[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST COPY ISSUED WITH THE WORDS "RAILWAY GUIDE."]
There is one curious circumstance in the early history of "Bradshaw," which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has pointed out. Its founder appears to have been ashamed of its youth, for when the fortieth number had been attained we find, in September, 1844, a sudden jump to number 146. Did those missing hundred numbers ever afterwards disturb the pious Quaker's rest?
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE VERY EARLIEST "BRADSHAW."]
From these early guides a great deal of entertainment and instruction is to be obtained. There is no mention of "express" trains, for instance; they are described as "first class," "second class," "mixed," "fast," and "mail." We are told that "first-class trains stop at first-class stations." Third-class travellers travelled on the roof or in open "waggons." At the other end of the scale of luxury were "glass coaches"--_i.e._, carriages with plenty of windows. Tickets are "passes" or "check tickets," and it is strictly enjoined that "the check ticket given to the passenger on payment of his fare will be demanded from him at the station next before his arrival at London or Birmingham, and if not then produced he will be liable to have the fare again demanded." As to fares, we learn from the "Guide" that they fluctuate according to day or night or the number of passengers in a carriage. The fare from London to Birmingham was thirty-two shillings and sixpence first class, but if six travelled inside by day the tariff was reduced to thirty shillings, and a similar reduction for second-class passengers. Now that the season-ticket system is so widespread and familiar, the reader learns with some amazement that "An annual subscription ticket from London to Brighton and back is £100." Here are some further extracts from the "Guide":--
"Passengers are especially recommended to have their names and address or destination written on each part of their luggage, when it will be placed on the top of the coach in which they ride.
"If the passenger be destined for Manchester or Liverpool, and has booked his place through, his luggage will be placed on the Liverpool or Manchester coach, and will not be disturbed until it reaches its destination.
"Where the space is dotted the trains call; where a blank, thus ----, they do not." (Here is an example of this new arrangement, which, it must be confessed, is a little revolutionary of the accepted method.) "Infants in arms, _unable to walk_, free of charge.
"A passenger may claim the seat corresponding to the number on his ticket, and when not numbered he may take any seat not previously occupied.
"Preserve your ticket until called for by the company's servant." (Fancy the passengers of 1904 requiring to be curbed in their propensity for throwing their tickets out of the window!)
"Do not lean upon the door of the carriage."
[Illustration: "WHERE THE SPACE IS DOTTED THE TRAINS CALL: WHERE A BLANK, THUS ----, THEY DO NOT."]
But by far the most surprising injunction to us nowadays, when the tips of railway porters show a tendency to expand instead of diminish, is this: "No gratuity, under any circumstances, is allowed to be taken by any servant of the company."
How incomprehensible to us nowadays, when not even Mr. Beit, Mr. Astor, or Mr. Carnegie owns his own railway vehicle: "Gentlemen riding in their own carriages are charged second-class fares."
How "Bradshaw" has grown from that day! It began with thirty odd pages; it is now some twelve hundred. The weight of the first little "Guide" was a couple of ounces--it now tips the scale at a pound and a half. And think of the immense labour involved in the production of each monthly issue. It taxes all the resources of a large staff of editors and printers--for are not "perpetual and minute changes taking place in the hours and places," which "have to be introduced often at the last moment"? Every single page has literally to be packed to bursting with type, not merely with words and numerals, but with characters and spaces--altogether three thousand to the page, or equivalent to a dozen ordinary octavo volumes. Every change, however trifling, inaugurated by the traffic superintendent of the smallest railway has here to instantly set down. New trains must be crowded in somehow into an already overcrowded page for there must be no "over-running." No wonder, then, that if "Bradshaw's Guide" is difficult to compile it is often equally difficult to understand. It has been called "a recondite treatise on the subject of railway times." From the earliest day its method has elicited the severest criticism from the wits. George Cruikshank and other wits called it an "Aid to Bedlam." Mark Lemon wrote innumerable skits in _Punch_, which his friend Leech illustrated. In one of these (May 24th, 1856) we have nearly two pages devoted to "Bradshaw--a Mystery," in which two lovers, parted by distance, seek to unite by means of the "Guide." They are utterly unable to discover when Orlando's train should depart and arrive. Both are plunged into the madness of despair. At last blind chance favours the lovers, and the fair one confesses:--
"Bradshaw" has nearly maddened me.
