Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 10

"This _n.o.ble_ man is of opinion, too, that, should the railway be made, he is ent.i.tled to an enormous amount of compensation; and, through his agent, a.s.signs as a reason for his extravagant demand-we do not exaggerate the fact-that he is averse to railways in general, and considers the system as an unjustifiable invasion of the province of horse-flesh. This horse jockey lord thereby excuses his conscience in opposing and endeavouring to plunder the railway company as far as he possibly can."

PICTURE EVIDENCE.

Amongst laughable occurrences that enlivened the committee rooms during the gauge contest, was a scene occasioned by a parliamentary counsel putting in as evidence, before the committee on the Southampton and Manchester line, a printed picture of troubles consequent on a break of gauge. The picture was a forcible sketch that had appeared a few days before in the pages of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_. Opposing counsel of course argued against the production of the work of art as testimony for the consideration of the committee. After much argument on both sides the chairman decided in favour of receiving the ill.u.s.tration, which was forthwith put, amidst much laughter, into the hands of a witness, who was asked if it was a fair picture of the evils that arose from a break of gauge. The witness replying in the affirmative, the engraving was then laid before the committee for inspection.

-_Railway Chronicle_, June 13, 1846.

EXTRAORDINARY USE OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Oct. 7, 1847. An extraordinary instance has occurred of the application of the electric telegraph at the London Bridge terminus of the South Eastern Railway.

Hutchings, the man found guilty and sentenced to death for poisoning his wife, was to have been executed at Maidstone Goal at twelve o'clock.

Shortly before the appointed hour for carrying the sentence into effect, a message was received at the London Bridge terminus, from the Home Office, requesting that an order should be sent by the electric telegraph instructing the Under-Sheriff at Maidstone to stay the execution two hours. By the agency of the electric telegraph the communication was received in Maidstone with the usual rapidity, and the execution was for a time stayed. Shortly after the transmission of the order deferring the execution, a messenger from the Home Office conveyed to the railway the Secretary of State's order, that the law was to take its course, and that the culprit was to be at once executed. The telegraph clerk hesitated to sending such a message without instructions from his princ.i.p.als. The messenger from the Home Office could not be certain that the order for Hutchings's execution was signed by the Home Secretary, although it bore his name; and Mr. Macgregor, the chairman, with great judgment and humanity, instantly decided that it was not a sufficient authority in such a momentous matter.

An officer of confidence was immediately sent to the Secretary of State, to state their hesitation and its cause, as the message was, in fact, a death warrant, and that Mr. Walter must have undoubted evidence of its correctness. On Mr. Walter drawing the attention of the Secretary of State to the fact, that the transmission of such a message was, in effect, to make him the Sheriff, the conduct of the railway company, in requiring unquestionable evidence and authority, was warmly approved.

The proper signature was affixed in Mr. Walter's presence; and the telegraph then conveyed to the criminal the sad news, that the suspension of the awful sentence was only temporary. Hutchings was executed soon after it reached Maidstone.

-_Annual Register_, 1847.

LOST LUGGAGE.

Sir Francis Head, giving an account of the contents of the Lost Luggage Office, at Euston Station, observes:-"But there were a few articles that certainly we were not prepared to meet with, and which but too clearly proved that the extraordinary terminus-excitement which had suddenly caused so many virtuous ladies to elope from their red shawls-in short, to be all of a sudden not only in 'a bustle' behind, but all over-had equally affected men of all sorts and conditions.

"One gentleman had left behind him a pair of leather hunting breeches!

another his boot-jacks! A soldier of the 22nd regiment had left his knapsack containing his kit. Another soldier of the 10th, poor fellow, had left his scarlet regimental coat! Some cripple, probably overjoyed at the sight of his family, had left behind him his crutches!! But what astonished us above all was, that some honest Scotchman, probably in the ecstasy of suddenly seeing among the crowd the face of his faithful _Jeanie_, had actually left behind him the best portion of his bagpipes!!!

"Some little time ago the superintendent, on breaking open, previous to a general sale, a locked leather hat-box, which had lain in this dungeon two years, found in it, under the hat, 65 in Bank of England notes, with one or two private letters, which enabled him to restore the money to the owner, who, it turned out, had been so positive that had left his hat-box at an hotel at Birmingham that he made no inquiry for it at the railway office."

