Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 33

Taking a line midway between Maidstone and Sittingbourne, it reached home twenty minutes before the express dashed into the station; the train having accomplished seventy-six-and-a-half miles to the pigeon's seventy, but being badly beaten for all that.

-_All the Year Round_.

A GREENLANDER'S FIRST RAILWAY RIDE.

Hans Hendrik, a native of Greenland, thus describes his first journey by rail in America:-"Then our train arrived and we took seats in it. When we had started and looked at the ground, it appeared like a river, making us dizzy, and the trembling of the carriage might give you headache. In this way we proceeded, and whenever we approached houses they gave warning by making big whistle sound, and on arriving at the houses they rung a bell and we stopped for a little while. By the way we entered a long cave through the earth, used as a road, and soon after we emerged from it again. At length we reached our goal, and entered a large mansion, in which numbers of people crowded together." He likens the people going out of the railway-station to a "crowd of church-goers, on account of their number."

-_Good Words_, April, 1880.

A NOVEL ACTION.

Will bad table manners vitiate legal grounds of action? A collision recently occurred while an Italian commercial traveller was eating a Bologna sausage in a railway train. The shock of the collision drove the knife so violently against his mouth as to widen it. He brought suit for damages. The defence was that the injuries were caused by the knife; that the knife should never be carried to the mouth, and that the plaintiff, having injured himself by reason of his bad habit of eating, must take the consequences and pay his own doctor's bill. The case is not yet finally decided.

-_Echo_, Oct. 1st., 1880.

A KISS IN THE DARK.

On one of the seats in a railway train was a married lady with a little daughter; opposite, facing them, was another child, a son, and a coloured "lady" with a baby. The mother of these children was a beautiful matron with sparkling eyes, in exuberant health and vivacious spirits. Near her sat a young lieutenant, dressed to kill and seeking a victim. He sc.r.a.ped up an acquaintance with the mother by attentions to the children. It was not long before he was essaying to make himself very agreeable to her, and by the time the sun began to decline, one would have thought they were old familiar friends. The lieutenant felt that he had made an impression-his elation manifested it. The lady, dreaming of no wrong, suspecting no evil, was apparently pleased with her casual acquaintance.

By-and-by the train approached a tunnel. The gay lieutenant leaned over and whispered something in the lady's ear. It was noticed that she appeared as thunderstruck, and her eyes immediately flamed with indignation. A moment more and a smile lighted up her features. What changes? That smile was not one of pleasure, but was sinister. It was unperceived by the lieutenant. She made him a reply which apparently rejoiced him very much. For the understanding properly this narrative, we must tell the reader what was whispered and what was replied. "I mean to kiss you when we get into the tunnel!" whispered the lieutenant. "It will be dark; who will see it?" replied the lady. Into earth's bowels-into the tunnel ran the train. Lady and coloured nurse quickly change seats. Gay lieutenant threw his arms around the lady sable, pressed her cheek to his, and fast and furious rained kisses on her lips.

In a few moments the train came out into broad daylight. White lady looked amazed-coloured lady, bashful, blus.h.i.+ng-gay lieutenant befogged.

"Jane," said the white lady, "what have you been doing?" "Nothing!"

responded the coloured lady. "Yes, you have," said the white lady, not in an undertone, but in a voice that attracted the attention of all in the carriage. "See how your collar is rumpled and your bonnet smashed."

Jane, poor coloured beauty, hung her head for a moment, the "observed of all observers," and then, turning round to the lieutenant, replied: "_This man kissed me in the tunnel_!" Loud and long was the laugh that followed among the pa.s.sengers. The white lady enjoyed the joke amazingly. Lieutenant looked like a sheep-stealing dog, left the carriage at the next station, and was seen no more.

-_Cape Argus_.

THE GRAVEDIGGER'S SUGGESTION.

The Midland Railway, on being extended to London, was the occasion of the removal of a vast amount of house property, also it interfered to a certain extent with the graveyard belonging to Old St. Pancras Church.

The company had purchased a new piece of ground in which to re-inter the human remains discovered in the part they required. Amongst them was the corpse of a high dignitary of the French Romish Church. Orders were received for the transmission of the remains to his native land, and the delicate work of exhuming the corpse was entrusted to some clever gravediggers. On opening the ground they were surprised to find, not bones of one man, but of several. Three skulls and three sets of bones were yielded by the soil in which they had lain mouldering. The difficulty was how to identify the bones of a French ecclesiastic amid so many. After much discussion, the shrewdest gravedigger suggested that, being a Frenchman, the darkest coloured skull must be his. Acting upon this idea, the blackest bones were sorted and put together, until the requisite number of rights and lefts were obtained. These were reverently screwed up in a new coffin, conveyed to France, and buried with all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of the Roman Catholic Church.

AN AMUSING INCIDENT.

