Читать книгу: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459», страница 3

CHEAP MINOR RAILWAYS

'On the day that our preamble was proved, we had all a famous dinner at three guineas a head—never saw such a splendid set-out in my life! each of us had a printed bill of fare laid beside his plate; and I brought it home as quite a curiosity in the way of eating!' Such was the account lately given us by a railway projector of that memorable year of frenzy, 1845. A party of committee-men, agents, engineers, and solicitors, had, in their exuberance of cash, dined at a cost of some sixty guineas—a trifle added to the general bill of charges, and of course not worth thinking of by the shareholders.

These days of dining at three guineas a head for the good of railway undertakings are pretty well gone; and agents and counsel may well sigh over the recollection of doings probably never to return.

'The truth is, we were all mad in those times,' added the individual who owned so candidly to the three-guinea dinner. And this is the only feasible way of accounting for the wild speculations of seven years ago. There was a universal craze. All hastened to be rich on the convenient principle of overreaching their neighbours. There was robbery throughout. Engineers, landholders, law-agents, and jobbers, pocketed their respective booties, and it is needless to say who were left to suffer.

Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have only drawn attention for an instant to the errors of the past in order to draw a warning for the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, should have become the occasion of such widespread cupidity and folly; for scarcely ever had science offered a more gracious boon to mankind. It is charitable to think that the foundation of the great error that was committed, lay in a miscalculation as to the relation between expenditure and returns. We can suppose that there was a certain faith in the potency of money. To spend so much, was to bring back so much; and it became an agreeable delusion, that the more was spent, the greater was to be the revenue. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have occurred to any one of the parties concerned, that all depends on how money is spent. There are tradesmen, we imagine, who know to their cost, that it is quite within the bounds of possibility to have the whole of their profits swept away by rent and taxes. Curious, that this plain and unpleasant and very possible result did not dawn on the minds of the great railway interests. And yet, how grave and calculating the mighty dons of the new system of locomotion—men who passed themselves off as up to anything!

Wonderfully acute secretaries; highly-polished chairmen; directors disdainful of ordinary ways of transacting business. A mystery made of the most common-place affairs! We may be thankful that the world has at last seen through these pretenders to superhuman sagacity. With but remarkably few exceptions, the great railway men of the time have committed the grossest blunders; and the stupidest blunder of all, has been the confounding of proper and improper expenditure; just as if a shopkeeper were to fall into the unhappy error of imagining that his returns were to be in the ratio, not of the business he was to do, but of his private and unauthorised expenses.

The instructive fact gathered from railway experience is, that there is an expenditure which pays, and an expenditure that is totally wasteful. Directors have made the discovery, that costly litigation, costly and fine stations, fine porticos and pillars, fine bridges, and finery in various other things, contribute really nothing to returns, but, on the contrary, hang a dead weight on the concern. No doubt, fine architecture is a good and proper thing in itself; but a railway company is not instituted for the purpose of embellishing towns with classic buildings. Its function is to carry people from one place to another on reasonable terms, with a due regard to the welfare of those who undertake the transaction. How carriages may be run well and cheaply, yet profitably, is the sole question for determination; and everything else is either subordinate or positively useless. A suitable degree of knowledge on these points would, we think, tend materially to restore confidence in railway property. Could there be anything more cheering than the well-ascertained fact, that no railway has ever failed for want of traffic? In every instance, the traffic would have yielded an ample remuneration to the shareholders, had there been no extravagant expenditure. Had the outlays been confined to paying for the land required, the making of the line, the laying down of rails, the buying locomotives and carriages, and working the same, all would have gone on splendidly; and eight, ten, twenty, and even a higher per cent., would in many instances have been realised. At the present moment, the lines that are paying best are not those on which there is the greatest amount of traffic, but those on which there was the most prudent expenditure. In order to judge whether any proposed railway will pay, it is only necessary to inquire at what cost per mile, all expenses included, it is to be produced. If the charge be anything under L.5000 per mile, there is a certainty of its doing well, even if the line be carried through a poorly-populated district; and up to L.20,000 per mile is allowable in great trunk-thoroughfares; but when the outlay reaches L.50,000 or L.100,000 per mile, as it has done in some instances, scarcely any amount of traffic will be remunerative. In a variety of cases, the expenditure per mile has been so enormous, that remunerative traffic becomes a physical impossibility. In plain terms, if the whole of these lines, from end to end, were covered with loaded carriages from morning to night, and night to morning, without intermission of a single moment, they would still be carried on at a loss! Gold may be bought too dearly, and so may railways.

