Part 25

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 timed not 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_.

A GREENLANDER’S FIRST RAILWAY RIDE.

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.

A NOVEL ACTION.

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 against his 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.

A KISS IN THE DARK.

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—coloured lady, 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 GRAVEDIGGER’S SUGGESTION.

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 AMUSING INCIDENT.

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?’”

A LITTLE BOY’S COOLNESS.

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 the attention 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.

PHOTOGRAPHING AN EXPRESS TRAIN.

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.

NERVOUSNESS.

Surely people are far more _nervous_ now 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 who had 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_.

A PROFITABLE RAILWAY.

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.

THE POLITE BRAHMIN.

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 has travelled 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. FRANK BUCKLAND AND HIS BOOTS.

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.”

DRINKING FROM THE WRONG BOTTLE.

An incident has occurred on one of the suburban lines which will certainly be supposed by many to be only _ben 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_.

HORSES VERSUS RAILWAYS.

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 locomotive on 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.

A SLIGHT MISTAKE.

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.”

EXPENSIVE CONTRACTS.

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 the _Journal_ of 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 line was 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.

MR. BRASSEY’S STRICT ADHERENCE TO HIS WORD.

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.”

“He _was_ complimenting 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 must _have_ them.”

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.

EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT.