Mr. Spencer Walpole furnishes some interesting and amusing gossip about the late Mr. Frank Buckland, describing some of his many eccentricities, and telling many stories relative to his peculiar habits. He had, it seems, a great objection to stockings and boots and coats, his favourite attire consisting of nothing else than trousers and a flannel shirt. Boots were his special aversion, and he never lost an opportunity of kicking them off his feet.
“On one occasion,” we are told, “travelling alone in a railway carriage, he fell asleep with his feet resting on the window-sill. As usual, he kicked off his boots, and they fell outside the carriage on the line. When he reached his destination the boots could not, of course, be found, and he had to go without them to his hotel. The next morning a platelayer, examining the permanent way, came upon the boots, and reported to the traffic manager that he had found a pair of gentleman’s boots, but that he could not find the gentleman. Some one connected with the railway recollected that Mr. Buckland had been seen in the neighbourhood, and, knowing his eccentricities, inferred that the boots must belong to him. They were accordingly sent to the Home Office, and were at once claimed.”
DRINKING FROM THE WRONG BOTTLE.
An incident has occurred on one of the suburban lines which will certainly be supposed by many to be only ben trovato, but it is a real fact. A lady, who seemed perfectly well before the train entered a tunnel, suddenly alarmed her fellow-passengers during the temporary darkness by exclaiming, “I am poisoned!” On re-emerging into daylight, an awkward explanation ensued. The lady carried with her two bottles, one of methylated spirit, the other of cognac. Wishing, presumably, for a refresher on the sly, she took advantage of the gloom; but she applied the wrong bottle to her lips. Time pressed, and she took a good drain. The consequence was she was nearly poisoned, and had to apply herself honestly and openly to the brandy bottle as a corrective, amidst the ironical condolence of the passengers she had previously alarmed.
—Once a Week.
HORSES VERSUS RAILWAYS.
A horse for every mile of road was the allowance made by the best coachmasters on the great routes. On the corresponding portions of the railway system the great companies have put a locomotive engine per mile. If a horse earned a hundred guineas a year, out of which his cost had to be defrayed, he did well. A single locomotive
on the Great Northern Railway (and that company has 611 engines for 659 miles of line) was stated by John Robinson, in 1873, to perform the work of 678 horses—work, that is, as measured by resistance overcome; for the horses, whatever their number, could not have reached the speed of fifty miles an hour, at which the engines in questions whirled along a train of sixteen carriages, weighing in all 225 tons. There are now upwards of 13,000 locomotives at work in the United Kingdom, each of them earning on the average, £4,750 per annum. But we have at the same time more horses employed for the conveyance of passengers than we had in 1835. In omnibus and station work—waiting upon the steam horse—there is more demand for horseflesh than was made by our entire coaching system in 1835.
A SLIGHT MISTAKE.
An Irish newspaper is responsible for the following:—“A deaf man named Taff was run down and killed by a passenger train on Wednesday morning. He was injured in a similar way about a year ago.”