IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) O y^A^if 1.0 ^v^m ■tt Bi2 |r..2 Sf litt ■" £ Itt 12.0 1.1 1^^ llmSH Mil ^ "2 .^ <^ 4^ ^. <>. ^. >^ GorpQratiQn n WHT MAM STRMT Wniflil,N.Y. 14110 (7U)t7»4MII 4^ a"?^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CiHM/iCIVlH Collection de microfiches. Canadian instituta for Historical Microraproductiona / Inatitut Canadian da microraproductions hiatoriquaa Technical and Bibliographic Notaa/Notaa tachniquaa at bibliographiquaa Tha Inatituta haa attamptad to obtain tha baat original copy availabia for filming. Faaturaa of thia copy which may ba bibliographically uniqua, which may altar any of tha imagaa in tha raproduction, or which may aignificantly changa t'^a uaual mathod of filming, ara chackad balow. D D D D D D Colourad covara/ Couvartura da coulaur I I Covara damagad/ Couvartura andommagte Covara raatorad and/or laminatad/ Couvartura raataurte at/ou pailiculia □ Covar titia miaaing/ La titra da couvartura manqua Colourad mapa/ Cartaa gAographiquaa an coulaur Colourad inic (i.a. othar than blua or black)/ Encra da coulaur (i.a. autra qua blaua ou noira) Colourad plataa and/or illuatrationa/ Planchaa at/ou illuatrationa •n coulaur Bound with othar matarial/ Rail* avac d'autraa documanta Tight binding may cauaa ahadowa or diatortion along intarior margin/ La r9 liura aarrAa paut cauaar da I'ombra ou da la diatortion la long da la marga IntAriaura Blank laavaa addad during raatoration may appaar within tha taxt. Whanavar poaaibla. thaaa hava baan omittad from filming/ II aa paut qua cartainaa pagaa blanchaa aJout4aa lora d'una raatauration apparalaaant dana la taxta, mala, loraqua cala Atait poaaibla, ?aa pagaa n'ont paa 4tA fllmtea. Additional commanta:/ Commantairaa aupplAmantairaa: L'Inatitut a microfilm^ la maillaur axamplaira qu'il lui a 4tA poaaibla da aa procurar. Laa dAtaiia da cat axamplaira qui aont paut-Atra uniquaa du point da vua bibliographiqua, qui pauvant modifiar una imaga raproduita, ou qui pauvant axigar una modification dana la mAthoda normala da filmaga aont indiqute ci-daaaoua. D D D D D D D D Colourad pagaa/ Pagaa da coulaur Pagaa damagad/ Pagaa andommagtea Pagaa raatorad and/or laminatad/ Pagaa raataur^aa «t/ou pallicultea Pagaa diacolourad, atainad or foxad/ Pagaa dteoloriaa, tachatiaa ou piquAaa Pagaa datachad/ Pagaa dAtachtea Showthrough/ Tranaparanca Quality of print variaa/ Qualit* intgala da I'impraaalon Includaa aupplamantary matarial/ Comprand du matirial auppl4mantaira Only adMon avaHabIa/ Saula Mitton diaponibia Pagaa wholly or partially obacurad by arrata alipa, tiaauaa, ate., hava baan rafilmad to anaura tha baat poaaibla imaga/ Laa pagaa totalamant ou partiallamant obacurclaa par un fauillat d'arrata, una palura, ate, ont AtA filmAaa * nouvaau da fa^on A obtanir la maillaura imaga poaaibla. 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Ail other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or Iiiustrated impres- sion, and ending on tho last page with a printed or Iiiustrated impression. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain tho symbol — ^ (moaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol ▼ (meaning "END"), whichever applies. IMaps, plates, charts, etc., may l>o filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to bo entirely Included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: 1 2 3 L'oxomplairo fiimi fut roproduit grice A ia gAnArositA da: La BiMiotMqua da la Villa da MontrM Las images suivantos ont AtA reproduites avoc la plus grand soin, compto tenu do la condition et do ia nettetA do I'exemplaire filmA, et en conformltA avoc las conditions du contrat do fllmage. Los exemplalres origlneux dont la couverture en papier est ImprimAo sent filmAs en commen^ant par le premier plat et en terminant solt par la dernlAre page qui comporte uno empreinte d'improssion ou d'iilustratlon, soit par le second plat, salon le cos. Tous los autres exemplalres origlneux sent filmAs on common^ant par la premlAro page qui comporte uno empreinte d'improssion ou d'iilustratlon et en terminant par la dernlAre page qui comporte uno telle empreinte. Un doe symboies sulvants apparaftra sur la dernlAre Image do cheque microfiche, selon le cos: le symbolo — ►signlfio "A SUIVRE", le symbole ▼ signifie "FIN". Los cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., pouvent Atre filmAs A doe taux do rAduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproiduit en un soul cilchA, II est filmA A partir da i'angio supArieur geuche, do gauclie A droito, et do haut en Ims, en pronent ie nombre d'Images nAcessalre. Los diagrammes suivents illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 4 5 6 ■■■■^,:M''.rma8ter. — Unceremonious Treatment. — A Man of few Friends. — The disappointed Travelers. — The Ass's Appeal to Jove. — Moral — A good Idea. — ^Accidentally Shot. — ^Truly Remarkable. —A fancy Inventory. — Baggage Registration id Earope. — The Baggage-master's Story. — Old Perk among the Trunks. — ^The mys- terious Groan, and extraordinary Contents of a Piece of Baggage. — Happy Denouement Page 127 CHAPTER IX. THE BKAKEMAN. The Brakeman. — Mistaken Zeal. — Some of his Duties. — An easy Job. — The Freight Brakeman. — Dangerous Work. — An unsuitable Applicant. — An uncomfortable Dance. — The Brakeman's Story. — Fall into Black Creek. — Results of a Brakewheel giving way. . 145 CHAPTER X. THE SWITCH AND SIGNAL TENDEB. The Switch and Signal Tender. — Accidents from misplaced Switches. — Unaccountable Mistakes. — Heavy Responsibility of his Duties. — ^A clear Head needed. — Of two Evils choose the least. — The Switch-tender's Story. — A careless Conductor. — What came of his Carelessness. — A fearful Dilemma. — ^The Choice. 168 CHAPTER XI. SIGNALS. Signals.— Calling for Brakes. — "Off Brakes."— "Back up."— A complicated Circular. — Arm Signals. — Flags. — The Telegraph Target, and its Object. — Communication between Train-men and Engineer. — An extraordinary Device. — ''Semaphore" Signals. — Switch Targets. — Accident Signals. — Some useful Su{^;e8tions and otherwise. — Signaling reduced to a Science. — Still Room for Im- provement. — ^Freight-car Coupling. — A good one still a Desidera- tom. — Perfection in Passenger-car Couplers 165 \ ■l\ CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. THE TIME-CARD. The Time-card. — Who makes it. — Specimen Diagram Time-table. — How Train-times are arranged. — Many Considerations to be taken into account. — ^Time-table Humor. — Comments on Time-cards. — The Fun to be found in some. — Specimen of Time-card on the Model of those found in certain Guides. — Extraordinary Trains. — Working Time-card Page 181 CHAPTER XIII. THE TELEGRAPH TRAIN DISPATCHER. The Train Dispatcher. — How he watches the nmning of Trains. — Different System of running Arrangements. — The " Rights of Trains." — "Holding" Orders. — The heavy Responsibilities of ^e Dispatcher. — Hard to please every body. — Specimen of Telegraph Train Order. — Designations of Trains. — Rather mixed 195 CHAPTER XIV. THE GENERAL SUPBRINTEMDBIfT. The General Superintendent. — What devolves on him. — A bnsy Man. — How his Work begins. — His Visitors. — Office-seekers' Assiduity. — How the G. S. gets through his Correspondence. — Short-hand and its uses. — Some People's Style of Dictation. — The Stock Shipper's Claim. — Applications for Passes. — The comic, the pathetic, the business Style. — Editorial Compliments and Abuse. — The sentimental and the disinterested Applicant. — Dismissal. — Conclusion 204 ).table. — I be taken s.cardB. — rd on the Trains. — .Page 181 f Trains. — 'Rights of ilities of ^e f Telegraph 196 (I.— A busy office-seekers' spondence. — station. — ^The he comic, the and Abuse.— -BismisBal. — 204 ILLUSTRATIONS. Paok THE 0H08T AND THE LAMP Frontispiece. the applicant who cocld do any thing 18 *'i'd choose to be a brakesman" 22 the young fellow who knows how to kcn a road 23 the young lady applicant 28 the conductor 84 the charming young lady 35 the rheumatic old lady 35 the common-looking person who was president 36 THE superintendent's MOTHER-IN-LAW 37 the pig-headed man whoirefuses to pay his fare 40 "is this Perkins's corners?" 46 THE engineer 51 *'8HE JUMPED THE GAP LIKE A STAg" 67 UTTLE JOHNNY AND HIS WIDOWED MOTHER 71 THE MINER 86 THE DORO 87 THE MUSS 88 THE PARDNERS WEEPING , 89 THE ACCIDENT 89 THE REMAINS 90 THE DEPdT AGENT 107 THE PERPLEXED BAGGAGE-MAN Ill THE TICKET-OLEBK 113 THE BBTBOTHAL AT THE HOTEL 125 THB DISAPPOINTMENT 181 1 1 E 16 ILLUSTRATIONa Paoc THE CABKLES8 BAOOAOE-HAN 188 • THE TOUMO LADT FOUND IN THE TRUNK 142 THE SWITCHMAN AND THE ENOU8HMAN 159 THE TOUNO WOMAN WHO STOPPED THE TBAIN 169 THE SEMAPHOBE, OB TABOET 172 DIAGRAM TIME-TABLE 188 THE TBAIN DI8PATCHEB 202 i L «* A FAST LIFE ON THE MODERN HIGHWAY. CHAPTER L THB AUTHOR EXPOSTULATES. Expostnlatory. — A wide-spread Fallacy. — Railroading a distinct Profession. — ^A yoang Man from the Coantry ; his Qualifications. — ^Advised to go back Home. — Some choice Applications for Sitoa- tions. — ^An innocent Lad. — Sanguine. — ^The Cry of saffiBring Ha- manity. — Aorablime Genius. — Sentimental Letter-writer. — ^Why declined. — Sham Testimonials. There is probably no greater nor wide-spread a fallacy than the belief that any man of common sense is fit to jump into a responsible position on a rail- road. No man would think of taking np a mercantile occupation without some previous knowledge of or training in the details of the business. But some men think they could superintend a railroad without any preparation, and indulge in lU I J ( ! i ; I I ! ! il M 1 1 1 . ' j! 1 i i , A , *-^>.. Mj J 18 A FAST LIFE. criticisms of railroad management which, if ap- plied to their own business, they would consider absurd. It is not generally realized that the superintend- ence of railroads and departments of railroads has become a distinct and peculiar profession, in which ability can only be acquired gradually by the in- creasing light of prac- tical experience. This is equally true of many other posi- tions connected with railroads. Yet few men wanting occu- pation would hesitate to seek railroad em- ployment because they know nothing at all about it Not very long since "a young man from the country " applied for a situation. On asking him what he could do, he re- plied, " Oh, most any thing." k^ TH> Arruoun who oocld do amy Tnufe. 