THE WAY TO THE TEMPLE.
Dear Mr. Punch,
Willesden Junction.
Having been assured by a Phrenologist that my bump of locality is very highly developed, I attempted the other day—although a perfect stranger to London—to walk from Charing Cross to the Temple without inquiring the route. I had absolutely no assistance but a small map of Surbiton and the neighbourhood, from which I had calculated the general lie of the country, and a plain, ordinary compass, which I had bought cheap because it had lost its pointer. I am not sure that the route I took was the most direct. But when, after several hours' walk, I found myself at Willesden Junction, I was assured by a boy in the district, whom I asked, that I could not possibly have gone straighter. He advised me to take a ticket at once for Chalk Farm, as I still had some way to go, and said that he thought I might have to change at Battersea. He was a nice, bright little boy, and laughed quite merrily.
I have now been at Willesden Junction for eighteen hours, and I have not yet secured a train for Chalk Farm. There have been several, but they have always gone from the platform which I had just left. So I have camped out on the 101th platform, and I intend to stop there till a train for Chalk Farm comes in. Of course the porters have remonstrated, and tried to explain where and when the train really does start. But I would sooner trust my natural instincts than any porter. That bright little boy has been twice to see how I am getting on. He brought two other boys last time. They all told me to stick to it, and seemed much amused—probably at the stupidity of those porters. But really, Mr. Punch, Willesden Junction ought to be simplified. It may be all very well for me, with a phrenological aptitude for this sort of thing; but these different levels, platforms, and stairs must be very puzzling to less gifted people, such as the green young man from the country.
But the last suggestion which I have to make is the most important. There ought to be a great many more doors into the refreshment-room, and only one door out of it. I lost the thirteenth train for Chalk Farm by going out of the wrong door. One door out would be ample, and it should certainly be made—by an easy arrangement of pivots and pneumatic pressure—to open straight into the train for anywhere where you wanted to go. If this simple alteration cannot be made, Willesden Junction must be destroyed at once, route and branch; or removed to Hampton Court, to take the place of the present absurdly easy Maze. I am, Mr. Punch,
Your humble and obedient Servant,
Phrenitic.