Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

“With Chaucer our own day begins, but he is not the day-spring of our literature. In prose and verse for century after century before the time of Chaucer, there was a literature here of home-speaking earnestness, practical wit and humour, that attacked substantial ills of life; sturdy resistance against tyrannies in Church and State; and as the root of all its strength, a faithful reverence for God. With all this, Chaucer was in harmony; and so too, as we shall find, have been our best writers of every succeeding generation. For in our literature, which is but our voice as a people, the mind speaks, that has so laboured as to win for England, almost alone among the nations, the inheritance of an inalienable freedom.”—English Writers from Chaucer to Dunbar.

The most distinguished among our classical scholars, the Rev. T. E. Yonge, says, in his recent edition of the complete works of Horace, that, partly in consequence of some resemblance in our present national character to that of the Romans in their cultivated age, our literature bears many traces of Horace. His sentiments, if not indicative of deep thought, are so instinct with the practical common sense on which we pride ourselves, so genial, and, above all, so charmingly expressed, that they are continually recurring to the recollection of every educated mind, and re-appearing in our best authors. The Pall Mall Gazette hasn’t a good word for Mr. Yonge, nohow.

[63] The most remarkable instances of absence of mind that we can remember reading are the two following:—

A writer in the eighty-seventh volume of the Quarterly Review, in the course of a very pleasant article upon the mechanism of the Post Office as it was in 1850, says: “Of dead letters, a considerable number containing property valued in two consecutive years at upwards of £10,000, have actually been posted without any addresses at all! Indeed many years ago, a blank undirected letter, on being opened at the Dead Letter Office in London, was found to contain in notes no less than £1,500. The only way,” proceeds the writer, “in which this extraordinary, and at first sight almost incomprehensible, fact can be accounted for is, that the attention of the good lady or good gentleman who had folded and sealed such a valuable money letter had been so hysterically exhausted by the desire to do both with extreme caution, that, under a moral syncope, there had not remained between the crown of the head and the soles of the feet strength of mind enough to enable her or him to finish the operation. In short, the neglect had proceeded from what is properly enough called ‘absence of mind,’ which, in a description for which we humbly beg pardon, we will endeavour to exemplify by the following anecdote:—An over-tired Yankee, travelling in Kentucky, called at a log-hut for refreshment. The young woman of the hovel, that she might quickly spread the table, gave him her infant to hold, and in a few minutes laying before him a homely meal, she then modestly returned to her work. The long-backed man, naturally enough, was enraptured at the sight of the repast, and overwhelmed by conflicting feelings of gratitude to the young woman, of admiration of the lovely infant that sat smiling on his knee, and of extreme hunger, in a fit of absence of mind exactly such as caused the person in England to post a letter containing £1,500 without any address, he, to the horror of the hostess, all of a sudden, with great energy ... kissed the loaf, buttered the child’s face, and cut its head off—at least so runs the story in Kentucky.”

Our second case of remarkable absence of mind is also American, and it has in one respect the advantage over the foregoing, it occurred at the beginning of this year. A judge “out West,” presiding at a trial, so completely lost his presence of mind by the presence of a beautiful young English lady about to be examined as a witness, that when she had repeated the words of the oath, previous to her examination in the case, he placed his face for her to kiss instead of the book. The young English lady, not being acquainted with American jurisprudence, but having a great respect for the law, did as she was ordered to do by the judge. His absence of mind was so great, that when the witness had completed her evidence he swore her again, this time, however, varying the form of the oath slightly; “The evidence you have given is the truth, the whole truth,” &c. The kiss was in the act of being repeated, and there is no knowing how long the Judge’s absence of mind might have continued, had not his wife very fortunately come on to the bench in the very nick of time to administer to him a sharp blow on one ear, which, for fear of ear-jealousy, was passed on to the other with almost electric rapidity. The spectators in court, as well as the counsel, attorneys, jury, and officers, were unanimously of opinion that the remedy was equally effective as it was rapid and pungent. As regards the beautiful English lady, the only inconvenience she experienced was that she had to be sworn all over again and to be examined all over again. Both the direct and cross-examining counsel were bachelors. “The next news that is expected to be heard of one of them,” says the editor of the American newspaper from which the foregoing is extracted and its truth guaranteed, “and of the beautiful English lady, is in the portion of our advertisements that we call ‘Our Ladies’ Column’; and as regards the other counsel, we have already set up in type the following headings of a sensational article we intend to write: ‘Appalling suicide of a very distinguished and remarkable Member of the Bar.—Disappointed love.—A beautiful young English lady.’”

