Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 15

"We remember," says a writer, "once standing on the platform at Darlington when the Parliamentary train arrived. It was detained for a considerable time to allow a more favoured train to pa.s.s, and, on the remonstrance of several of the pa.s.sengers at the unexpected detention, they were coolly informed, "Ye mun bide till yer betters gaw past, ye are only the n.i.g.g.e.r train."

"If there is one part of my public life," recently said Mr. Allport (Midland Railway) to the writer, "in which I look back with more satisfaction than anything else, it is with reference to the boon we conferred on third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. When the rich man travels, or if he lies in bed all day, his capital remains undiminished, and perhaps his income flows in all the same. But when a poor man travels he has not only to pay his fare, but to sink his capital, for his time is his capital; and if he now consumes only five hours instead of ten in making a journey, he has saved five hours of time for useful labour-useful to himself, to his family, and to society. And I think with even more pleasure of the comfort in travelling we have been able to confer upon women and children. But it took," he added, "five-and-twenty years' work to get it done."

A GREAT DISCOVERY.

Confound that Pope Gregory who changed the style! He, or some one else, has robbed the month of February, in ordinary years, of no less than three days, for Mr. George Sutton, the solicitor, has discovered and established by the last Brighton Act of Parliament that February has _really thirty-one days_, while that good-for-nothing Pope led us to believe it had only twenty-eight. The language of the 45th clause of the Act or of the bill which went into the Lords is:-

"That so much of the said Consolidation Act as enacts that the ordinary meetings of the company, subsequent to the first ordinary meeting thereof, shall be held half-yearly on the 31st day of July, and _thirty-first day of February_ in each year, or within one month before or after these days shall be, and the same is hereby repealed."

The next clause enacts, we suppose by reason of "the 31st of February"

being an inconvenient day, that the meetings shall be held on the 31st of January and the 31st of July, a month before or a month after.

On account of the great value of an addition of three days to our years, and, therefore, an annual addition to our lives of three days, we beg to propose that a handsome testimonial be given to Mr. George Sutton, the eminent solicitor of the Brighton Railway Company, the author of the Act and the discoverer of the Pope's wicked conduct. We further propose that it be given him on "the 31st day of February" next year, and that his salary be paid on that day, and no other, every year.

-_Herepath's Journal_, June 24th, 1854.

A DREADED EVIL.

When the old Sheffield and Rotherham line was contemplated, "A hundred and twenty inhabitants of Rotherham, headed by their vicar, pet.i.tioned against the bill, because they thought the ca.n.a.l and turnpike furnished sufficient accommodation between the two towns, and because they dreaded an incursion of the idle, drunken, and dissolute portion of the Sheffield people as a consequence of increasing the facilities of transit." For a time the opposition was successful but eventually the Lord's Committee yielded to the perseverance of the promoters of the bill.

_Sheffield and Rotherham Independent_.

REMARKABLE ADVENTURE.

A young lady some years ago thus related an adventure she met with in travelling. "After I had taken my seat one morning at Paddington, in an empty carriage, I was joined, just as the train was moving off, by a strange-looking young man, with remarkably long flowing hair. He was, of course, a little hurried, but he seemed besides to be so disturbed and wild that I was quite alarmed, for fear of his not being in his right mind, nor did his subsequent conduct at all rea.s.sure me. Our train was an express, and he inquired eagerly, at once, which was the first station we were advertised to stop. I consulted my Bradshaw and furnished him with the required information. It was Reading. The young man looked at his watch.

"'Madam,' said he, 'I have but half-an-hour between me and, it may be, ruin. Excuse, therefore, my abruptness. You have, I perceive, a pair of scissors in your workbag. Oblige me, if you please, by cutting off all my hair.'

"'Sir,' said I, 'it is impossible.'

"'Madam,' he urged, and a look of severe determination crossed his features; 'I am a desperate man. Beware how you refuse me what I ask.

Cut my hair off-short, close to the roots-immediately; and here is a newspaper to hold the ambrosial curls.'

"I thought he was mad, of course; and believing that it would be dangerous to thwart him, I cut off all his hair to the last lock.

"'Now, madam,' said he, unlocking a small portmanteau, 'you will further oblige me by looking out of the window, as I am about to change my clothes.'

"Of course I looked out of the window for a very considerable time, and when he observed, 'Madam, I need no longer put you to any inconvenience,'

I did not recognise the young man in the least.

"Instead of his former rather gay costume, he was attired in black, and wore a grey wig and silver spectacles; he looked like a respectable divine of the Church of England, of about sixty-four years of age; to complete that character, he held a volume of sermons in his hand, which-they appeared so to absorb him-might have been his own.

"'I do not wish to threaten you, young lady,' he resumed, 'and I think, besides, that I can trust your kind face. Will you promise me not to reveal this metamorphosis until your journey's end?'