As there seems to be an appearance of a revival in railway undertakings, it will be of the greatest importance to keep these principles in view; and we are glad to observe that, taking lessons from the past, the promoters of railway schemes are confining their attention mainly to plans of a simple and economical class. Hitherto, railways have, for the most part, been adapted to leading thoroughfares, by which certain districts have been overcrowded with lines, leaving others destitute. Branch single lines of rail appear, therefore, to be particularly desirable for these forgotten localities. These branch-lines may prove exceedingly serviceable, not only as regards the ordinary demands of trade and agriculture, but those of social convenience. Among the prominent needs of our time, is ready access for the toiling multitudes to places rendered interesting by physical beauty and romantic association—fit objects for holiday excursions. The excursion train, suddenly discharging its hundreds of strangers at some antique town or castle, or in the neighbourhood of some lovely natural scenery, is one of the wonders of the day—and one, we think, of truly good omen, considering the importance that seems to be connected with the innocent amusements of the people. We rejoice in every movement which tends to increase the number of places to which these holiday-parties may resort, as we thoroughly believe, that the more of them we have, our people will be the more virtuous, refined, and happy.

We lately had much pleasure in examining and learning some particulars of a short branch-railway which has added the ancient university city of St Andrews, with its many curious objects, to the number of those places which may become the termini of excursion trains. We find from Lord Jeffrey's Life, that in this town, fifty years ago, only one newspaper was received; a number (if it can be called a number) which we are assured, on the best authority, is now increased to fifteen hundred per week! Parallel with this fact, is that of its having, ten years ago, a single coach per diem to Edinburgh, carrying six or seven persons, while now it has three trains each day, transporting their scores, not merely to the capital, but to Perth and Dundee besides. Conceiving that there is a value in such circumstances on account of the light which they throw on the progress of the country, we shall enter into a few particulars.

The St Andrews Railway is a branch of the Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee, and extends somewhat less than five miles. Formed with a single line only, over ground presenting scarcely any engineering difficulties, and with favour rather than opposition from the proprietors of the land, it has cost only L.25,000, or about L.5000 per mile. The main line agrees to work it, and before receiving payment, to allow the shareholders 4½ per cent. for their money; all further profits to be divided between the two companies, after paying working expenses. It was opened on the 1st July last, and hitherto the appearances of success have been most remarkable. On an assumption that the traffic inwards was equal to that outwards, the receipts for passengers during each of the first six weeks averaged L.52, 14s. This was exclusive of excursion trains, of which one carried 500 persons, another between 500 and 600, a third 1500; and so on. It was also exclusive of goods and mineral traffic, which are expected to give at least L.1000 per annum. The result is, that this railway appears likely to draw not much under L.4000 a year—a sum sufficient, after expenses are paid, to yield what would at almost any time be a high rate of percentage to the shareholders, while, in the present state of the money-market, it will be an unusually ample remuneration.

We have instanced this economically-constructed line, because we have seen it in operation, and can place reliance on the facts connected with its financial affairs. Other lines, however, more or less advanced, seem to have prospects equally hopeful. A similar branch is about to be made from the same main line to the town of Leven. One is projected to branch from the Eskbank station of the North British line to Peebles—a pretty town on the Tweed, which, up till the present time, has been secluded from general intercourse, and will now, for the first time, have its beautiful environs laid open to public observation. The entire cost of this line, rather more than 18 miles in length, is to be only L.70,000, or about L.3600 per mile. Another branch from the same line is projected to go to Lauder. One, of the same cheap class, is to connect Aberdeen with Banchory on the Dee. Another will be constructed between Blairgowrie and a point on the Scottish Midland. For such adventures, St Andrews is a model.¹