'A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY." 19 , if ap- consider jrintend- oads has in wbicb y the in- .Vv OOVLD DO AM* This seemed pretty confident, so I remarked, mere- ly for form's sake, " Have you had any railroad experience before?" He answered that he had not ; he had not been on a railroad be/ore. I then said, " Could you drive a locomotive ?" He said he didn't care about driving a locomotive, the nights were too mighty cold just then. I suggested that if he took a position as fireman it might warm him up a little. He said he didn't care about chucking in cord- wood. "Could he wash out a boiler?" He said he didn't like such a slushy job anyhow. "Was he a telegraph operator?" He did not know ; he had never tried ; he thought not just then. "Was he a stenographic or phonographic writer?" This seemed to bewilder him a little, and he final- ly answered that " he didn't much care about that." "Did he understand any thing about the freight business, tariffs, and so on." He "guessed he didn't" — he "didn't care much about them anyhow." "Could he chop wood?" He said he always made his old woman chop the wood. Jf^ 20 A FAST LIFE. I I; ' I iih I told him we could offer him a place as a porter, at about a dollar a day. This caused him to swear and put on style, so I asked him if he would like to be General Superin- tendent ? This question did not utterly demolish him, as expected. He was on the point of saying that was the kind of place, when I anxiously informed him that that high position was not vacant just then. I asked him why he came to the office saying he could "do a'most any thin'," when it appeared h^ could " do a'most nothin' ?" " Wall," he said, " it's just like this. I was plow- in' in the field, and it was mighty hot ; the sweat was runnin' down my face quick. I began to think it was a pretty tough way of livin', especially when I only got a dollar and fifty cents a day out of it; and just then my old woman moves up to me, and" says, * Jacob, why don't ye go for a place on the rail- road?' Says I, 'You're right, Mary,' and here I am. ' " Go back home," said I, •" and send Mary." So Jacob left the office a disconsolate man, and the victim to the general delusion that any person with common sense is fit to jump into a railroad po- sition. AN INNOCENT LAD. 21 The following are a few choice APPLICATIONS FOR SITUATIONS. The first is from a fond, gushing parent, seeking employment for his innocent lad, only thirty -two years of age : , "Respected and dear Sir,— 'Happy is the man that hath his kwivver full of them,' as the Salmist says. I have got a sweet lad ; he is as quick as liten- in', and is going into his 82th year. At his time of life most men would only be in their 21th year:— he's so kwick. When he was a hinfant he would say he would be a railrode man. He is full of the thort of a railrode life; and though I say it as should not, I never see a lad hoe turnips so kwick in all my days. He has wrote a verse wich runs like a him ; it is as follows: ' I choose to be a Brakesman, If I might be a flower ; To ran along the tops of cars, And screw up the brakes." "He also wrote another him, which begins like these: * How doth the basy boot-black Improve each shining hour,' etc. " Now, respected sir, can you help him to reach «l A j ! 1! 1 1 if II I 1 ii > n ill! it 1 ! i Hi • !■ ll ■ 22 A FAST LIFE. his gole ? He is cute to a degree. If you want a good operator, he could soon learn I * Do a good turn when you can,' as the> treadmill says to the con- !>^'. "l*D 01I008E TO BK A BBAKX8MAN." vick. Please note : He enters on his 88st year on Wednesday ; and it would be elegant to give him your offer on that date. 4f « « 4f « " The second is from a sanguine individual, but not at all dangerous : L%, want a a good the con- '^/i Jst year on 5 give bim * * * " ual, but not BANOUINB. 