An American correspondent writes:-"I have just finished reading a most amusing incident, and, as it occurs in a book not likely to fall into the hands of many of the members, I am tempted to relate it, although it might prove to be 'stale.' Well, to begin: It tells of a maiden lady, who, having arrived at the mature age of 51 without ever having seen a railway train, decides to visit New York. The all-important day having arrived, she seats herself calmly on the platform of the country station, and gazes with amazement as the train draws up, takes on its pa.s.sengers, and pursues its journey. As she stares after it the stationmaster asks her why she did not get on if she wishes to go to New York. 'Get on,'

says Miss Polly, in surprise, 'get on! Why, bless me, if I didn't think this whole concern went!' Being placed on the next train, she proceeds on her way, when, finally, having seen so many wonderful things, she concluded not to be astonished, whatever may happen. A collision occurs and the gentleman next to her is thrown to the end of the car among a heap of broken seats. She supposes it to be the usual manner of stopping, and quietly remarks: 'Ye fetch up rather sudden, don't ye?'"

A LITTLE BOY'S COOLNESS.

The suit of William O'Connor against the Boston and Lowell Railroad at Lawrence has resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff in $10,000, one-half the amount sued for. This suit grew out of an accident which occurred August 27th, 1880. The plaintiff was the father of a child then between five and six years old. He and his brother, three years older, were crossing a private way maintained by the railroad for the Ess.e.x Company, and the younger boy, while walking backward, stepped between the rail and planking of the roadway inside and was unable to extricate his foot. At that moment the whistle of a train was heard within a few hundred feet and out of sight around a curve, and it appeared from the evidence that the older brother, finding himself unable to relieve his brother, ran down the track toward the train; but finding that he could not attract the attention of the trainmen to his brother's condition, and that he must be run over, ran back to him, and, telling him to lie down, pulled him outward and down and held him there until the train had pa.s.sed. Both feet of the little fellow were cut off or mangled so that amputation was necessary. The theory of the defence was that the boy was not caught, but while running across the track, fell and was run over. But the testimony of the older brother was unshaken in every particular. It would be difficult to match the nerve, thoughtfulness, and disregard of self displayed by this boy, who at that time was less than nine years old.

PHOTOGRAPHING AN EXPRESS TRAIN.

An interesting application of the instantaneous method of photography was recently made by a firm of photographers at Henley-on-Thames. These artists were successful in photographing the Great Western Railway express train familiarly known as the "Flying Dutchman," while running through Twyford station at a speed of nearly sixty miles an hour. The definition of this lightning-like picture is truly wonderful, the details of the mechanism on the flying locomotive standing out as sharply as the immovable telegraph posts and palings beside the line. The photographers are now engaged, we believe, in constructing a swift shutter for their camera which will reduce the period of exposure of the photographic plate to 1-500th of a second. The same artists have also executed some charming pictures of the upper Thames, with floating swans and moving boats, which cannot but win the admiration of artists and all lovers of the picturesque.

-_Ca.s.sell's Family Magazine_, Nov. 1880.

NERVOUSNESS.

Surely people are far more _nervous_ now than they used to be some generations back. The mental cultivation and the mental wear which we have to go through tends to make that strange and inexplicable portion of our physical construction a very great deal too sensitive for the work and trial of daily life. A few days ago I drove a friend who had been paying us a visit over to our railway station. He is a man of fifty, a remarkably able and accomplished man. Before the train started, the guard came round to look at the tickets. My friend could not find his; he searched his pockets everywhere, and although the entire evil consequence, had the ticket not turned up, could not possibly have been more than the payment a second time of four or five s.h.i.+llings, he got into a nervous tremor painful to see. He shook from head to foot; his hand trembled so that he could not prosecute his search rightly, and finally he found the missing ticket in a pocket which he had already searched half-a-dozen times. Now contrast the condition of this highly-civilized man, thrown into a painful flurry and confusion at the demand of a railway ticket, with the impa.s.sive coolness of a savage, who would not move a muscle if you hacked him in pieces.

-_Fraser's Magazine_.

A PROFITABLE RAILWAY.

The shortest and most profitable railway in the world is probably to be seen at Coney Island, the famous suburban summer resort of New York.

This is the "Marine Railway," which connects the Manhattan Beach Hotel and the Brighton Beach Hotel. It is 2,000 feet in length, is laid with steel rails, and has a handsome little station at each end. Its equipment consists of two locomotives and four cars, open at the sides, and having reversible seats; and a train of two cars is run each way every five minutes. The cost of this miniature road, including stations and equipment, was 27,000 dols., and it paid for itself in a few weeks after it was opened for business. The operating expenses are 30 dols. a day, and the average receipts are 450 dols. a day the entire season, 900 dols. being sometime taken in. The fare charged is five cents. The property paid a profit last year of 500 dols. per cent on its cost.

THE POLITE BRAHMIN.