Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 14

A QUICK WAY.

Some years ago, when a new railway was opened in the Highlands, a Highlander heard of it, and bought a ticket for the first excursion. The train was about half the distance to the next station when a collision took place, and poor Donald was thrown unceremoniously into an adjacent park. After recovering his senses, he made the best of his way home, when the neighbours asked him how he liked his ride. "Oh," replied Donald, "I liked it fine; but they have an awfu' nasty quick way in puttin' ane oot."

HIGHLANDER AND A RAILWAY ENGINE.

We remember hearing a story of an old Highland peasant who happened to see a railway engine for the first time. He was coming down from the Grampians into Perths.h.i.+re, and he thus described the novel monster as it appeared in his astounded Celtic imagination:-"I was looking doon the glens, when I saw a funny beast blowing off his perspiration; an' I ran doon, an' I tried to stop him, but he just gave an awfu' skirl an'

disappeared into a hole."-(meaning, of course, a tunnel).

-_Once a Week_.

EXTRACTS FROM MACREADY'S DIARIES.

"July 3rd, 1845.-Brewster called to cut my hair; he told me the tradesmen could not get paid in London, for all the money was employed in railroads."

"June 19th, 1850.-We were surprised by the entrance of Carlyle and Mrs.

C-. I was delighted to see them. Carlyle inveighed against railroads-he was quite in one of his exceptious moods."

FREAKS OF CONCEALED BOGS.

Great difficulties have often been encountered by engineers in carrying earth embankments across low grounds, which, under a fair, green surface, concealed the remains of ancient bogs, sometimes of great depth. Thus, on the Leeds and Bradford Extension, about 600 tons of stone and earth were daily cast into an embankment near Bingley, and each morning the stuff thrown in on the preceding day was found to have disappeared. This went on for many weeks, the bank, however, gradually advancing, and forcing up on either side a spongy black ridge of moss. On the South-Western Railway a heavy embankment, about fifty feet high, crossed a piece of ground near Newham, the surface of which seemed to be perfectly sound and firm. Twenty feet, however, beneath the surface an old bog lay concealed; and the ground giving way, the fluid, pressed from beneath the embankment, raised the adjacent meadows in all directions like waves of the sea. A culvert, which permitted the flow of a brook under the bank, was forced down, the pa.s.sage of the water entirely stopped, and several thousand acres of the finest land in Hamps.h.i.+re would have been flooded but for the exertions of the engineer, who completed a new culvert just as the other had become completely closed. The Newton-green embankment, on the Sheffield and Manchester line, gave way in like manner, and to such an extent as to spread out two or three times its original width. In this case it was found necessary to carry the line across the parts which yielded, under strong timber sh.o.r.es. On the Dundalk and Enniskillen line a heavy embankment twenty feet high suddenly disappeared one night in the bog of Meghernakill, nearly adjoining the river Fane. The bed of the river was forced up, and the flow of the water for the time was stopped, and the surrounding country heavily flooded. A concealed bog of even greater extent, on the Durham and Sunderland Railway, near Aycliff, was crossed by means of a double-planked road, about two miles in length. A few weeks after the line had been opened, part of the road sank one night entirely out of sight. The defect was made good merely by extending the floating surface of the road at this portion of the bog.

-_Quarterly Review_.

A RAILWAY MARRIAGE.

In Maine, a conductor-too busy, we suggest, saying "Go ahead!" to be particular about wedding formalities-invited his betrothed and a minister into a car, and while the train was in motion was married; leaving that station a bachelor, at this station he was a married man! It is but one of a thousand examples of life as it goes in this fast country.

-_New York Nation_.

ATTEMPTED FRAUDS.

Feb. 29, 1849, _Central Criminal Court_.-Robert Duncan, aged 47, staymaker, Mary Duncan, his wife, who surrendered to take her trial, and Pierce Wall O'Brien, aged 30, printer, were indicted for conspiring together to obtain money from the London and North-Western Railway Company by false pretences.

From the statement of Mr. Clarkson and the evidence, it appeared that the charges made against the prisoners involved a most impudent attempt at fraud. It appears that on the 5th of September last year an accident occurred to the up mail train from York, near the Leighton Buzzard station, but, although some injury was occasioned to the train, it seemed that none of the pa.s.sengers received any personal injury. On the 26th of October following, however, the company received a communication from Mr.

Harrison, requiring compensation on behalf of defendant, Robert Duncan, for an injury alleged to have been sustained by his wife upon the occasion of the collision referred to, it being represented, also, that her brother, the defendant O'Brien, who was travelling with her at the time from York, had likewise received serious injury by the same accident. The company immediately sent a medical gentleman to the place described as the residence of these persons, No. 59, George Street, Southwark, and he there saw the man Robert Duncan, who represented that his wife was dangerously ill, and that the result of the accident on the railway was a premature confinement, and that her life was in danger.

Mr. Porter was then introduced to the female defendant, whom he found in bed, apparently in great pain, and she confirmed her husband's statement.

In the same house the prisoner O'Brien was found in bed, and he also told the same story about the accident on the railway. It appeared that some suspicion was entertained by the company of the general character of the transaction, and they had been inst.i.tuting inquiries. On the 2nd of November they received another letter from the prisoner Robert Duncan, in which he made an offer to accept 60 for the injury his wife had received, and also stating that Mr. O'Brien was willing to accept a similar amount for the damage he had sustained. At this it appeared Mr.