23 " Sir, — Last time I went over your road I said to a friend of mine in the same car, ' What a all-fired shame it is to see a splendid road like this going to the bad for the want of a little good management' " He says, says he, ' That's so — truest word you ever let out' " We sat and thought about it, and finally he says, says he, ' Why don't you get the man- agement of it yourself?' " * Nonsense,' says L " * 0. K.,' says he ; * if you don't apply for it, I shall write and get it for you. I've spoke.' " Now, my friend is a man as does a thing sure if he says he has a mind to, and I reck- on he's just wrote you on the matter. "Don't take any notice of what he says about the sub- scriber, though I do think your road is about an age behind *>" Toime fallow wuo knowh . _ HOW TO Bim ▲ BOAS. the day. " It wants waking up, and I think I am the feeble individual that can do it " I would not wish to put you out of your place, /I tf"" Nil 84 ▲ FAST LIFE. i^^ and throw you and your family on the world, my dear sir — not by a jugful — don't think so for a mo- ment; but I do want to help your road, which being a good one, only wants some snap and ginger to make it the best route in the western hemisphere. " I want to stand by you, and give you ibe benefit of my experience. I have not been on a railroad be- fore, but I know a heap about freight rates, having been a agent for a house in Sko^irhegan for quite a spell. "I'd like to be Assistant Superintendent, and just let you see what I can do — I've got some go into me. « Telegraph your terms, and don't be afraid of putting them too low. I do not wish to deprive you of my help by putting the figure too high. The third is a trying application, and one which it is 'ard to refuse. The cry of suffering 'umanity is 'ard to be withstood. "Dear Sir, — It is 'ard to be a houtcast in this vale of tears, where there is pain enough without 'aving it hadded to by the unsympathizin' 'art. " Hi 'ave a brother, wich 'e are a sorter * Parier ' — a sufferin' man under the ban of society. I »» SUFFERING HUMANITY. 25 "Now it is 'ard to ban u man, and slam the door of the world in 'is face, m to 8|wuk. "A few years agone 'e 'eld a 'igb position in a bank ; and when 'e left 'is duty to go for 'is 'olidays in Canada, they found sometbin' wrong in 'is hnc- counts hamountin' to $8000. " The pore ill-treated fellow 'as spent 'is hall, and hi can't keep 'im hany longer doin' nothin'. Hi hun- derstood a cashier's place his vacant hat one hof your stations. Try 'im — hit his 'ard to ban a man. " Hi hanswer for 'is hability — besides, it would be a charity to him and hi, 'e's so 'ard hup. Address *SneakvilleP.O.,'to #«*#«" The next is from one of those sublime geniuses who too frequently are applicants for such poor em- ployment as a railroad can afford : " Dear Sir, — Although I am what I am, I'm not ashamed to say I want a place. " I would like to begin as a telegraph operator, but any thing else would do as well. I don't know any thing of operating at present, not being an operator ; but I am heavy on electricity, and would like to find a man who knows more about it than I can tell him. I am open to bet that man from $6 to $1000 that I can spot him. 2 \ -.^ si liil 1 iiilt 26 A FAST UFB. ..I reckon your company makes its o.n electric JatmoLtUers,anal.u^.ata^^^^ «ave enough litenin' summer n,gbts to charg y .ires through the fall »"d wmter. ^^^^ .< Write, statin' terms, to me, care o. y__ rm seeing the old man just now about ingupthreeofmymachinea _ V^ .. Yours truly (without prejua.ce)^^^_^ The fifth is an application .hich is a sample ^^^ many: T *.i^ vou want some good smart men «SiB,-Iamtoldyouwan ^^^j 'em purty bad. _ ^ . ^.^^ ^lead " Wbat pay could you give xo » raB.n'i , g^ch as I could ..Name your terms, and .they ar ^^^^^ ^^^ close with, I'll come nght along, ao this for every fool. electric \j cost. ,y opera- s, saving t tV/^ n^a- }00 that I arge your ommodore about fix- * * * " i sample of d smart men I see when I you do want live go-ahead lech as I could It I would not m .1 1 ■HIM ii^ii TUB TOUMQ LADY AFPLIOilNT. SENTIMENTAL LETTER-WRITEU. 29 "Have not had any R K. experience yet, but reckon can see as much with 1 eye as most R K. men ■with 2. In case of a smash-up, I'm a slap-up Ilome- opathy doctor. Write next mail sure, stating your figure, to me, at St. Nicholas Hotel. " Yours, *****" Here is an application which it is hard for a rail- road man to resist "My dear Sir, — I am (by nature) a female — a tender, confiding creature called a female — and am shut out (by exclusive man) from doing things which women can do every bit as smart as they can. I do not indorse Mrs. C. S., S. B. A., O. L., and others ; I am too young and artless for such sentiments ;• but I do think I can do something to help man in his daily toil, and strew some roses in his road of life. Hear- ing that your feelings toward our sex are the latest out, I write to ask you would you give me a situa- tion on your railroad ? I don't want to be an engi- neer or a female operator, but I yearn to do some- thing. As I said before, I am young and artless. Let me, my dear (I hope not hard-hearted) sir, have a place near you. Let me be your spaniel to fetch and carry; let me be your gentle 'gazelle to glad you with my soft blue eye,' open your letters for you i I ''iifii ! lii ; ■. I li. >'■ , 80 A FAST LIFE. when you are tired, and carry