come forward and pay theawfulcharges on the same.”
TheAmerican Engineer, as the result of scientific calculations and protracted experience, says the safest seat is in the middle of the last car but one. There are some chances of danger, which are the same everywhere in the train, but others are least at the above-named place.
InWhite’s Warfare of Sciencethere is an account of a worthy French Archbishop who declared that railways were an evidence of the divine displeasure against innkeepers, inasmuch that they would be punished for supplying meat on fast days by seeing travellers carried by them past their doors.
A farmer living near the New York Central lost a cow by a collision with a train on the line; anxious for compensation he waited upon the manager and after stating his case, the manager said, “I understand she was thin and sick.” “Makes no difference,” replied the farmer. “She was a cow, and I want pay for her.” “How much?” asked the manager. “Two hundred dollars!” replied the farmer. “Now look here,” said the manager, “how much did the cow weigh?” “About four hundred, I suppose,” said the farmer. “And we will say that beef is worth ten cents a pound on the hoof.” “It’s worth a heap more than that on the cow-catcher!” replied the indignant farmer. “But we’ll call it that, what then? That makes forty dollars, shall I give you a cheque for forty dollars?” “I tell you I want two hundred dollars,” persisted the farmer. “But how do you make the difference? I’m willing to pay full value, forty dollars. How do you make one hundred and sixty dollars?” “Well, sir,” replied the farmer, waxing wroth, “I want this railroad to understand that I’m going to have something special for the goodwill of that cow!”
An agent of an accident insurance company entered a smoking car on a western railroad train a few days ago, and, approaching an exceedingly gruff old man, asked him if he did not want to take out a policy. He was told to get out with his policy, and passed on. A few minutes afterwards an accident occurred to the train, causing a fearful shaking to the cars. The old man jumped up, and seizing a hook at the side of the car to steady himself, called out, “Where is that insurance man?” The question caused a roar of laughter among the passengers, who for the time forgot their dangers.
—Harper’s Weekly, May 8th, 1880.
Sir Edward Watkin observed at the half-yearly meeting of the South Eastern Railway Company, January, 1881:—“The result of this compensating law under which the slightest neglect makes the company liable, and the only thing to be considered is the amount of damages—the effect of this unjust law is to create a new profession compounded of the worst elements of the present professions—viz., expert doctors, expert attorneys, and expert witnesses. You will get a doctor to swear that a man who has a slight knock on the head to say that he has a diseased spine, and will never be fit for anything again, and never be capable of being a man of business or the father of a family. The result of that is all we can do is to get some other expert to say exactly the contrary. Then you have a class of attorneys who get up this business. We had an accident, I may tell you, at Forrest-hill two years ago. Well, there was a gentleman—an attorney in the train. He went round to all the people in the train and gave them his card; and, having distributed all the cards in his card-case, he went round and expressed extreme regret to the others that he could not give them a card; but he gave them his name as ‘So and So,’ his place was in ‘Such a street,’ and the ‘No, So and So’ in the City. That was touting for business. Now, there is a very admirable body called the “Law Association.” Why does not the Law Association take holdof cases of that kind? Well, you saw in the paper the case of Roperv.the South Eastern. Now that was a peculiar thing. Roper declared that from an injury he had received in a slight accident at the Stoney-street signal box, outside Cannon-street he was utterly incapacitated, and that, for I don’t know how many weeks and months, he was in bed without ceasing. The doctors, I believe, put pins and needles into him, but he never flinched, and when the case came before the court we found that some of the medical experts declared that it was just within the order of Providence that in twenty years he might get better; but these witnesses thought that the chances were against it, and that he would be a hopeless cripple. So evidence was given as to his income; and the idea was to capitalise it at £8,000. That man had paid 4d. for his ticket I think—I forget the exact amount. Our counsel, the Attorney-General, went into the thing, with the very able assistance of Mr. Willis, who deserves every possible credit. We also had Mr. Le Gros Clarke, the eminent consulting surgeon of the company, and Dr. Arkwright from the north of England, and they told us that in their opinion it was a swindle. And it was a swindle. The result of it was, the Attorney-General put his foot down upon it, and declared that it was a swindle, and the jury unanimously non-suited Mr. Roper. Well, singularly enough, when I say he had paid 4d., I think it was not absolutely proved that he was in the train at all. But although this was a case in which the jury said there was no case, and where the Judge summed up strongly that it was a fraud, and where the most eminent surgeon said it was an absolute delusion altogether, and where, in point of fact, justice was done entirely to you as regards the verdict, you have £2,300 to pay for costs of one kind or another in defending a case of swindling, because when you try to recover the costs the man becomes bankrupt, and you won’t get a farthing; and I do mean to say I have described a state of the law and practice that ought to excite the reprobation of every honest man in England.”