The time is probably not far distant when single branch-lines will radiate over the country, developing local resources, as well as uniting the whole people in friendly and profitable intercourse. To be done rightly, however, rational foresight and the plain principles of commerce must inspire the projectors. It will be necessary to avoid all parliamentary contests; to do nothing without a general movement of the district in favour of the line, so that no parties may be sacrificed for the benefit of others; to hold rigorously to an economical principle of construction; to launch out into no extravagant plans in connection with the main object contemplated. These being attended to, we can imagine that, in a few years hence, there will be a set of modest little railways which will be the envy of all the great lines, simply because they enjoy the distinction denied to their grander brethren, of paying, and which will not only serve important purposes in the industrial economy of the country, but vastly promote the moral wellbeing of the community, in furnishing a means of harmless amusement to those classes whose lot it is to spend most of their days in confinement and toil.

THE HUMOUR OF SOUTHEY

Some of the critics of 'Robert the Rhymer, who lived at the lakes,' seem to be of opinion, that his 'humour' is to be classed with such nonentities as the philosopher's stone, pigeon's milk, and other apocryphal myths and unknown quantities. In analysing the character of his intellect, they would assign to the 'humorous' attribute some such place as Van Troil did to the snaky tribe in his work on Iceland, wherein the title of chapter xv. runs thus: 'Concerning Snakes in Iceland' and the chapter itself thus: 'There are no snakes in Iceland.' Accordingly, were they to have the composition of this article, they would abbreviate it to the one terse sentence: 'Robert Southey had no humour.' Now, we have no inclination to claim for the Keswick bard any prodigious or pre-eminent powers of fun, or to give him place beside the rollicking jesters and genial merry-makers, whose humour gives English literature a distinctive character among the nations. But that he is so void of the comic faculty as certain potent authorities allege, we persistently doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer warned the author of the Doctor, that there is no greater mistake than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself humorous; adding, as a consolatory corollary to this proposition, that unquestionably the doctor himself was in this predicament. But Southey was not so rigorously grave a person as his graver writings might seem to imply. 'I am quite as noisy as ever I was,' he writes to an old Oxford chum, when in sober manhood. 'Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a blessing it is to have a boy's heart! it is as great a blessing in carrying one through this world, as to have a child's spirit will in fitting us for the next.' On account of this boyish-heartedness, he is compared by Justice Talfourd to Charles Lamb himself: 'In a certain primness of style, bounding in the rich humour which overflowed it, they were nearly akin; both alike reverenced childhood, and both had preserved its best attributes unspotted from the world.' In the fifty-fifth year of his age, he characterised himself as a man

 
——by nature merry,
Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical, very;
Who has gone through the world, not unmindful of pelf,
Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself,
Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways,
Caring as little for censure as praise;
Having some friends, whom he loves dearly,
And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely;
And never for great, nor for little things,
Has he fretted his guts² to fiddle-strings.
He might have made them by such folly
Most musical, most melancholy.
 

No one can dip into the Doctor without being convinced of this buoyancy of spirit, quickness of fancy, and blitheness of heart. It even vents its exuberance in bubbles of levity and elaborate trifling, so that all but the very light-hearted are fain to say: Something too much of this. Compared with our standard humorists—the peerage, or Upper House, who sit sublimely aloft, like 'Jove in his chair, of the sky my lord mayor'—Southey may be but a dull commoner, one of the third or fourth estate. But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of the vis comica, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough, hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the realm.