[64] The class of all others that sails closest to the wind on railways is the class of “Bagmen.” Ladies’ dogs occasionally lead them to do a little bit of cheating. Innumerable pleasant stories could be told in connection with this subject. “Sweet little pets!” hidden under shawls and in hand-baskets are the most common modes of concealment, but others more erudite are occasionally practised. For instance, shortly after telegraphs were laid alongside of railways, a principal officer of a Railway Company got into a compartment of a stopping train, at an intermediate station. The train had hardly left, when an elderly gentleman, in terms of endearment, invited what turned out to be a little Skye terrier to come out of its concealment under the seat. The dog came out, jumped up, and appeared to enjoy his journey, until the speed of the train slackened previous to stopping at a station; the dog then instinctively retreated to its hiding place, and came out again in due course after the train had started. The officer of the Company left the train a station or two afterwards. On its arrival at the London ticket platform, the gentleman delivered up the tickets for his party. “Dog ticket, Sir, please.” “Dog ticket! what dog ticket?” “Ticket, Sir, for skye terrier, black and tan, with his ears nearly over his eyes; travelling for comfort sake under the seat opposite to you, Sir, in a large carpet-bag, red ground with yellow cross-bars.” The gentleman found resistance useless; he paid the fare demanded, when the ticket collector, who throughout the scene had never changed a muscle, handed him a ticket that he had prepared beforehand. “Dog ticket, Sir; gentlemen not allowed to travel with a dog without a dog ticket; you will have to give it up in London.” “Yes; but how did you know I had a dog?—that’s what puzzles me?” “Ah, Sir,” said the ticket collector, relaxing a little, but with an air of satisfaction; “the telegraph is laid on our railway. Them’s the wires you see on the outside; we find them very useful in our business, Sir. Thank you, Sir, good morning.” It is needless to tell what part the principal officer of the Company played in this pleasant little drama. On arrival in London the dog ticket was duly claimed, a little word to that effect having been sent up by a previous train to be sure to have it demanded, although, as a usual practice, dog tickets are collected at the same time as those for passengers.

Sometimes scenes that ought to be very heart-rending and touching occur when a dog for which the fare has been regularly paid is separated from its owner, but as a rule, objection is not made to a dog travelling with passengers if they have no objection, and the dog be only a small one. We have more than once had conversations with ladies on “the great dog question,” and some of them say truly that, as there is no charge on railways for “nasty cats and parrots, and other birds,” or “for babies under three years of age,” why should they be made to pay for what does not give a twentieth part of the trouble that only one baby causes. But after all, the number of dogs that are paid for, as compared with “free” dogs, is very small indeed.

[65] It is to be understood that, although the numbers of passengers carried, as stated above, do not correspond with the numbers given at page 40 et seq., there is in reality no difference, as in the previous pages the journeys of the ticket-holders are not included, but in this page they are.

[66] As these sheets are going through the press, we find circulating through the newspapers the following account of carriage accidents only in the streets of London for 1866 and the first nine months of the present year:—“Of the persons who frequented the streets of London last year, 205 were killed by horses and carriages of various kinds, or, on an average, four persons met with a violent death by this class of accidents every week. In 1865 the number was still greater, 232 persons being killed by street vehicles. These numbers, however, only represent the cases which terminated fatally; of those persons who were seriously, but not fatally, injured, there is no record. Of the 205 deaths in 1866, 36, or 17·4 per cent., were the result of falls from vehicles, and 17, or 8·4 per cent., occurred by collisions, &c., death resulting through being knocked down by or thrown out of vehicles. Of the number of persons who were run over, 14, or 6·6 per cent., were killed by omnibuses; 7, or 3·6 per cent., by carriages; 25, or 12·0 per cent., by cabs; 105, or 51 per cent, by heavy vehicles, such as carts, vans, drays, and waggons. In glancing at these results, it is worthy of notice that the greater portion of the fatal carriage accidents in the streets of London were not caused by cabs or omnibuses, the deaths by these vehicles amounting only to 29 per cent. of the total number. One-half of the accidents were caused by the heavy vehicles, and about 20 per cent. of the total deaths occurred among carters and carmen. Of persons run over, about 77 per cent. were males and 23 per cent. were females. Among males 26 per cent. of the deaths were those of children under ten years of age; among females about 60 per cent. of the deaths were those of children under ten years of age. The number of carriage accidents in the streets of London which terminated fatally in the first nine months of 1867 was 129.”

Dr. Ogden Fletcher, the Medical Officer of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, in his recent interesting work, Railways in their Medical Aspects, to which, as well as to the subject upon which it treats, we hope to refer hereafter, says that there are five times more people killed by carriages in the streets of London every year, than were killed on all the railways in Great Britain during any of the last seven or eight years.