An engine-driver on the Pennsylvania Railway yesterday saved the lives of 600 passengers by an extraordinary act of heroism. The furnace door was opened by the firemanto replenish the fire while the train was going at thirty-five miles an hour. The back draught forced the flames out so that the car of the locomotive caught fire, and the engine-driver and the fireman were driven back over the tender into the passenger car, leaving the engine without control. The speed increased, and the volume of flame with it. There was imminent danger that all the carriages would take fire, and the whole be consumed. The passengers were panic-stricken. To jump off was certain death; to remain was to be burned alive. The engine-driver saw that the only way to save the passengers was to return to the engine and stop the train. He plunged into the flames, climbed back over the tender, and reversed the engine. When the train came to a standstill, he was found in the water-tank, whither he had climbed, with his clothes entirely burnt off, his face disfigured, his hands shockingly burned, and his body blistered so badly that the flesh was stripped off in many places. Weak and half-conscious he was taken to the hospital, where his injuries were pronounced serious, with slight chance of recovery. As soon as the train stopped the flames were easily extinguished. The unanimous testimony of the passengers is that the engine-driver saved their lives. His name is Joseph A. Sieg.
—Daily News, Oct. 24th, 1882.
As an early morning train drew up at a station, a pleasant looking gentleman stepped out on the platform, and, inhaling the fresh air, enthusiastically observed to the guard, “Isn’t this invigorating?” “No, sir, it’s Croydon,” replied the conscientious employé.
On a Georgia railroad there is a conductor named Snell, a very clever, sociable man, fond of a joke, quick at repartee, and faithful in the discharge of his duties. One day as his train well filled with passengers, was crossing a low bridge over a wide stream, some four or five feet deep, the bridge broke down, precipitating the two passenger cars into the stream. As the passengers emerged from thewreck they were borne away by the force of the current. Snell had succeeded in catching hold of some bushes that grew on the bank of the stream, to which he held for dear life. A passenger less fortunate came rushing by. Snell extended one hand, saying, “Your ticket, sir; give me your ticket!” The effect of such a dry joke in the midst of the water may be imagined.
—Harper’s Magazine.
Dean Ramsay in hisReminiscencesremarks:—“Some curious stories are told of ladies of this class, as connected with the novelties and excitement of railway travelling. Missing their luggage, or finding that something has gone wrong about it, often causing very terrible distress, and might be amusing, were it not to the sufferer so severe a calamity. I was much entertained with the earnestness of this feeling, and the expression of it from an old Scottish lady, whose box was not forthcoming at the station where she was to stop. When urged to be patient, her indignant exclamation was, “I can bear ony pairtings that may be ca’ed for in God’s providence; but I canna stan’ pairtin’ frae ma claes.”
A gentleman was travelling by rail from Breslau to Oppeln and found himself alone with a lady in a second-class compartment. He vainly endeavoured to enter into conversation with the other occupant of the carriage; her answers were invariably curt and snappish. Baffled in his attempts, he proceeded to light a cigar to while away the time. Then the lady said to him: “I suppose you have never travelled second-class before, else you would know better manners.” Her travelling companion quietly rejoined: “It is true, I have hitherto only studied the manners of the first and third-classes. In the first-class the passengers are rude to the porters, in the third-class the porters are rude to the passengers. I now discover that in the second-class the passengers are rude to each other.”
Kate Shelley, to whom the Iowa Legislature has just given a gold medal and $200, is fifteen years old. She lives near Des Moines, at a point where a railroad crosses a gorge at a great height. One night during a furious storm the bridge was carried away. The first the Shelleys knew of it was when they saw the headlight of a locomotive flash down into the chasm. Kate climbed to the remains of the bridge with great difficulty, using an improvised lantern. The engineer’s voice answered her calls, but she could do nothing for him, and he was drowned. As an express train was almost due, she then started for the nearest station, a mile distant. A long, high bridge over the Des Moines River had to be crossed on the ties—a perilous thing in stormy darkness. Kate’s light was blown out, and the wind was so violent that she could not stand, so she crawled across the bridge, from timber to timber, on her hands and knees. She got to the station exhausted, but in time to give the warning, though she fainted immediately.
