Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland | Page 5

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 pounds
to-day. Then the gross revenue was 1,186,000 and now it has reached
15,960,000 pounds. When I say now, I refer to 1913, the year prior to
the war, as since then, owing to Government control, non-division of
through traffic and curtailment of accounts, the actual receipts earned
by individual companies are not published, and, indeed, are not known.

Eighteen hundred and fifty-one was a period of anxiety to the Midland
and to railway companies generally. Financial depression had
succeeded a time of wild excitement, and the Midland dividend had
fallen from seven to two per cent.! It was the year of the great
Exhibition, which Lord Cholmondeley considered the event of modern
times and many over-sanguine people expected it to inaugurate a
universal peace. On the other hand Carlyle uttered fierce denunciations
against it. It certainly excited far more interest than has any exhibition
since. Then, nothing of the kind had ever before been seen. Railway
expectations ran high; immense traffic receipts, sorely needed, ought to
have swelled the coffers of the companies. But no! vast numbers of
people certainly travelled to London, but a mad competition, as foolish
almost as the preceding mania, set in, and passenger fares were again
and again reduced, till expected profits disappeared and loss and
disappointment were the only result. The policy of Parliament in
encouraging the construction of rival railway routes and in fostering
competition in the supposed interest of the public was, even in those
early days, bearing fruit--dead sea fruit, as many a luckless holder of
railway stock learned to his cost.
Railway shareholders throughout the kingdom were growing angry. In
the case of the Midland--they appointed a committee of inquiry, and the
directors assented to the appointment. This committee was to examine
and report upon the general and financial conditions of the company,
and was invested with large powers.
About the same time also interviews took place between the Midland
and the London and North-Western, with the object of arranging an
amalgamation of the two systems. Some progress was made, but no
formal engagement resulted, and so a very desirable union, between an
aristocratic bridegroom and a democratic bride, remained
unaccomplished.
Mr. Ellis was chairman of the Midland at this time and Mr. George
Carr Glyn, afterwards the first Lord Wolverton, occupied a similar
position on the Board of the London and North-Western. Mr. Ellis had
succeeded Mr. Hudson--the "Railway King,"