Rules for Railways
In his anti-Puseyite zeal Punch mendaciously declares that a railway from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the Board of Trade, when special trains were chartered by rival promoters, is described in humorous detail in a Punch ballad. Padded suits are suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the best summary—with all its exaggerations—of the discomforts of railway travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and Regulations for Railways":—
The French Government has published a royal ordonnance, fixing the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he likes.
Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark quite long enough.
No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.
Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible, as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not mix sociably together.
No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.
No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be divided oftener than once a month.
No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.
No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming belts should always be kept in open carriages.
The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.
Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.
Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or refreshment.5
One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or third class—whichever of the two he prefers.
Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in attendance at every station.
There must be some communication between every carriage and the stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken loose.
There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846, but in the same year to Punch belongs the credit of suggesting refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground railways.
A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS
The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on the L. & N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the temper of the speculating public had changed, and Punch is a faithful index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in Punch as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at Madame Tussaud's. For a while Punch was inclined to extend to him a certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's high priest by his greedy and discontented worshippers. But the mood of compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of Cowper's poem, The Loss of the Royal George:—
Toll for a knave!
A knave whose day is o'er!
All sunk—with those who gave
Their cash, till they'd no more!
The Royal George is gone,
His iron rule is o'er—
And he and his directors
Shall break the lines no more!
King Hudson's Downfall
In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy" on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of voyages de luxe.
But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort, danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 Punch ironically comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided, only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests from correspondents of The Times with the remark:—
Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive expostulation.
RAILWAY UNDERTAKING
Touter: "Going by this train, Sir?"
Passenger: "'M? Eh? Yes."
Touter: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."
The directors of the L. & N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking their engine drivers, à propos of a well-authenticated case of a man who had been on duty for thirty hours without relief or opportunity to rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and Punch accordingly suggests that the directors should provide themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal. Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under review, and in 1856 Punch is still of opinion that we might take a leaf out of the book of the Russians, who carry surgeons on their trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal equipment of expresses.
"Bradshaw: A Mystery"
A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing Bradshaw with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's Railway Time Tables were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that Punch began to realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and utilized them in a little play called Bradshaw: A Mystery, describing the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers. Love may laugh at locksmiths, but Bradshaw is another matter. Here is the happy ending of this romantic libel:—
Leonora. Oh, don't talk of Bradshaw!
Bradshaw has nearly maddened me.
Orlando. And me.
He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;
Of trains that seem