It is charged that the railway building in Canada of the first fourteen years of this century was too prodigal. On the whole, it was, though responsibility for it should be discriminatingly allocated. But in view of what was asked for, and what was acceded to, I think Mackenzie and Mann were entitled to adapt their speech to Clive’s remark when he was cross-examined to show that he had unduly enriched himself in India. As he thought of the treasures he might have taken and didn’t, he said: “By heaven, Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation.”
CHAPTER XII.
Offering explanations why luxurious ease does not distinguish living on a private car.
This is the apologia of the private car, as to which there is probably more misapprehension in the public mind than about any other aid to railway business. The notion is abroad that there is as much relation between the private car and hard work as there was between the melodies and the briefs of a certain eminent lawyer, addicted to drops in aitches, of whom a competitor is said to have remarked: “’Ere ’e comes, the ’oly ’umbug, ’ummin’ an ’ym; ’ow I ’ate ’im”.
There are private cars and private cars. Most of them should not be called by that name. Very few which are properly so designated belong to railwaymen.
One chilly evening, just after sundown, a Saskatchewan farmer was crossing, with his yoke of oxen, a siding where stood a car, well lighted and blinds undrawn. He saw a short-bearded, middle-aged man sitting, with three other prosperous looking persons, at the table, which was well-appointed with spotless linen, and the sort of ware without which a meal is nowhere. He watched a white-coated man enter; and he halted his cattle to see this man hand around a dish, and stand respectfully while the other people took from it what they required.
Fascinated, the farmer stayed there till the meal was concluded, cigars were burning, and the blinds were drawn. He was abroad later than he had expected, and had not reckoned on so chilly an evening. He shivered as he commanded Buck and Bright to proceed; and he talked to himself—as he has told the story since.
The lazy luxury of these railway magnates! Lolling over the country in private cars, waited on hand and foot, out of the money which poor devils like himself, shaking with cold, and working their bodies to skin and bone, paid to the railway for dividends and luxuries like the cars that made these men feel like kings and act like tyrants. The farmer would soon show these oppressors where they got off at. They’d begin by getting off the private car—and so on and so forth, in human nature’s human way.