ORLANDO: And me.
He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start; Of trains that seem to start and ne'er arrive; Of junctions where no union is effected: Of coaches meeting trains that never come; Of trains to catch a coach that never goes; Of trains that start after they have arrived; Of trains arriving long before they leave. He bids us "see" some page that can't be found. Henceforth take me not "Bradshaw" for your guide.
(_Curtain._)
[Illustration: AN ILLUSTRATION BY LEECH FOR "BRADSHAW: A MYSTERY," IN "PUNCH."]
[Illustration: GOLDEN BARS]
A STORY OF THE AFRICAN TREASURE.
BY MAX PEMBERTON.
I.
They were talking of treasure in the parlour of the Three Tuns at Gravesend--old salts, every one of them, to whom five hundred pounds a year had been riches beyond desire. The precise inspiration of their eloquence chanced to be the money which had been smuggled out of Africa at the time of the war. Some said that it was all banked in France and Holland; others declared that a few paltry millions had gone to America. In the heat of the argument pipes were broken and glasses overturned. Gilbert Lorimer, a young officer on a Scotch tramp, who had been ashore on his captain's business, smiled often and said little; but he corrected old Crabb of the Margate service, and drew down upon himself that worthy's wrath thereby.
"There's more nonsense than not talked about a million of money," the captain had remarked, sententiously. The others agreed. Had anyone bestowed such a trifle upon them, they would have been at no loss how to handle it.
"I'd pop my lot in the Savings Bank," said Billy of the wherry, in parsimonious solemnity. Jack the waterman, however, declared that he would ferry his across the river and leave it to-morrow with the lawyers. Then the sage and learned Skipper Crabb delivered himself of the oracle.
"A million weighs close upon five tons," said he.
"More than ten," exclaimed Gilbert Lorimer, quietly.
"Ah, here's Crɶsus," was the captain's sly retort, "and I dare say," he put it familiarly to Gilbert, "that you are very much at home with sums like that. Suppose you make it champagne, young man?"
Gilbert laughed drily. He was a fine specimen of a sailor, and he would have been called handsome by the women in spite of the scar upon his cheek--an ugly gash which seemed to have a history behind it. A little reserved and proud, he had listened to the talk of money with some contempt; but the captain's challenge drew him out, and he rang the bell impatiently for the barman.
"Champagne, by all means," he said, "since the next that I shall drink will be in Sydney. As to your million, I know nothing about it; but I once owned some large part of one. What's more, I was careless enough to lose it."
A solemn silence fell upon the company. Gilbert Lorimer raised his glass and gave them "To our next." The aged Captain Crabb surrendered at once to a master. I, alone, followed the young sailor from the room and asked him, at the river's bank, to let me have a story.
"Yonder's my ship," he said, indicating the anchor light of a large steamer. "She would be at the Nore before I had well begun."
"Then why not write it----?"
He shook his head.
"I am handier with the gloves," said he.
"Oh, but you can spin a plain yarn, I'll be bound."
"Well, as to that----"
The great steamer sounded her siren and he leaped into the wherry. His last word was a cheery "So long." But he sent me the story of his treasure three months afterwards, and I give it here with scarce a line deleted or a phrase re-turned.
II.
Every man on board the _Oceanus_--sometime a mail-boat to the South African ports--knew that we carried treasure to Europe, but what was the amount of it, or for whom we carried it, our captain, Joey Castle, alone could say. We had been chartered at Sydney for the purpose, being one of the fastest steamers in Southern waters, and we took in the bullion, chiefly in golden ingots, at Lorenzo Marques. Some did say that it was the property of a Dutch bank, which preferred the American flag to the German, for the _Oceanus_ was under American colours, and a handier steamer of her tonnage I never sailed in. Grant you that the crew were a rough lot--niggers and Lascars, Poles and Swedes, with half-a-dozen Christian white men to put currants on your cake. Well, the owners were one of the safest houses in New York, and fat Joey Castle you might have trusted with the Bank of England itself. Not two cents did he care whether he had a hold full of diamonds or of doughnuts.