Punch: Punch (83.1882)

December 23, 1882.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

239

FOND BELIEFS.

That money can be borrowed from Bankers.

That there is only one tailor who can make a coat.

That Poets encourage the “elevation of the Stage”
by selling Poetical Dramas for next to nothing.

That Mr. BRA.DLA.UGa could not be converted if the
Bishop of Winchester gave him one-third of his
income.

That people who are found starved to death have
died from obstinacy.

That Bill-discounting is a profitable business.

That the Wardour Street Drama is the highest form
of dramatic art.

That the Metropolitan Board of Works is the most
perfect institution under the sun.

That rates and taxes are fairly divided over the
whole area of the population.

That Parliament ought to meet for talk and not for
work.

That every private Soldier carries a Field-Marshal’s
staff in his kit.

That pure water and brifiiant gas can be had by paying
for them.

That the Electric Light will never get beyond the
stage of stock-jobbing.

That the muck-carts of Covent Carden are a pleasant
rus in urbe.

That prize-fighting has been abolished.

That pigeon-shooting is free from cruelty, and will
last for ever.

That Lord Brabourne is the most conscientious Peer
ever created.

That the House of Lords is the eheet-anchor of the
Constitution.

That tramways are quite agreeable to vested interests.

That the Licensing Magistrates have improved the
tone of public amusements.

That a Policeman is made any cleverer by being put
into plain clothes.

That the Bank rate of discount has much to do with
the Money-Market.

Christmas Hampers for the Million-.—Bills!

A VOCATION.

“I know what I’m gowin’ to be WHEN I GROW UP ! ”

“ What are yer gowin’ to be when yer grow up?” “A Widder !”

A HANDBOOK OF KNOWLEDGE.

No. IX.—Railways.

Part III.—Ins and Outs.

Q. When the traveller has been directed to the platform from
which his train is to start, are his difficulties at an end ?

A. By no means. He is quite likely to have been jmsdirected.

Q. What then happens ?

A. One or other of several unpleasant things. He may perhaps
be carried to some distant bourne quite other than his desired haven.
If it should not go quite so far as that, however, discomfiture awaits
him in other forms. Probably, just as he has seated himself, and
adjusted his belongings, a whiskered face will be thrust in at the
window, and a peremptory voice will demand, “ Where for ? ” In
the innocence of his heart the passenger will cheerily and confidently
give the name of the Station he wishes to alight at. Then a look of
coarse scorn will mantle the countenance of the myrmidon, and the
passenger will be hurried and hustled again on to the platform, to a
running commentary of sardonic and disparaging remarks on the
part of the whiskered one.

Q. But why does that official not confine himself to civilly inform-
ing the passenger that he has got into the wrong train ?

A. Simplicity combined with civility would afford no scope for
the indulgence of the ruling passions of the railway mind.

Q. What are these P

d. Bumptiousness and bad temper.

Q. Pray proceed.

A. Another form of the great transfer joke is the sudden and
clamorous summons to all the passengers in a particular train to
shift, at the last moment, into another. The guards and porters in
this case rage up and down the platform howling “All out! All
out. in stentorian tones, and when the startled passengers have
fairly grasped the meaning of this unexpected charivari, they have
to grab together their impedimenta, make headlong exit from their
carriages, and scuttle wildly about in search of others. Those who
happen to be deaf, drowsy, or preoccupied, stand an excellent chance
°f grasping the situation just a little too late.

Q. Supposing the passenger has really hit upon the right train P

A. It behoves him then to. take great care that he doesn’t get into
the wrong part of it. To this end he will have to peer up at small

boards painted in minute characters, erratically distributed, and
conveying partial and imperfect information. In their absence or
absolute unintelligibleness, he will have to fall, back on the painful
alternative of “ asking questions,” a pernicious practice which
railway officials hold can only be kept within reasonable bounds by
rudeness and wrong answers.

Q. But is it not the very business of railway officials to furnish the
public with all needful information ?

A. Undoubtedly. But, then, it is not always their pleasure.

Q. Having discovered the right carriage, what is the passenger’s
next difficulty P

A. Entering it; often a task of much labour and some risk.

Q. How so ?

A. In various ways. The handles of railway-carriage doors are
very often so arranged that it is impossible for any but powerful
male fingers to move them. The doors themselves are dreadfully
given to sticking fast. This is awkward when you are outside,
because you are compelled to summon assistance. It is more awk-
ward when you are inside, because the train may possibly move on
before that assistance comes. Then the ascent and descent of the
carriage-steps are compassed about with many perils. To step from
the platform over a foot of yawning space up two feet on to a sharp
door-scraper-like footboard, to scramble—or fall—down three feet of
darkly uncertain descent on to a gravel slope, where platform there
is none—these are involuntary gymnastic exercises provided for
elderly gentlemen and nervous ladies by the paternal despotism of
the Railway Autocrats.

Q. Could not the necessity for these athletic feats be avoided ?

A. Easily ; by the adoption of such common-sense arrangements
as continuous footboards of sufficient width, and platforms of
uniform height and adequate length. But with the introduction of
these would disappear many of the existing facilities for comic
contusions, funny fractures, humorous sprawls of persons, side-
splitting scatterings of properties, amusing maimings, and droll
deaths. Not all, however, for the way that trains, supposed to
be stationary, have of making sudden and, as it would seem, pur-
poseless plunges, forwards and backwards, at the most unforeseen
moments, would still provide the Public with unsought opportunities
for awkward fiounderings and dangerous falls.