Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland | Page 7

the
current and becomes absorbed in the vortex; the timid, the quiet, the
moral are, after some hesitation, caught in the whirlpool and follow
those whom they have watched with pity and derision."
Powers were granted by Parliament in the year 1845 to construct no
less than 2,883 miles of new railway at an expenditure of about
44,000,000 pounds; and in the next year (1846) applications were made
to Parliament for authority to raise 389,000,000 pounds for the
construction of further lines. These powers were granted to the extent
of 4,790 miles at a cost of about 120,000,000 pounds.
Soon there came a change; disaster followed success; securities fell;
dividends diminished or disappeared altogether or, as was in some
cases discovered, were paid out of capital, and disappointment and ruin
followed. King Hudson's methods came under a fierce fire of criticism;
adulation was succeeded by abuse and he was disgraced and dethroned.
A writer of the day said, "Mr. Hudson is neither better nor worse than
the morality of his time." From affluence he came to want, and in his
old age a fund was raised sufficient to purchase him an annuity of 600
pounds a year.
About this time, that most useful Institution the Railway Clearing
House received Parliamentary sanction. The Railway Clearing System
Act 1850 gave it statutory recognition. Its functions have been defined
thus: "To settle and adjust the receipts arising from railway traffic
within, or partly within, the United Kingdom, and passing over more
than one railway within the United Kingdom, booked or invoiced at
throughout rates of fares." The system had then been in existence, in a
more or less informal way, for about eight years. Mr. Allport, on one
occasion, said that whilst he was with the Birmingham and Derby

railway (before he became general manager of the Midland) the process
of settlement of receipts for through traffic was tedious and difficult,
and it occurred to him that a system should be adopted similar to that
which existed in London and was known as the Bankers' Clearing
House. It was also said that Mr. Kenneth Morrison, Auditor of the
London and Birmingham line, was the first to see and proclaim the
necessity for a Clearing House. Be that as it may, the Railway Clearing
House, as a practical entity, came into being in 1842. In the beginning
it only embraced nine companies, and six people were enough to do its
work. The companies were:--
London and Birmingham, Midland Counties, Birmingham and Derby,
North Midland, Leeds and Selby, York and North Midland, Hull and
Selby, Great North of England, Manchester and Leeds.
Not one of these has preserved its original name. All have been merged
in either the London and North-Western, the North-Eastern, the
Midland or the Lancashire and Yorkshire.
At the present day the Clearing House consists of practically the whole
of the railway companies in the United Kingdom, though some of the
small and unimportant lines are outside its sphere. Ireland has a
Railway Clearing House of its own--established in the year 1848--to
which practically all Irish railway companies, and they are numerous,
belong; and the six principal Irish railways are members of the London
Clearing House.
The English house, situated in Seymour Street, Euston Square, is an
extensive establishment, and accommodates 2,500 clerks. As I write,
the number under its roof is, by war conditions, reduced to about 900.
Serving with His Majesty's Forces are nearly 1,200, and about 400 have
been temporarily transferred to the railway companies, to the
Government service and to munition factories.
In 1842, when the Clearing House first began, the staff, as I have said,
numbered six, and the companies nine. Fifty-eight railway companies
now belong to the House, and the amount of money dealt with by way
of division and apportionment in the year before the war was

31,071,910 pounds. In 1842 it was 193,246 pounds.
CHAPTER IV.
FASHIONS AND MANNERS, VICTORIAN DAYS
The boy who is strong and healthy, overflowing with animal spirits,
enjoys life in a way that is denied to his slighter-framed, more delicate
brother. Exercise imparts to him a physical exuberance to which the
other is a stranger. But Nature is kind. If she withholds her gifts in one
direction she bestows them in another. She grants the enjoyment of
sedentary pursuits to those to whom she has denied hardier pleasures.
During my schooldays I spent many happy hours alone with book or
pen or pencil. My father was fond of reading, and for a man of his
limited means, possessed a good collection of books; a considerable
number of the volumes of _Bohn's Standard Library_ as well as
_Boswell's Life of Johnson, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Butler's
Hudibras, Bailey's Festus, Gil Blas, Don Quixote, Pilgrim's Progress,
the Arabian Nights, Shakespeare_, most of the