VERY NICE TO BE A RAILWAY ENGINEER.

A lady in conversation with a railway engineer observed, "It must be very nice to be a railway engineer, and be able to travel about anywhere you want to go to for nothing."

"Yes, madam," was the reply, "It would, as you say, be very nice to travel about for nothing, _if we were not paid for it_. But you see," he remarked, "railway engineers are like the cabman's horse. The cabman has a very thin horse. 'Doesn't your horse have enough to eat?' inquired a benevolent lady pa.s.senger. 'Oh yes, ma'am,' replied cabby, 'I give him lots o' victuals to eat, only, you see, he hasn't any time to eat 'em.'

So it is with the railway engineer; he has lots of pleasure of all kinds, only he has not any time to take it."

AN ACCOMMODATING CONTRACTOR.

One railway of some scores of miles hung fire; the directors were congested with their fears of exceeding the estimates, and so a shrewd man of business, a contractor, i.e., a man with a mind contracted to profit and a keen eye to discern the paths of profit, called on them.

This man had made his way upward, and pa.s.sing through the process of sub-contracting, had obtained a glimpse of the upper glories. And thus he relieved the directors from their difficulties, by proffering to make the railway complete in all its parts, buy the land at the commencement, and, if required, to engage the station-clerks at the conclusion, with all the staff complete, so that his patrons might have no trouble, but begin business off-hand. But the latter condition-the staff and clerks-being simply a matter of patronage, the directors kept that trouble in their own hands.

Our contractor loomed on the directors' minds as a guardian angel, a guarantee against responsibilities, backed by sufficient sureties, so the matter was without delay handed over to him, and he knew what to do with it.

-_Roads and Rails_, by W. B. Adams.

THE TWO DUKES AND THE TRAVELLER.

The following amusing anecdote is related of a commercial traveller who happened to get into the same railway carriage in which the Dukes of Argyle and Northumberland were travelling. The three chatted familiarly until the train stopped at Alnwick Junction, where the Duke of Northumberland got out, and was met by a train of flunkeys and servants.

"That must be a great swell," said the "commercial," to his remaining companion. "Yes," responded the Duke of Argyle, "he is the Duke of Northumberland." "Bless my soul!" exclaimed the "commercial." "And to think that he should have been so condescending to two little sn.o.bs like us!"

THE GREAT RAILWAY MANIA DAY.

Never had there occurred, in the history of joint-stock enterprise, such another day as the 30th of November, 1845. It was the day on which a madness for speculation arrived at its height, to be followed by a collapse terrible to many thousand families. Railways had been gradually becoming successful, and the old companies had, in many cases, bought off, on very high terms, rival lines which threatened to interfere with their profits. Both of these circ.u.mstances tended to encourage the concoction of new schemes. There is always floating capital in England waiting for profitable employment; there are always professional men looking out for employment in great engineering works; and there are always scheming moneyless men ready to trade on the folly of others.

Thus the bankers and capitalists were willing to supply the capital; the engineers, surveyors, architects, contractors, builders, solicitors, barristers, and Parliamentary agents were willing to supply the brains and fingers; while, too often, cunning schemers pulled the strings. This was especially the case in 1845, when plans for new railways were brought forward literally by hundreds, and with a recklessness perfectly marvellous.

