But at last anxiety was changed to relief. One morning a letter arrived inviting her husband to join the London and Brighton Railway Board of Directors. Owing to gross mismanagement, the line had long been going from bad to worse in every way; and an entirely new directorate was now chosen. The invitation was especially gratifying because it came from personal strangers.
My father's connection with the railway forms an interesting chapter of his life which has been told elsewhere. In a work dealing only with the postal reform, repetition of the story in detail would be out of place. One brief paragraph, therefore, shall suffice to recall what was a pleasant episode in his career.
The “new brooms” went to work with a will, and the railway soon began to prosper. The price of shares—notwithstanding the announcement that for the ensuing half-year no payment of dividends could be looked for—rose rapidly; ordinary trains were increased in speed and number, expresses started, and Sunday excursion trains, by which the jaded dwellers “in populous city pent” were enabled once a week to breathe health-giving sea-breezes, were instituted; the rolling stock was improved, and, by the building of branch lines, the Company was ere long enabled to add to its title “and South Coast.” The invitation to my father to join the Board met, at the sitting which discussed the proposal, with but one dissentient voice, that of Mr John Meesom Parsons of the Stock Exchange. “We want no Rowland Hills here,” he said, “to interfere in everything; and even, perhaps, to introduce penny fares in all directions”—a rate undreamed of in those distant days. He therefore resolved to oppose the unwelcome intruder on every favourable occasion. The day the two men first met at the Board, the magnetic attraction, instinct, whatever be its rightful name, which almost at once and simultaneously draws together kindred souls, affected both; and forthwith commenced a friendship which in heartiness resembled that of David and Jonathan, and lasted throughout life. Mr Parsons, as gleefully as any school-boy, told us the story against himself on one out of many visits which he paid us; and with equal gleefulness told it, on other occasions and in our presence, to other people.[150]
An incident which occurred four years after the termination of Rowland Hill's engagement at the Treasury seemed to indicate a wish on Peel's part to show that he felt not unkindly towards the reformer, however much he disliked the reform. In the seventh year of penny postage, and while its author was still excluded from office, the nation showed its appreciation of Rowland Hill's work by presenting him with a monetary testimonial. Sir Robert Peel was among the earliest contributors, his cheque being for the maximum amount fixed by the promoters of the tribute. Again Mr “Punch” displayed his customary genius for clothing a truism in a felicitous phrase by comparing Peel's action with that of an assassin who deals a stab at a man with one hand, and with the other applies sticking-plaster to the wound.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] Letter to Rowland Hill from Mr Baring, dated “Downing Street, 14th September 1839.”
[127] “Life,” i. 371.
[128] An amusing character-sketch of Colonel Maberly is to be found in the pages of Edmund Yates's “Recollections and Experiences.”
[129] In connection with the putting up of one receptacle in London not many years ago, a gruesome discovery was made. The ground near St Bartholomew's Hospital had been opened previous to the erection of a pillar letter-box, when a quantity of ashes, wood and human, came to light. “Bart's” looks upon Smithfield, scene of the burning of some of the martyrs for conscience' sake. No need, then, to ponder the meaning of these sad relics. They clearly pointed to sixteenth-century man's inhumanity to man.
[130] The first person to post a letter under the new system is said to have been Mr Samuel Lines of Birmingham, Rowland Hill's former drawing-master, whose portrait hangs in the Art Gallery of that city. He was warmly attached to his ex-pupil, who, in turn, held the old man in high esteem, and maintained an occasional correspondence with him till the artist's death. Determined that in Birmingham no one should get the start of him, Mr Lines wrote to my father a letter of congratulation, and waited outside the Post Office till at midnight of the 9th a clock rang out the last stroke of twelve. Then, knocking up the astonished clerk on duty, he handed in the letter and the copper fee, and laconically remarked: “A penny, I believe.”