messages to the (good- looking) clerks in other offices. Let me nestle at your feet and whittle your pencils for you, and in such hot days as these gently fan your fevered brow, or sweetly calm your aching head with my soft, cool, delicate hand, and low, cooing, dove-like voice, ■■'■■■ ■-"'■'-( * When other lips and other hearts Their tales of love shall tell.' I inclose my C. de V., encircled by a tress of my golden hair. Write at once, please, and say if you wish a gentle gazelle. If your treasurer wants one as well, there is a friend of mine just like me, except a wart. " Yours anxiously, * * * * * » The above were all declined by the hard-hearted man to whom they were addressed; and for these reasons: No. 1. Too old for such work. No. 2. No vacancy. No. 3. No place to suit your peculiar case. No. 4. Can not alter present arrangements very well. No. 5. Apparently inexperienced. No. 6. Would advise to try one of the banks — no time to have "fevered brow" fanned. I 1 SHAM TESTIMONIALS. 31 The foregoing may be thought overdrawn; but they give the reader a fair idea of the degree of fit- ness of many applicants. They have a powerful yearning to be railroad men, reminding one of the Bowery song, I banks— no *' Ob, my name is Jack Keyser, I was bom in Spring Garden, To make me a preacher, my father did tiy ; But it's no use a-blowin', for I am a hard 'un, And I'm bound to be a butcher, by heavens, or die!" Some applicants, knowing the recommendation of experience, attempt to show by the testimonials of some deceased friend, which in some way they have got hold of, that they " know all about it" . They " can't deceive your uncle," however ; for, on» being questioned, they are sure to allow the feline quadruped to escape from its temporary confinement For instance, what locomotive engineer would talk of " stickin' her nozzle agin' the bank ;" " sittin' on the safety-valve;" being "snagged by a broken rail;" "sticking on a sand-bank;" call the brake a " rudder," or the cow-catcher the " bow ?" A horsey man would call the throttle the "snaf- fle," and say she did not " take to her oats," if the en- gine would not make steam. As I said before, it is not yet fully realized that the operation of railroads has developed a new and h i i It 82 A FAST LIFE. distinct profession in the practice of which peculiar qualifications are indispensable. Those men have succeeded best who began their railroad career when they were boys. In the United States, general superintendents and presidents of railroads are by no means few and far between who entered upon railroad life as messen- gers, operators, ticket-clerks, or brakemea ■; il: .: ^ll ! .,iiii iiii |N1 A conductor's importance. 83 CHAPTER IL THECONDUCTOR. The Conductor. — How his Daties should be performed. — A Lesson in Politeness. — The Discriminative "Guard." — How to put trou- blesome Passengers off the Cars. — Nellie's Trip by Rail. — The old Lady from Podunk. — The Man who did not know his Duty. — Perkins's Comer, and the Pills. — Why a Conductor should be a married Man. — His onerous Responsibilities. The conductor is the most prominent railroad offi- cial with whom travelers generally are brought into contact He is an important personage. As lie enters the car — the door slamming loudly behind him (car doors always do slam) — and throws a quick glance around, you can read his authority in his features ; and although no sound reaches the ear, you know he is saying " Tickets, please !" That is the way he speaks if he is a proper con- ductor; but there are many whose physiognomies plainly declare they have never used such a polite phrase in their lives ; or if perchance they did so, it sounded like an imprecation — " Ti?kets g-r-r-r I" I know a conductor who always enters the car with m A FAST LIFE. iiliF-" 'rW n I!! ft y\ iiniiiliii 'ill HI iil'i a good-natured smile on his jolly face, as though he sought to make happy another batch of humanity by the benignity of his greeting. TUK OONnUOTOB. "What is the fare to Perkinsville?" says a young lady with a beseeching, deprecating look. " $2 76," replies the polite and radiant conductor, in a tone which conveys to the susceptible young A LESSON IN POLITENESS. lady that be con- siders it a shame she should have to pay at all — the honor of convey- ing her would be enough. But then his inflexible tar- iff says $2.75; and as the fair traveler counts the amount into his hand, he seems to accept it because impelled by a sense of duty. TlIS Rlimnw ATIO OLn LADT. TUB OUAKMIMO YOCNO LAUY. He informs her, as he pass- es on, at what time she Tvill get to Perkinsville. When there, he succeeds in finding time to point out her bag- gage, to show her the station agent, the proper omnibus, perform similar kind offices for half a dozen other trav- elers, as well as assisting an aged rheumaticky lady with her bonnet-box across 86 A J'AST LIFE. the tracks — all in the