The Iron Horse

by R. M. Ballantyne

“And yet,” continued the chairman, with emphasis, “if a single mishap had occurred owing to the mistake of any of our half-blinded men, we should probably have been let in for compensation to the extent perhaps of 20,000 pounds! Is this fair? If it be so, then one may be tempted to ask why does not the same ‘sauce’ suit shipowners, many of whom are notorious for sending to sea unseaworthy craft, and who consign above one thousand human beings to an untimely grave every year without being punished in any way or being asked for a farthing of compensation?

“I have already said so much on this point gentlemen, that I shall make but a few remarks on the other two subjects. Well, then, as to efficiency. Our carrying ten millions of passengers in safety and comfort is one proof of that—and, I may remark in passing, that our receipts for the conveyance of these ten millions amounts to nearly half a million of money. Another proof of our efficiency lies in the fact that all the compensation we have had to pay for loss or detention of luggage has been only 100 pounds. Then as to goods. For merchandise carried we have received about 150,000 pounds, and the total compensation for the half-year amounts to only about 660 pounds. Surely I may say with truth that such facts speak to the regularity and efficiency of your service.

“If the public only knew the anxiety and care with which its interests are looked after both by night and by day by our excellent passenger and goods-managers they would perhaps present each of these gentlemen with a testimonial piece of plate, and would for evermore lay aside that wicked and ungrateful idea that railway companies are ‘fair game,’ to be plundered by every one who receives, or fancies he has received, the slightest possible amount of damage to limb or property. Railway companies are not perfect any more than other companies. There are certain faults, it may be, and weak points, which all of us deplore, and which are being remedied as fast as experience and the progress of human knowledge will admit, but I hold, gentlemen, that the management of railway companies is above the average management of many other companies. We have much more work—more dangerous work—to do than other companies, and we do it with much less proportional loss to life, limb, and property.”

“He-ar, he-ar!” burst from the toady in spite of his recent rebuke; but as it was drowned in a round of hearty applause no one was the wiser or the worse of his note of approval.

“When I think,” continued the chairman, “of the condition this country was in before the days of railways—which probably most of those present remember—the ingratitude of the public seems to me utterly unaccountable. I can only understand it on the supposition that they have somehow obtained false notions as to the great value of railways and the great blessing they are to the community.

“Why, our goods-manager informs me that there is a certain noble lord, whom of course I may not name in public, who has a farm at a considerable distance out of town. He has a fancy that the milk and cream produced on his own farm is better than Metropolitan milk and cream—(laughter). He therefore resolves to have fresh milk and cream sent in from his farm every morning, and asks us to carry it for him. We agree; but he further insists that the milk and cream shall be delivered at his residence punctually at nine a.m. To this we also agree, because the thing can be done; yet it is sharp practice, for it is only by the train arriving at its time, punctually to a minute, and by our horse and van being in readiness to start the instant it is loaded, that the thing can be accomplished. Now, gentlemen, it is owing to the extreme care and vigorous superintendence of our goods—I had almost said our good-manager that that noble lord has never missed his milk or cream one morning during the last six months. And the same punctuality attends the milk-delivery of ‘Brown, Jones, and Robinson,’ for railways, as a rule, are no respecters of persons. Should not this, I ask, infuse a little of the milk of human kindness into the public heart in reference to railways?

“Then, consider other advantages. In days not long gone by a few coaches carried a few hundreds of the more daring among our population over the land at a high cost and at the truly awful rate of ten miles an hour. In some cases the break-neck speed of twelve was attained. Most people preferred to remain at home rather than encounter the fatigues, risks, and expense of travelling. What are the facts now? Above three hundred millions of separate journeys are undertaken by rail in the United Kingdom in one year. Our sportsmen can breakfast in London on the 11th of August, sup the same night in Scotland, and be out on the moors on the morning of the 12th. On any afternoon any lady in England may be charmed with Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Lady of the Lake,’ and, if so minded, she may be a lady on the veritable lake itself before next evening! Our navvies now travel for next to nothing in luxurious ease at thirty miles an hour, and our very beggars scorn to walk when they can travel at one penny a mile. But all this is nothing compared with our enormous increase of goods traffic throughout the kingdom. I have not time, nor is this the place, to enlarge on such a subject, but a pretty good commentary on it exists in the simple fact that on your line alone, which is not, as you know, the largest of the railways of this land, the receipts for goods, minerals, and live-stock carried amounted to 500,000 pounds in the last half-year, as you will see from the report.

“There is one point to which I would now direct your attention—namely, the great facilities which we give to residential and season-ticket holders. I think it a wise and just course to afford the public such facilities, because it tends to produce a permanent source of traffic by tempting men, who would otherwise be content to live within walking or ’bus distance of their offices, to go down into the country and build villas there, and if you extend that sort of arrangement largely, you cause villages at last to grow into towns, and towns to spread out with population and with manufactures. I regard our course of action in regard to season-tickets, therefore, as a sowing of the seed of permanent and enduring income. The receipts from this source alone, I am happy to say, amounts to 84,000 pounds.”

Captain Lee’s spirit had, at the bare mention of season-tickets, gone careering down the line to Clatterby, in the beautiful suburbs of which he had the most charming little villa imaginable, but he was abruptly recalled by a “he-ar, he-ar,” from the toady, who was gradually becoming himself again, and a round of applause from the audience, in which, having an amiable tendency to follow suit, he joined.

After this the chairman expatiated at some length on the economical working of the line and on various other subjects of great importance to the shareholders, but of little interest to the general reader; we will therefore pass them all by and terminate our report of this meeting with the chairman’s concluding remark, which was, that, out of the free revenue, after deduction of the dividends payable on guaranteed and preference stocks and other fixed charges, the directors recommended the payment of a dividend on the ordinary stock of six and a half per cent.