Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland. Joseph Tatlow
on which it rested. Perhaps it was as well deserved as are some others of this world’s distinctions! At any rate it was neither begged nor bought, but came “Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought.” In the same year (1883) I also appeared in Edwards’ Sixth Series of Modern Scottish Poets; and in 1885, more legitimately, in William Andrews’ book on Modern Yorkshire Poets. My claim for this latter distinction was not, however, any greater, if as great, as my right to inclusion in the collection of Scottish Poets. If I “lisped in numbers,” it was not in Yorkshire, for Yorkshire I left for ever before even the first babblings of babyhood began. However, “kissing goes by favour,” and I was happy in the favour I enjoyed.
I may as well say it here: with my poetical productions I was never satisfied any more than with my attempts at drawing. My verses seemed mere farthing dips compared with the resplendent poetry of our country which I read and loved, but my efforts employed and brightened many an hour in my youth that otherwise would have been tedious and dreary.
Ours was a large family, nine children in all; nothing unusual in those days. “A quiver full” was then a matter of parental pride. Woman was more satisfied with home life then than now. The pursuit of pleasure was not so keen. Our parents and our grandparents were simpler in their tastes, more easily amused, more readily impressed with the wonderful and the strange. Things that would leave us unmoved were to them matters of moment. Railways were new and railway travelling was, to most people, an event.
Our fathers talked of their last journey to London, their visit to the Tower, to Westminster Abbey, the Monument, Madame Tussauds; how they mistook the waxwork policeman for a real member of the force; how they shuddered in the Chamber of Horrors; how they travelled on the new Underground Railway; and saw the wonders of the Crystal Palace, especially on fireworks night. They told us of their visit to the Great Eastern, what a gigantic ship it was, what a marvel, and described its every feature. They talked of General Tom Thumb, of Blondin, of Pepper’s Ghost, of the Christy Minstrels. Nowadays, a father will return from London and not even mention the Tubes to his children. Why should he? They know all about them and are surprised at nothing. The picture books and the cinemas have familiarised them with every aspect of modern life.
In those days our pleasures and our amusements were fewer, but impressed us more. I remember how eagerly the coloured pictures of the Christmas numbers of the pictorial papers were looked forward to, talked of, criticised, admired, framed and hung up. I remember too, the excitements of Saint Valentine’s Day, Shrove Tuesday, April Fool’s Day, May Day and the Morris (Molly) dancers; and the Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes Day. I remember also the peripatetic knife grinder and his trundling machine, the muffin man, the pedlar and his wares, the furmity wheat vendor, who trudged along with his welcome cry of “Frummitty!” from door to door. Those were pleasant and innocent excitements. We have other things to engage us now, but I sometimes think all is not gain that the march of progress brings.
Young people then had fewer books to read, but read them thoroughly. What excitement and discussion attended the monthly instalments of Dickens’ novels in All the Year Round; how eagerly they were looked for. Lucky he or she who had heard the great master read himself in public. His books were read in our homes, often aloud to the family circle by paterfamilias, and moved us to laughter or tears. I never now see our young people, or their elders either, affected by an author as we were then by the power of Dickens. He was a new force and his pages kindled in our hearts a vivid feeling for the poor and their wrongs.
Scott’s Waverley Novels, too, aroused our enthusiasm. In the early sixties a cheap edition appeared, and cheap editions were rare things then. It was published, if I remember aright, at two shillings per volume; an event that stirred the country. My father brought each volume home as it came out. I remember it well; a pale, creamy-coloured paper cover, good type, good paper. What treasures they were, and only two shillings! I was a little child when an important movement for the cheapening of books began. In 1852 Charles Dickens presided at a meeting of authors and others against the coercive regulations of the Booksellers’ Association which maintained their excessive profits. Herbert Spencer and Miss Evans (George Eliot) took a prominent part in this meeting and drafted the resolutions which were passed. The ultimate effect of this meeting was that the question between the authors and the booksellers was referred to Lord Campbell as arbitrator. He gave a decision against the booksellers; and there were consequently abolished such of the trade regulations as had interdicted the sale of books at lower rates of profit than those authorised by the Booksellers’ Association.
Practically all my school days were spent at Derby. As I have said, ours was a large family. I have referred to an only sister, but I had step-sisters and step-brothers too. My father married twice and the second family was numerous. His salary was never more than £300 a year, and though a prudent enough man, he was not of the frugal economical sort who makes the most of every shilling. It may be imagined, then, that all the income was needed for a family that, parents included, but excluding the one servant, numbered eleven. The consequence was that the education I received could not be described as liberal. I attended a day school at Derby, connected with the Wesleyans; why I do not know, as we belonged to the Anglican Church; but I believe it was because the school, while cheap as to fees, had the reputation of giving a good, plain education suitable for boys destined for railway work. It was a good sized school of about a hundred boys. Not long ago I met one day in London a business man who, it turned out, was at this school with me. We had not met for fifty years. “Well,” said he, “I think old Jessie, if he did not teach us a great variety of things, what he did he taught well.” My new-found old schoolmate had become the financial manager of a great business house having ramifications throughout the world. He had attained to position and wealth and, which successful men sometimes are not, was quite unspoiled. We revived our schooldays with mutual pleasure, and lunched together as befitted the occasion.
“Jessie” was the name by which our old schoolmaster was endeared to his boys; a kindly, simple-minded, worthy man, teaching, as well as scholastic subjects, behaviour, morals, truth, loyalty; and these as much by example as by precept, impressing ever upon us the virtue of thoroughness in all we did and of truth in all we said. Since those days I have seen many youths, educated at much finer and more pretentious schools, who have benefited by modern educational methods, and on whose education much money has been expended, and who, when candidates for clerkships, have, in the simple matters of reading, writing, arithmetic, composition and spelling, shown up very poorly compared to what almost any boy from “old Jessie’s” unambitious establishment would have done. But, plain and substantial as my schooling was, I have ever felt that I was defrauded of the better part of education—the classics, languages, literature and modern science, which furnish the mind and extend the boundaries of thought.
“Jessie” continued his interest in his boys long after they left school. He was proud of those who made their way. I remember well the warmth of his greeting and the kind look of his mild blue eyes when, after I had gone out into the world, I sometimes revisited him.
But my school life was not all happiness. In the school there was an almost brutal element of roughness, and fights were frequent; not only in our own, but between ours and neighbouring schools. Regular pitched battles were fought with sticks and staves and stones. I shrunk from fighting but could not escape it. Twice in our own playground I was forced to fight. Every new boy had to do it, sooner or later. Fortunately on the second occasion I came off victor, much to my surprise. How I managed to beat my opponent I never could understand. Anyhow the victory gave me a better standing in the school, though it did not lessen in the least my hatred of the battles that raged periodically with other schools. I never had to fight again except as an unwilling participant in our foreign warfare.
CHAPTER III.
THE MIDLAND RAILWAY AND “KING HUDSON”
In the year 1851 the Midland Railway was 521 miles long; it is now 2,063. Then its capital was £15,800,000, against £130,000,000 to-day. Then the gross revenue was £1,186,000 and now it has reached £15,960,000. When