minute or so tliat the cars are stopping, and repeats these attentions at several stop- ping - places on the journey. All this, besides at- tending to his many telegraph orders, specific and general instructions, and a hundred details affecting his train ! You may say such con- ductors are scarce. Not on well-managed lines. If a conductor is natural- ly of a rude disposition, he learns to mollify it, espe- cially after he has roughly accosted ? common kind of man whom he afterward found to be the president of the road ; or a plain- looking woman who he did not know was the mother- in-law of the general super- intendent A most affable conductor on an Eastern road, on which many changes of management occurred, said he was bound to be polite whether he liked it or not ; he never knew from month to month who were going to be president, directors, or other officers of the road. TUB OUMMON-LOOKINU PGBSOM WHO WA8 FBE8IDBNT. 3 cars are i^eral stop- )esides at- lecific and )n8, and a ffecting his such con- ic. Not on les. r is natural- jposition, he ify it, espe- has roughly » -non kind of e afterward be president or a plain- who he did the mother- reneral super- stem road, on Burred, said he lit or not; he 10 were going 3rs of the road. TUX sutebutendent's motueb-ln-law. ,'f ."I 1 M!l f I f 1 p 1 I , . ..t THE DISCRIMINATIVE "GUARD." 89 The same conductor rcinjirked thitt on one occft- sion, when he was in charge of a parlor-car, he threat- ened to put off the only passenger because he would not pay. The train went on, leaving him and his car in a lonely side track twenty-four hours without any thing to eat or drink ; and he found out after- ward in dismay that the man who would not pay was the general superintendent I I asked him if he knew his superintendent now ? He replied that he should know him ten miles off on a curvy track. On European railroads, the "guards," as they arc called, are said to graduate their politeness according to the classes of travelers. There the first, second, and third-class passengers ride in different cars ; and it is averred that the guard will approach a first-class car saying, mellifluously, "Passes or Tickets, gentlemen, please." His request in the second-class car is, " Tickets, please ;" and his rude order in the third-class is, "Now, then. Tickets!" But there is no safety for a conductor even in this discrimination. He should be uniformly polite, if for no better reason than his own advantage. Of course there are occasionally passengers toward whom politeness would be ineffectual, as in the case of the pig-headed man who refuses to pay his fare, or the noisy and obscene person who is a general nuisance. if t^ li^i \''M !i! m\ m A FAST LIFE. THE riQ-UEAltKD MAN WHO KKFU8E8 TO PAY UIB FABE. A proper conductor, mindful of his Compa- ny's possible liabilities for damages in such a crisis, gently but firm- ly introduces his left hand in the region of the offender's thorax, and with his right grasps the baggy ex- crescence about his base (he is always a male), gives him an animated movement along the aisle of the car, and softly dumps him — somewhere outside. Superintendents know what effect the character of a conductor has upon the traffic of their roads. A gentleman sends his wife and family East regularly twice a year always by the same route, and by the train of which a certain conductor is in charge the greatest part of the distance, simply because, years ago, that official gained the confidence of the family by trifling acts of courtesy and consideration. It is quite natural that travelers should entertain these preferences, and that the course of many regu- lar travelers should be shaped accordingly. Even our noisy and obscene passenger may have Nellie's trip by rail. 4X • conductor, his Compa- ,le liabilities 3S in such a ily but firm- ices bis left he region of ier's tborax, 1 his rigbt le baggy ex- . about his is always a lent along the 1 — somewbere le cbaracter of leir roads.. A East regularly ite, and by the J in charge the because, years ;e of the family deration, ihould entertain 3 of many regu- lingly. mger may have his preference ; for if he rtiust be put off the cars, it would be pleasant to have the operation performed by the gentle hand that did it before. " Well, Nellie," said I to a young lady, " how did your grandpapa and grandmamma get over the jour- ney?" " Oh, excellently well ; the day passed quickly, and we were at our journey's end before we were pre- pared for it. The conductor was such a good fellow, and bore the troublesome ways of the old people kindly. When grandmamma suddenly screamed and opened her eyes in horror, every body crowded about her, and it was found she had dropped her gold snuff- box out of the car window ! We were near a sta- tion, and our conductor had a man jump off and go back after it. Fancy the old lady's joy when with great satisfaction he handed it back — snuff and all I But I think grandpapa was more pleased with the kindly manner of the man than with the return of the box, though he had an odd way of showing it. He rose and said, 'Young man, what is the time by your watch?' The conductor replied, 'Five p.m.