—Detroit Free Press, May 13th, 1882.
The Merv correspondent of theDaily Newsin a letter dated the 30th of April, 1881, remarks, “I was very much amused by the description given me by some Tekkés of the Serdar’s departure for Russia. It seems that my informants accompanied him up to the point where the trans-Caspian railway is in working order. ‘They shut Tockmé Serdar and two others in a large box (sanduk) and locked him in, and then dragged him away across the Sahara. And,’ added the speakers, ‘Allah only knows what will happen to them inside that box.’ The box, I need hardly say, was a railway carriage.”
A man commonly known as “Billy” Cooper, of the town of Van Etten, was walking on the railroad track at a point not far distant from his home. In crossing the railroad bridge he made a miss-step, and, slipping, fell between the ties, but his position was so cramped that he was unable toget out of the way of danger. There, suspended in that awful manner, with the body dangling below the bridge, he heard a train thundering along in the distance, approaching every moment nearer and nearer. No one will ever know the struggles for life which the poor fellow made, but they were futile; with arms pinioned to his sides he was unable to signal the engineer. The train came sweeping on upon its helpless victim until within a few feet of the spot, when the engineer saw the man’s head and endeavoured to stop his heavy train. But too late; the moving mass passed over, cutting his head from the shoulders as clean as it could have been done by the guillotine itself. Cooper was 60 years of age.
—Ithaca(N.Y.)Journal.
An English traveller in Ireland, greedy for information and always fingering the note-book in his breast pocket, got into the same railway carriage with a certain Roman Catholic archbishop. Ignorant of his rank, and only perceiving that he was a divine, he questioned him pretty closely about the state of the country, whisky drinking, etc. At last he said, “You are a parish priest, yourself, of course.” His grace drew himself up. “Iwasone, sir,” he answered, with icy gravity. “Dear, dear,” was the sympathizing rejoinder. “That accursed drink, I suppose.”
This railway, the last new project in mountain-climbing, is now finished. It is 900 metres in length, and will enable tourists to ascend by it to the very edge of the crater. The line has been constructed with great care upon a solid pavement, and it is believed to be perfectly secure from all incursions of lava. The mode of traction is by two steel ropes put in motion by a steam engine at the foot of the cone. The wheels of the carriages are so made as to be free from any danger of leaving the rails, besides which each carriage is furnished with an exceedingly powerful automatic brake, which, should the rope by any chance break, will stop the train almost instantaneously. One ofthe chief difficulties of the undertaking was the water supply; but that has been obviated by the formation of two very large reservoirs, one at the station, the other near the observatory.
—Railway Times, 1879.
Yesterday evening, Aug. 6th, 1883, a special train of “empties,” which left Charing-cross at 5.55 to pick up returning excursionists from Gravesend, had some extraordinary experiences, such as perhaps had hardly ever occurred on a single journey. On leaving Dartford, where some passengers were taken up, the train was proceeding towards Greenhithe, when the driver observed on the line a donkey, which had strayed from an adjoining field. An endeavour was made to stop the train before the animal was reached, but without success, and the poor beast was knocked down and dragged along by the firebox of the engine. The train was stopped, and with great difficulty the body of the animal, which was killed, was extricated from beneath the engine. While this was in progress, a balloon called the “Sunbeam,” supposed to come either from Sydenham or Tunbridge Wells, passed over the line, going in the direction of Northfleet. The two æronauts in the car were observed to be short of gas, and were throwing out ballast, but, notwithstanding this, the balloon descended slowly, and when some distance ahead of the train was, to the horror of the passengers, seen to drop suddenly into the railway cutting two or three hundred yards only in advance of the approaching train. The alarm whistle was sounded, and the brakes put on, and as the balloon dragged the car and its occupants over the down line there seemed nothing but certain death for them; but suddenly the inflated monster, now swaying about wildly, took a sudden upward flight, and, dragging the car clear of the line, fell into an adjoining field just when the train was within a hundred yards of the spot. The escape was marvellous.
“Dummy,” is a deaf mute newsman on the Long Island Railroad. Lately he had suffered much in mind and body from an aching tooth. He did not like dentists, but he resolved that the tooth must go. He procured a piece of twine, and tied one end of it to the tooth and the other end to the rear of an express train. When the train started, Dummy ran along the platform a short distance, and then dropped suddenly on his knees. The engine whistled, and dummy cried, but the train took the tooth.
