Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland | Page 4

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 pounds 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