* ' Five P.M.,' said my grandpapa, impressively ; ' I shall never forget it' "Our conductor was equal to the requirements of all. He answered a hundred questions every time he came into the car with unvarying patience and lii m ! fti iiii!i; riii|jii!i :j*' 1 ■ . ii: i ill,! ' 1 ■ ' ' i 1 ; ; , i 1 : ! 42 A FAST LIFE. good humor — quieted a petulant child by giving her lemon-drops, and another by showing his watch-chain and diamond shirt-studs. "An elderly lady wanted to ask him a few ques- tions. He sat down beside her, and said he should be pleased to tell her all he could between there and the next stopping-place. "She asked him where Podunk was; if he was acquainted some in Podunk ; whether the Podunk House was the best hotel ; if a 'bus ran to the Po- dunk House; if she could buy some cambric hand- kerchiefs in Podunk ; how much they charged a day at the Podunk House ; did he know old Mr. Debus in Podunk; if he ever lived in Podunk; did he like Podunk ; was Podunk a live place ; who was the best doctor in Podunk ; who kept the Podunk House ; did he know any thing else about Podunk ? " Yes, he thought there was a man on the cars go- ing to Podunk. He introduced him to the old lady as Podunk. 'Podunk?' she queried. *Yes; Po- dunk!' said he, as he took the seat vacated by the conductor. " Wasn't he good," suid Nellie, " to take so much pains for a plain-looking, ill-dressed old woman ?" " He looked after us all the time ; and as grandma hud not finished her fourth cup, he told me to take it into the car, and he would bring the crockery back A LESSON IN POLITENESS. 43 y giving her J watch-chain 1 a few qvies- xid he should een there and as; if he was ii the Podunk ran to the Po- cambric hand- charged a day ,d Mr. Debus in k; did he like bo was the best mk House; did on the cars go- to the old lady jd. *Yes; Po- vacated by the to take so much old woman ?" and as grandma iold me to take it le crockery back next trip. In fact our conductor performed kindly offices for every body, answered every body's ques- tions, lent people papers, and made himself generally liked." Some men who read the above may remark that it is all very well, but every conductor can not spare the time for such courtesies. A man is never so busy that he can not be court- eous and good-tempered. Business is too frequent- ly made the excuse for rudeness. The only valid excuse for rudeness is one which few will care to plead — a selfish and brutal disposition. Kindness takes up no more time than rudeness, costs nothing, and is far better. Men whose oc pupations bring them into daily con- tact with large numbers of their fellow -creatures, with opportunities of being of service to those in need of a cheerful word and help, are the envy of many whose isolated duties debar them from such happy chances; and surely there is a responsibility attaching to such opportunities ! A poor widow who had an only son, hor chief sup- port, called upon a railroad functionary^ who had dis- charged him on some ground that she believed had not been fully investigated. The functionary was busy making out his new tariff": he looked up sav- agely as she entered, and said, ■ iki 44 A FAST LIFE. M !t il I "What do you want? I'm busy." She timidly said her name was Mrs. Biggs. " Can not listen to you," was the coarse reply ; "your son has been dismissed for misconduct, and that's the end of it." Now, if he had listened to that poor woman he would have found that she was a superior lady, on whom misfortune had been severe ; that she was an object for compassion ; and that the misconduct of her son had strong redeeming featurea As it was, that man's neglect of duty may proba- bly accelerate the widow toward her grave, and her son to depravity. I say "that man's neglect of duty ;" for it was as much his duty to listen to the widow's story as to construct his tariff'. A conductor should have all the human virtues, and some of the angelic ones, to please his employ- ers, the public, and to reasonably satisfy himself. The answering of the everlasting string of ques- tions must be the greatest trial. A man comes into the sleeping-car at about half- past eleven, wet, and making the car unpleasant Everybody hates him directly he gets in — for no particular reason, except that he ought to have got in about two hours before they had settled down to sleep; and this man immediately asks the conductor to make sure and call him at Perkins's Corners. The Biggs. coarse reply; isconduct, and oor woman he perior lady, on hat she was an misconduct of s. aty may proba- grave, and her an's neglect of to listen to the .ff. human virtues, 3ase his employ- :isfy himself. y string of ques- jar at about half- car unpleasant gets in — for no ught to have got d settled down to sks the conductor ns's Corners. The !!iiH liii ! Im i Hi I >' l-^J 'IB TUIB TKEKINS'S OOENKBS?" I'EKKINSS CORNERS. 