To support this apology for the worthy doctor by plenary proof, would involve a larger expenditure of space and letter-press than befits the economy of a discreet hebdomadal journal. We can but allude, and hint, and suggest, and illustrate our position in an 'off-at-a-tangent' sort of way. Look, for instance, at his ingenious quaintness in the matter of onomatology. What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier, Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a tailor; Big for a lean or little person, and Small for one who is broad in the rear and abdominous in the van; Short for a fellow six feet without his shoes, or Long for him whose high heels barely elevate him to the height of five; Sweet for one who has either a vinegar face, or a foxy complexion; Younghusband for an old bachelor; Merryweather for any one in November or February, a black spring, a cold summer, or a wet autumn; Goodenough for a person no better than he should be; Toogood for any human creature; and Best for a subject who is perhaps too bad to be endured. Amusing, too, are the doctor's reasons for using the customary alias of female Christian names—never calling any woman Mary, for example, though Mare, being the sea, was, he said, too emblematic of the sex; but using a synonyme of better omen, and Molly therefore was to be preferred as being soft. 'If he accosted a vixen of that name in her worst mood, he mollified her. Martha he called Patty, because it came pat to the tongue. Dorothy remained Dorothy, because it was neither fitting that women should be made Dolls nor Idols. Susan with him was always Sue, because women were to be sued; and Winifred Winny, because they were to be won.' Or refer to that pleasant bit of erudite trifling upon the habits of rats, beginning with the remark, that wheresoever Man goes Rat follows or accompanies him, town or country being equally agreeable to him; entering upon your house as a tenant-at-will—his own, not yours—working out for himself a covered-way in your walls, ascending by it from one storey to another, and leaving you the larger apartments, while he takes possession of the space between floor and ceiling, as an entresol for himself. 'There he has his parties, and his revels, and his gallopades—merry ones they are—when you would be asleep, if it were not for the spirit with which the youth and belles of Rat-land keep up the ball over your head. And you are more fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated will thenceforth be used as a common cemetery or a family-vault.' In the same vein, homage is paid to Rat's imitation of human enterprise: shewing how, when the adventurous merchant ships a cargo for some foreign port, Rat goes with it; how, when Great Britain plants a colony at the antipodes, Rat takes the opportunity of colonising also; how, when ships are sent out on a voyage of discovery, Rat embarks as a volunteer; doubling the stormy Cape with Diaz, arriving at Malabar with Gama, discovering the New World with Columbus, and taking possession of it at the same time, and circumnavigating the globe with Magellan, and Drake, and Cook.

Few that have once read will forget the Doctor's philological contributions towards an amended system of English orthography. Assuming the propriety of discarding all reference to the etymology of words, when engaged in spelling them, and desirous, as a philological reformer, to establish a truly British language, he proposes introducing a distinction of genders, in which the language has hitherto been defective. Thus, in anglicising the orthography of chemise, he resolves that foreign substantive into the home-grown neologisms, masculine and feminine, of Hemise and Shemise. Again, in letter-writing, every person, he remarks, is aware that male and female letters have a distinct sexual character; they should, therefore, be generally distinguished thus—Hepistle and Shepistle. And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men, the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which every person has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be called, according to the sex of the patient, Hecups and Shecups; which, upon the above principle of making our language truly British, is better than the more classical form of Hiccups and Hœccups; and then in its objective use we have Hiscups and Hercups; and in like manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never being masculine.

None but a 'humorist' would have announced the decease of a cat in such mingled terms and tones of jest and earnest as the following:—'Alas! Grosvenor,' writes Southey to his friend Mr Bedford (1823), 'this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that subject. His full titles were: "The Most Noble the Archduke Rumpelstiltzchen, Earl Tomlemagne,³ Baron Raticide, Waowhler and Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland; and if the Dragon [a cat of Mr Bedford's] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or a band of crape à la militaire round one of the fore-paws, it will be but a becoming mark of respect.... I believe we are, each and all, servants included, more sorry for this loss than any of us would like to confess. I should not have written to you at present had it not been to notify this event.' The notification of such events, in print too, appears to some thinkers too absurd. Others find a special interest in these 'trifles light as air,' because presenting 'confirmation strong' of the kindly nature of the man, taking no unamiable or affected part in the presentment of Every Man in His Humour. His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'—the very 'juice of the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever it falls'—and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos, with which, however, it is not too closely akin to marry; for pathos is bound up in mysterious ties with humour—bone of its bone, and flesh of its flesh.