Harrison resolved not to have anything further to do with the matter, unless he received satisfactory proof of the truth of the story told by the parties; and another solicitor was employed by the defendants, who brought an action against the company for damages for the alleged injury, and he proceeded so far as to give notice of trial. The case, however, never went before a jury in that shape, and by this time it was discovered that there was no truth in the story told by the defendants.

It was proved at the period when the accident was alleged to have occurred to the female defendant, she was residing with her husband, and was in her usual health. With regard to O'Brien, there was no evidence to show that he was upon the train at the time the accident happened, but, according to the testimony of a witness named Darke, during the period when the negotiation was going on with the company, O'Brien requested him to write a letter to Mr. Harrison to the effect that he was riding in the same carriage with Mrs. Duncan and her brother at the time of the accident, and he was aware of her having been injured, and gave him a written statement to that effect, which he copied. This witness, in cross-examination, admitted that at the time he wrote the statement he was perfectly well aware it was false, and he also said that notwithstanding this, he made no difficulty in doing what O'Brien requested, and also that he should have been ready to make a solemn declaration of the truth of the statement if he had been required to do so.

A verdict of "Not Guilty" was taken as to the female prisoner, on the ground that she was acting under the control of her husband. The jury returned a verdict of "Guilty" against the two male defendants.

Mr. Clarkson said he was instructed to state that, at the period of the catastrophe on board the Cricket steam-boat, the prisoners obtained a sum of 70 from the company to which that vessel belonged, by the false pretence that they had received injury upon the occasion.

The Recorder sentenced Duncan to be imprisoned for twelve, and O'Brien for six months.

_Annual Register_.

A BRIDE'S LOST LUGGAGE.

The trouble which is bestowed by railway companies to cause the rest.i.tution of lost property is incalculable. Some years ago, a young lady lost a portmanteau from the rest of her luggage-a pardonable oversight, for she was a bride starting on a honeymoon trip. The bridegroom-never on such occasions an accountable being-had not noticed the misfortune. When the loss was discovered, and application made respecting it, the lady spoke positively of having seen it at the station whence they started, then again at a station where they had to change carriages; she saw it also when they left the railway; it was all safe, she averred, at the hotel where they stopped for a few days. She was also certain that it was among the rest of the "things" when they again started for a watering-place; but, when they arrived there, it was missing. It contained a new riding habit, value fifteen pounds. The search that was inst.i.tuted for this portmanteau recalled that of Telemachus for Ulysses; the railway officials sent one of their clerks with a _carte blanche_ to trace the bride's journey to the end of the last mile, till some tidings of the strayed trunk could be traced. He went to every station, to every coach-office in connection with every station, to every town, to every hotel, and to every lodging that the happy couple had visited. His expenses actually amounted to fifteen pounds. He came back without success. At length the treasure was found; but where? At the by-station on another line, whence the bride had started from home a maiden. Yet she had positively declared, without doubt or reservation, that she had, "with her own eyes," seen the trunk on the various stages of her tour; this can only be accounted for by the peculiar fl.u.s.tration of a young lady just plunged into the vortex of matrimony. The husband paid the whole of the costs.

THIRD-CLa.s.s Pa.s.sENGERS.

The conveyance of pa.s.sengers at cheap fares was from the commencement of railways a great public concern, and it was soon found necessary that the legislature should take action in the matter. Accordingly, by the Regulation of Railways Act, 1844, all pa.s.senger railways were required to run one train every day from end to end of their line, carrying third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers at a rate not exceeding one penny a mile, stopping at all stations, starting at hours approved by the Board of Trade, travelling at least twelve miles an hour, and with carriages protected from weather. This enactment greatly encouraged the poorer cla.s.ses in railway travelling; but the companies were slow to carry out the new regulations cheerfully. The trains were timed at most inconvenient hours; to undertake a journey of any considerable length in one day at third-cla.s.s fare was almost out of the question. In fact, a short-sighted policy of doing almost everything to discourage third-cla.s.s travelling was adopted by the Companies.

A traveller having started on a long journey, thinking to be able to travel all the way third-cla.s.s, would find at some stage of the route that he had arrived, only a few minutes perhaps, after the departure of the cheap train to his destination, with no alternative but to wait for hours or proceed by the express and pay accordingly. Moreover, the third-cla.s.s carriages were provided with the very minimum of comfort. It was not seen by the railway executive of that time that the policy adopted was actually prejudicial to their own interests.

_Our Railways_, by Joseph Parsloe.

IMPROVEMENT IN THIRD-CLa.s.s TRAVELLING.

The Rev. F. S. Williams, in an article in the _Contemporary Review_, ent.i.tled "Railway Revolutions," remarks:-"We need not go back so far as the time when third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers had to stand in a sort of cattle-pen placed on wheels; it is only a few years since the Parliamentary trains were run in bare fulfilment of the obligations of Parliament, and when a journey by one of them could never be looked upon as anything better than a necessary evil. To start in the darkness of a winter's morning to catch the only third-cla.s.s train that ran; to sit, after a slender breakfast, in a vehicle the windows of which were compounded of the largest amount of wood and the smallest amount of gla.s.s, and which were carefully adjusted to exactly those positions in which the fewest travellers could see out of them; to stop at every roadside station, however insignificant; and to accomplish a journey of 200 miles in about ten hours-such were the ordinary conditions which Parliament in its bounty provided for the people. Occasionally, moreover, the monotony of progress was interrupted by the shunting of the train into a siding, where it might wait for more respectable pa.s.senger trains and fast goods to pa.s.s."