By an enactment in force at that time, it was necessary, for the prosecution of any railway scheme in Parliament, that a ma.s.s of doc.u.ments should be deposited with the Board of Trade, on or before the 30th of November in the preceding year. The mult.i.tude of these schemes in 1845 was so great that there could not be found surveyors enough to prepare the plans and sections in time. Advertis.e.m.e.nts were inserted in the newspapers offering enormous pay for even a smattering of this kind of skill. Surveyors and architects from abroad were attracted to England; young men at home were tempted to break the articles into which they had entered with their masters; and others were seduced from various professions into that of railway engineers. Sixty persons in the employment of the Ordnance Department left their situations to gain enormous earnings in this way. There were desperate fights in various parts of England between property-owners who were determined that their land should not be entered upon for the purpose of railway surveying, and surveyors who knew that the schemes of their companies would be frustrated unless the surveys were made and the plans deposited by the 30th of November. To attain this end, force, fraud, and bribery were freely made use of. The 30th of November, 1845, fell on a Sunday; but it was no Sunday at the office near the Board of Trade. Vehicles were driving up during the whole of the day, with agents and clerks bringing plans and sections. In country districts, as the day approached, and on the morning of the day, coaches-and-four were in greater request than even at race-time, galloping at full speed to the nearest railway station. On the Great Western Railway an express train was hired by the agents of one new scheme. The engine broke down; the train came to a stand-still at Maidenhead, and, in this state, was run into by another express train hired by the agents of a rival project; the opposite parties barely escaped with their lives, but contrived to reach London at the last moment. On this eventful Sunday there were no fewer than ten of these express trains on the Great Western Railway, and eighteen on the Eastern Counties! One railway company was unable to deposit its papers because another company surrept.i.tiously bought, for a high sum, twenty of the necessary sheets from the lithographic printer, and horses were killed in madly running about in search of the missing doc.u.ments before the fraud was discovered. In some cases the lithographic stones were stolen; and in one instance the printer was bribed, by a large sum, not to finish in proper time the plans for a rival line. One eminent house brought over four hundred lithographic printers from Belgium, and even then, and with these, all the work ordered could not be executed. Some of the plans were only two-thirds lithographed, the rest being filled up by hand. However executed, the problem was to get these doc.u.ments to Whitehall before midnight on the 30th of November. Two guineas a mile were in one instance paid for post-horses. One express train steamed up to London 118 miles in an hour-and-a-half, nearly 80 miles an hour. An established company having refused an express train to the promoters of a rival scheme, the latter employed persons to get up a mock funeral cortege, and engage an express train to convey it to London; they did so, and the plans and sections came _in the hea.r.s.e_, with solicitors and surveyors as mourners!

Copies of many of the doc.u.ments had to be deposited with the clerks of the peace of the counties to which the schemes severally related, as well as with the Board of Trade; and at some of the offices of these clerks, strange scenes occurred on the Sunday. At Preston, the doors of the office were not opened, as the officials considered the orders which had been issued to keep open on that particular Sunday, to apply only to the Board of Trade; but a crowd of law agents and surveyors a.s.sembled, broke the windows, and threw their plans and sections into the office. At the Board of Trade, extra clerks were employed on that day, and all went pretty smoothly until nine o'clock in the evening. A rule was laid down for receiving the plans and sections, hearing a few words of explanation from the agents, and making certain entries in books. But at length the work acc.u.mulated more rapidly than the clerks could attend to it, and the agents arrived in greater number than the entrance hall could hold. The anxiety was somewhat allayed by an announcement, that whoever was inside the building before the clock struck twelve should be deemed in good time. Many of the agents bore the familiar name of Smith; and when 'Mr.

Smith' was summoned by the messenger to enter and speak concerning some scheme, the name of which was not announced, in rushed several persons, of whom, of course, only one could be the right Mr. Smith at that particular moment. One agent arrived while the clock was striking twelve, and was admitted. Soon afterwards, a carriage with reeking horses drove up; three agents rushed out, and finding the door closed, rang furiously at the bell; no sooner did a policeman open the door to say that the time was past, than the agents threw their bundles of plans and sections through the half-opened door into the hall; but this was not permitted, and the policeman threw the doc.u.ments out into the street.

The baffled agents were nearly maddened with vexation; for they had arrived in London from Harwich in good time, and had been driven about Pimlico hither and thither, by a post-boy who did not, or would not, know the way to the office of the Board of Trade.

The _Times_ newspaper, in the same month, devoted three whole pages to an elaborate a.n.a.lysis, by Mr. s.p.a.ckman, of the various railway schemes brought forward in 1845. "There were no less than 620 in number, involving an (hypothetical) expenditure of 560 millions sterling; besides 643 other schemes which had not gone further than issuing prospectuses.

More than 500 of the schemes went through all the stages necessary for being brought before Parliament; and 272 of these became Acts of Parliament in 1846-to the ruin of thousands who had afterwards to find the money to fulfil the engagements into which they had so rashly entered.

-_Chambers's Book of Days_.

PARODY UPON THE RAILWAY MANIA.