"'I will,' said I, 'most certainly.'

"At Reading, the guard and a person in plain clothes looked into our carriage.

"'You have the ticket, my love,' said the young man, blandly, and looking to me as though he were my father.

"'Never mind, sir; we don't want them,' said the official, as he withdrew his companion.

"'I shall now leave you, madam,' observed my fellow-traveller, as soon as the coast was clear; 'by your kind and courageous conduct you have saved my life and, perhaps, even your own.'

"In another minute he was gone, and the train was in motion. Not till the next morning did I learn from the _Times_ newspaper that the gentleman on whom I had operated as hair cutter had committed a forgery to an enormous amount, in London, a few hours before I met him, and that he had been tracked into the express train from Paddington; but that-although the telegraph had been put in motion and described him accurately-at Reading, when the train was searched, he was nowhere to be found."

SAFETY ON THE FLOOR.

Many concussions give no warning of their approach, while others do, the usual premonitory symptoms being a kind of bouncing or leaping of the train. It is well to know that the bottom of the carriage is the safest place, and, therefore, when a person has reason to antic.i.p.ate a concussion, he should, without hesitation, throw himself on the floor of the carriage. It was by this means that Lord Guillamore saved his life and that of his fellow pa.s.sengers some years since, when a concussion took place on one of the Irish railways. His Lords.h.i.+p feeling a shock, which he knew to be the forerunner of a concussion, without more ado sprang upon the two persons sitting opposite to him, and dragged them with him to the bottom of the carriage; the astonished persons at first imagined that they had been set upon by a maniac, and commenced struggling for their liberty, but in a few seconds they but too well understood the nature of the case; the concussion came, and the upper part of the carriage in which Lord Guillamore and the other two persons were was shattered to pieces, while the floor was untouched, and thus left them lying in safety; while the other carriages of the train presented nothing but a ghastly spectacle of dead and wounded.

-_The Railway Traveller's Handy Book_.

LIFE UPON THE RAILWAY, BY A CONDUCTOR.

The Western Division of our road runs through a very mountainous part of Virginia, and the stations are few and far between. About three miles from one of these stations, the road runs through a deep gorge of the Blue Ridge, and near the centre is a small valley, and there, hemmed in by the everlasting hills, stood a small one-and-a-half-story log cabin.

The few acres that surrounded it were well cultivated as a garden, and upon the fruits thereof lived a widow and her three children, by the name of Graff. They were, indeed, untutored in the cold charities of an outside world-I doubt much if they ever saw the sun s.h.i.+ne beyond their own native hills. In the summer time the children brought berries to the nearest station to sell, and with the money they bought a few of the necessities of the outside refinement.

The oldest of these children I should judge to be about twelve years, and the youngest about seven. They were all girls, and looked nice and clean, and their healthful appearance and natural delicacy gave them a ready welcome. They appeared as if they had been brought up to fear G.o.d and love their humble home and mother. I had often stopped my train and let them get off at their home, having found them at the station some three miles from home, after disposing of their berries.

I had children at home, and I knew their little feet would be tired in walking three miles, and therefore felt that it would be the same with these fatherless little ones. They seemed so pleased to ride, and thanked me with such hearty thanks, after letting them off near home.

They frequently offered me nice, tempting baskets of fruit for my kindness; yet I never accepted any without paying their full value.

Now, if you remember, the winter of '54 was very cold in that part of the State, and the snow was nearly three feet deep on the mountains.

On the night of the 26th of December, of that year, it turned around warm, and the rain fell in torrents. A terrible storm swept the mountain tops, and almost filled the valleys with water. Upon that night my train was winding its way, at its usual speed, around the hills and through the valleys, and as the road-bed was all solid rock, I had no fear of the banks giving out. The night was intensely dark, and the winds moaned piteously through the deep gorges of the mountains. Some of my pa.s.sengers were trying to sleep, others were talking in a low voice, to relieve the monotony of the scene. Mothers had their children upon their knees, as if to s.h.i.+eld them from some unknown danger without.

It was near midnight, when a sharp whistle from the engine brought me to my feet. I knew there was danger by that whistle, and sprang to the brakes at once, but the brakesmen were all at their posts, and soon brought the train to a stop. I seized my lantern and found my way forward as soon as possible, when what a sight met my gaze! A bright fire of pine logs illuminated the track for some distance, and not over forty rods ahead of our train a horrible gulf had opened its maw to receive us!

The snow, together with the rain, had torn the whole side of the mountain out, and eternity itself seemed spread out before us. The widow Graff and her children had found it out, and had brought light brush from their home below, and built a large fire to warn us of our danger. They had been there more than two hours watching beside that beacon of safety. As I went up where that old lady stood drenched through by the rain and sleet, she grasped my arm and cried: