Or to the smoke-room moves,
While on either side the landscape flits,
Like a world in well-greased grooves.
Thanks to Pullman's dining-car,
No more Mugby Junction Bar—
No more tough ham and chicken,
Nor passenger-pickin'
For the minxes behind the Bar!
Punch is a Railway Critic
Punch's jubilation was short-lived; and in 1883 his discontent takes the form of a wholesale indictment of unnecessary noises, draughts, dismal chilly waiting-rooms, atrocious refreshment-rooms, undistinguishable station-names. The regulations and adjustments of Railwaydom, he sums up, "can only be praised in the same spirit as that in which Charles Kingsley lauded the British North-Easter." On the question of Railways in the Lake District, about which Ruskin had raised an exceeding bitter cry, Punch seems rather to favour the Philistine view:—