Tube, Train, Tram, and Car; or, Up-to-date locomotion

by Arthur H. Beavan

Supposing, therefore, that all the L.C.C. parliamentary Bills are carried through, and that all the disunited lines are properly and harmoniously linked together, and through communication established in every direction, it will be feasible to take some such day’s business journey within the Council’s boundaries as that of Benjamin Short which I am about to relate. But before doing so I think the very important decision of the Lord Chancellor in an appeal case, November 27th, 1902, on the subject of the maintenance of tramway tracks should be recorded:—

THE MAINTENANCE OF TRAMWAY TRACKS

On March 4th, 1900, Mr. Fitzgerald was driving a horse and Ralli car in Grafton Street, Dublin, when the horse stumbled and fell, and the respondent was flung out of the cart and sustained serious injuries. On the ground that the surface of the paving at the place where he was driving was unsafe for horses and in a condition which was a danger and annoyance to the ordinary traffic, he brought an action against the tramway company, and was awarded £1,000 damages, the jury holding that the part of the roadway for which the company was responsible was at the time slippery and unsafe, and that this was the cause of the horse falling. They, at the same time, found that the misfortune was not caused by the fabric of the pavement being improperly constructed or maintained.

The Lord Chancellor, at the conclusion of the arguments, moved that the appeal should be dismissed. The tramway company had been permitted the use of the public highway subject to certain obligations, which practically meant that while they were to use it they must take care that the safety and convenience of the public were consulted. They were not to have a monopoly of the highway, and it was their duty to take care of the public convenience in respect to that part of the roadway over which they were permitted to exercise a kind of subordinate dominion. It was not denied that the surface of the roadway became, in certain states of the weather, a danger and a nuisance to the public, and it was a strong contention to say that, having received instructions from the road authority to do that which would have prevented the accident, there should be no liability upon them. The obligation, as he read the statute, was to keep the pavement in a fit and proper condition for public traffic. How that was to be done was a question of mechanical engineering, and neither the Legislature nor the Court was called upon to enter into the question as to how it could best be done. All the judges without exception seemed to agree that the best and most proper mode of doing it was to do what the road authority directed them to do, and that they had deliberately disobeyed.

A BUSINESS JOURNEY BY L.C.C. TRAMS

Benjamin Short was born and brought up in London, and if any man living knew its ins and outs he did. He was a jovial-looking little man, always called Ben, for, said his father, “We christened him Benjamin for long, but as he grew so slowly, we called him Ben for short; for short he is, and short he always will be—except of cash!”

Short the elder was a small tobacconist in the days when the fragrant weed was first put up and sold in packets—a paying idea, as he soon discovered—and to effectually put it into practice, he used a fast-trotting mare and a roomy, comfortable trap.

Ben, as he grew up, was allowed to accompany his father on these journeys, and having abundant powers of observation and natural quickness, he came to know more about Greater London than most men of double his age. He was cut out for a commercial traveller’s career, and a traveller, in due course, he became, inheriting from his father a snug bit of capital.

At the time of which I am writing, Ben lived at Stamford Hill, close to the London County Council boundary, in a well-built house with a bit of land at the back, in which he had invested his inheritance. He called it “The Watchmaker’s Rest,” and it faced the tramway line. Its front garden was the envy and admiration of the neighbours. There appeared in their season the choicest bulbous flowers, lovely annuals, herbaceous plants, chrysanthemums, and asters, all of irreproachable quality, for Short, being a sober and steady man, devoted his spare time to horticulture, at which he was an adept.

Ben Short travelled for a large wholesale firm of watchmakers and jewellers in Clerkenwell, whose warehouse was not far from the junction of Goswell Road and Old Street. Thither Short went to business every day at eight o’clock from Stamford Hill, not by a Tube (“Toob” he called it), but by the tram which passed his door. He was a first-rate salesman, working on salary and commission, as active and enduring as a bee, but as no travelling expenses within the London district were allowed him, he had to get about as cheaply as possible.