To render railway travelling safer than it now is, the following rules should be adopted:—First and foremost, the men should be better paid, and not overworked; secondly, the telegraph and signal duties should be placed in the hands of responsible and intelligent persons; and last, not least, punctuality in starting should be rigidly enforced, for in making up for lost time many have found to their cost that the old hunting maxim has been realised, "It is the pace that kills."
To carry out the latter, luggage should be sent into the station a quarter of an hour before the time of departure, and the doors closed to passengers five minutes before the train leaves. How often have I seen trains delayed in London and at different stations in the country through the late arrival of some persons of distinction! The humbler classes do not fare quite as well, for many a farmer's wife, country girl, labourer, or mechanic has either been left behind or has been hustled into the third class carriages, leaving band-boxes, baskets, tools or implements on the platform. It is only a few months ago that I saw the above illustrated.
At—— station, just after the train was in motion, a well-appointed waggonette drove up, the coachman shouting "Wait a moment!" The injunction was obeyed, the train was stopped, and in about four or five minutes two middle-aged ladies, a tiny specimen of the canine race, a luncheon basket, dressing case, work-basket, cloaks, umbrella, and parasols were deposited in a first class compartment, and a large amount of luggage placed in the van. The darling little white, curly-haired pet, "Bijou" by name, soon emancipated itself from the muff in which it had been hid, much to the discomfiture of myself and other occupants of the carriage! Mark the contrast! After about an hour's journey we stopped at a very rural station, and just as the whistle was about to be blown a quiet, respectable-looking female, evidently of the humbler grade, rushed out of the office with merely a small basket in her hand, exclaiming,
"Am I in time, guard?"
"Plenty," he responded, "for the next train."
The whistle was heard, and the poor woman left behind, to ruminate for four hours upon her ill-luck.
There is another evil which many of the railways have got rid of, and which we trust will shortly be universally adopted—I refer to the brief time allowed for taking tickets. In Glasgow (I speak from experience) you may purchase your ticket in offices appointed for the sale of them independent of the railway station. To the public this is a special boon, and upon one occasion I found the benefit of it.
I was engaged to give a lecture at the City Hall, Glasgow, which was to commence at eight o'clock. The night train to London left at twelve minutes after nine, so there was not much time to spare. By taking my ticket in the afternoon, leaving my portmanteau in the cloak-room, engaging an intelligent porter to take it out and have it ready for me, and benefiting by the kindness of my host, Wm. Holms, Esq., M.P. for Paisley, who conveyed me in his brougham from the lecture-hall to the station, I arrived in time for the train, reaching my London home in time for a ten o'clock breakfast, with ample time, as the Yorkshireman says, "to have a wash before a bite."
I now turn to accidents by road. These were principally caused through the carelessness of the drivers, a refractory team, a coach that had not been thoroughly inspected before starting, and occasionally by a coachman who had imbibed a considerable quantity of strong ale or fiery spirits. I could fill pages with accidents that have occurred to stage-coaches, in which many were killed and others most severely hurt.
If I recollect right, a Worcester coach, descending the steep hill into Severn Stoke, was overturned, none of the passengers escaping death; and on all the roads east, west, south, and north of London frequent upsets took place, more especially during the foggy month of November, where ditches bounded the main road.