The Royal George is gone,
His iron rule is o'er—
And he and his directors
Shall break the lines no more!
King Hudson's Downfall
In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy" on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of voyages de luxe.
But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort, danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 Punch ironically comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided, only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests from correspondents of The Times with the remark:—
Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive expostulation.
RAILWAY UNDERTAKING