It happens, in numerous instances, that virtuous resolves are made overnight with respect to early rising, which resolves, when put to the test, are doomed only to be broken. Some years ago a clergyman, who had occasion to visit the West of England on very important business, took up his quarters, late at night, at a certain hotel adjacent to a railway, with a view of starting by the early train on the following morning. Previous to retiring to rest, he called the “boots” to him, told him that he wished to be called for the early train, and said that it was of the utmost importance that he should not oversleep himself. The reverend gentleman at the same time confessed that he was a very heavy sleeper, and as there would be probably the greatest difficulty in awakening him, he (the “boots”) was to resort to any means he thought proper in order to effect his object. And, further, that if the business were effectually accomplished, the fee should be a liberal one. The preliminaries being thus settled, the clergyman sought his couch, and “boots” left the room with the air of a determined man. At a quarter to five on the following morning, “boots” walked straight to “No. twenty-three,” and commenced a vigorous rattling and hammering at the door, but the only answer he received was “All right!” uttered in a very faint and drowsy tone. Five minutes later, “boots” approached the door, placing his ear at the keyhole, and detecting no other sound than a most unearthly snore, he unceremoniously entered the room, and laying his brawny hands upon the prostrate form of the sleeper, shookhim violently and long. This attack was replied to by a testy observation that he “knew all about it, and there was not the least occasion to shake him so.” “Boots” thereupon left the room, somewhat doubtingly, and only to return in a few minutes afterwards and find the Rev. Mr. — as sound asleep as ever. This time the clothes were stripped off, and a species of baptismal process was adopted, familiarly known as “cold pig.” At this assault the enraged gentleman sat bolt upright in bed, and with much other bitter remark, denounced “boots” as a barbarous follow. An explanation was then come to, and the drowsy man professed he understood it all, and wasaboutto arise. But the gentleman who officiated at the — hotel, having had some experience in these matters, placed no reliance upon the promise he had just received, and shortly visited “No. twenty-three” again. There he found that the occupant certainly had got up, but it was only to replace the bedclothes and to lie down again. “Boots” now felt convinced that this was one of those cases which required prompt and vigorous handling, and without more ado, therefore, he again stripped off the upper clothing, and seizing hold of the under sheet, he dragged its depository bodily from off the bed. The sleeping man, sensible of the unusual motion, and dreamily beholding a stalwart form bent over him, became impressed with the idea that a personal attack was being made upon him, probably with a view to robbery and murder. Under this conviction, he, in his descent, grasped “boots” firmly by the throat, the result being that both bodies thus came to the floor with a crash. Here the two rolled about for some seconds in all the agonies of a death struggle, until the unwonted noise and the cries of the assailants brought several persons from all parts of the hotel, and they, seeing two men rolling frantically about in each other’s arms, and with the hand of each grasping the other’s throat, rushed in and separated them. An explanation was of course soon given. The son of the church was effectually awakened, he rewarded the “boots,” and went off by the train.
Fortune subsequently smiled upon “boots,” and in the course of time he became proprietor of a first-rate hotel. In the interval the Rev. Mr. — had risen from a humblecurate to the grade of a dean. Having occasion to visit the town of —, he put up at the house of the ex-boots. The two men saw and recognized each other, and the affair of the early train reverted to the mind of both. “It was a most fortunate circumstance,” said the dean, “that I did not oversleep myself on that morning, for from the memorable journey that followed, I date my advancement in the Church. But,” he continued, with an expression that betokened some tender recollection, “if I ever should require you to wake me for an early train again, would you mind placing a mattress or feather-bed on the floor?”
—The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book.
A startling event happened at an early hour yesterday morning (Jan. 8th, 1884), in connection with the mail train from Brest, which is due in Paris at ten minutes to five o’clock. Whilst proceeding at full speed the passengers observed the brakes to be put on with such suddenness that fears were entertained that a collision was imminent, especially as the spot at which the train was drawn up was in utter darkness. Upon the guard reaching the engine he found the stoker endeavouring to overpower the driver, who had evidently lost his reason. After blocking the line the guard joined the stoker, and succeeded in securing the unfortunate man, but not until he had offered a desperate resistance. The locomotive was then put in motion, the nearest station was reached without further misadventure, and the driver was placed in custody. The train ultimately arrived in Paris after two hours’ delay.
Steam and gunpowder have often proved the most eloquent apostles of civilization, but the impressiveness of their arguments was, perhaps, never more strikingly illustrated than at the little railway station of Gallegos, in Northern Mexico. When the first passenger train crossed the viaduct, and the Wizards of the North had covered the festive tables with the dainties of all zones, the governor of Durango was not the most distinguished visitor; foramong the spectators on the platform the natives were surprised to recognise the Cabo Ventura, the senior chief of a hill-tribe, which had never formally recognised the sovereignty of the Mexican Republic. The Cabo, indeed, considered himself the lawful ruler of the entireComarca, and preserved a document in which the Virey Gonzales,en nombre del Rey—in the name of the King—appointed him “Protector of all the loyal tribes of Castro and Sierra Mocha.” His diploma had an archæological value, and several amateurs had made him a liberal offer, but the old chieftain would as soon have sold his scalp. His soul lived in the past. All the evils of the age he ascribed to the demerits of the traitors who had raised the banner of revolt against the lawful king; and as for the countrymen of Mr. Gould, the intrusiveYangueses, his vocabulary hardly approached the measure of his contempt when he called themherexes y combusteros—heretics and humbugs.
“But it cannot be denied,” Yakoob Khan wrote to his father, “that it has pleased Allah to endow those sinners with a good deal of brains;” and the voice of nature gradually forced the Cabo to a similar conclusion, till he resolved to come and see for himself.
When the screech of the iron Behemoth at last resounded at the lower end of the valley, and the train swept visibly around the curve of the river-gap, the natives set up a yell that waked up the mountain echoes; men and boys waved their hats and jumped to and fro, in a state of the wildest excitement. Only the old Cabo stood stock-still. His gaze was riveted upon the phenomenon that came thundering up the valley; his keen eye enabled him to estimate the rate of speed, the trend of the up-grade, the breadth, the length, the height of the car. When the train approached the station, the crowd surged back in affright, but the Cabo stood his ground, and as soon as the cars stopped he stepped down upon the track. He examined the wheels, tapped the axles, and tried to move the lever; and when the engine backed up for water, he closely watched the process of locomotion, and walked to the end of the last car to ascertain the length of the train. He then returned to the platform and sat down, covering his face with both hands.
Two hours later the Governor of Durango found him in still the same position.
“Hallo, Cabo,” he called out, “how do you like this? What do you think now of America Nueva?” (“New America,” a collective term for the republics of the American continent).
The chieftain looked up. “Sabe Dios—the gods know—Senor Commandante, butIknow this much: With Old America it’s all up.”
“Is it? Well, look here: would you now like to sell that old diploma? I still offer you the same price.”
The Cabo put his hand in his bosom, drew forth a leather-shrouded old parchment, and handed it to his interlocutor. “Vengale, Usted—it’s worthless and you are welcome to keep it.” Nevertheless, he connived when the Governor slipped a gold piece into the pouch and put it upon his knees, minus the document.
But just before the train started, the Governor heard his name called, and stepped out upon the platform of the palace-car, when he saw the old chieftain coming up the track.
“I owe you a debt, senor,” said he, “y le pagarè en consejo, I want to pay it off in good advice: Beware of those strangers.”
“What strangers?”
“The caballeros who invented this machine.”
“Is that what you came to tell me?” laughed the Governor as the train started.
The old Cabo waved his hand in a military salute. “Estamos ajustade, Senor Commandante, this squares our account.”
—Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1884.
“Ticket, sir!” said an inspector at a railway terminus in the City to a gentleman, who, having been a season ticket holder for some time, believed his face was so well known that there was no need for him to show his ticket. “My face is my ticket,” replied the gentleman a little annoyed. “Indeed!” said the inspector, rolling back his wristband, and displaying a most powerful wrist, “well, my orders are to punch all tickets passing on to this platform.”
The question of the liability of railway companies in the event of personal accident through parcels falling from a rack in the compartments of passenger trains has been raised in the Midlands. In December last, a tailor named Round was travelling from Dudley to Stourbridge, and, on the train being drawn up at Round Oak Station, a hamper was jerked from the racks and fell with such force as to cause him serious injury. Certain medical charges were incurred, and Mr. Round alleged that he was unable to attend to his business for five weeks in consequence of the accident. He therefore claimed £50 by way of compensation. Sir Rupert Kettle, before whom the case was tried, decided that the company was not liable, and could not be held responsible for whatever happened in respect to luggage directly under the control of passengers. The case is one of some public interest, inasmuch as a parcel falling from a rack is not an uncommon incident in a railway journey. Moreover, the hamper in question belonged, not to the plaintiff, but to a glass engraver, and contained four empty bottles, two razors, and a couple of knives.
—Daily News, March 29th, 1884.