47 In 7V^ .*•. ■ <.] ■\ ■•■. V\ '-"■■■ ,V-! 1 Is?" conductor makes a note of it, and the man gets into liis berth. Train stops. He cries out loudly, " Hi ! conduct- or, is this Perkins's Corners?" Conductor assures him he will not reach Perkins's Corners for some time yet. At the next stopping - place, "Is this Perkins's Corners ?" he asks again. Conductor again replies, "No." And so on at twelve or thirteen other stations. Finally conductor loses his patience, and anxious- ly looks for the time when they will arrive at Per- kins's Corners, in order that he may waken that pas- senger up roughly, and shake some of the curiosity out of him. At last Perkins's Corners is reached. Conductor goes to the troublesome passenger, and, seizing him by the collar rather more roughly than necessary, " Now, then, git up," he says ; " this is Perkins's Corners, and T ara glad of it. Git up I" " Git np?" says the passenger. "What on airtb do you want me to git up for?" "Why, don't you want to git out at Perkins's Corners?" conductor remarks, somewhat alarmed. "No, of course not — not by a long sight. You see, I'm taking medicine, and my wife told me she thought . I f ^ I III !^ I'' ['ii!i'-r mM fi ii i m ilii 1 1 i!!i i'. ! ! !! ;! 48 A FAST LIFE. Perkins's Corners would be fibout the right place for another pill." A conductor should be a married man, because a married man's sympathies are keener than a single man's, and his acts more likely to be disinterested ; he should be brave, for his courage is often tested ; forbearing, for his patience is sorely tried ; and faith- ful, because great trust is placed in him. He should have some practical knowledge to help him with ex- pedients when accidents occur; a ready judgment, and nerve to act promptly in time of danger. He should see that no time is lost at stations, have a thorough understanding of his time-card, and all the rules and regulations affecting the duties of employes, an eye to the condition of the track, trestles, bridges, culverts, and embankments ; he should frequently ex- amine the breaks, couplings, and bell -ropes of his cars ; inspect his train before starting, to see that the cars have been carefully cleaned, and that his passen- gers are comfortably accommodated ; that his watch is in accordance with the railroad standard time : that all the necessary articles for emergencies are on board — flags, signal-lamps, torpedoes, links, and pins, spare bell-rope, etc., etc. ; that signal-lamps are displayed at the proper time ; to be on the alert for signals from the engineer, or at stations and side-tracks; to see that his passengers get out at the stations for which ONEROUS RESPONSIBILITTES. 49 they are ticketed ; to report all delays and irregulari- ties; to make accurate returns of all tickets and fares collected, and cars and passengers on his train ; to treat his passengers with courtesy and consideration; to be ready and willing to afford all information to inquiries, and to meet his general superintendent sans peur et sans reproche. • \\ !l 11 50 A FAST LIFE. i : i- m\ CHAPTER III. THE ENGINEER. The Engineer. — A Night Ride on the "Greyhound." — Enginemen nt their Work. — Going Shares in a Pipe. — Trying on the Mind. — The Engineer's Wife. — A Contrast. — The Incidents of a Run. — His Duties compared to the Soldier's. — How the Engineer begins. — The "Erk-yools" and her Driver. — Why Mechanical Knowledge advisable.— The nervous Engineer, and the practicalJoke that was played on him. " Will you take a ride on the engine to-night, sir?" said John Dobbs, as the Lightning Express was just about starting East "It's a wild, dirty night," added John, " and we shall be half an hour late be- fore we get off — perhaps you would not care about it? All right, sir; take a trip on the 'Greyhound' another time." It certainly would be more comfortable in the palace-car at the rear, I thought; but just then the conductor waved his lamp, and I got on the engine. The "Greyhound" had a full head of steam on, and was blowing off at the safety-valve, making a deafen- ing noise, and groaning with the power within her. Carefully proceeding through the yard and fast THE KNCJINEEK. 61 i<''l Engiiiemen at } Mind. —The a Run.— His leer begins.- !al Knowledge Joke that was freight-trains that would follow us, we soon left the station lights behind, and plowed into the darkness and the storm. ■ • - •— •" III i 1 \ ll • - r^A^MB^L P THE ENOtNKER. John Dobbs was one of the oldest and best men on the road. It was his boast, and an honest one, that during the sixteen years he had been driving on that road he had not cost the Company a dollar for any negligence or mistake of his. His record was clear. s sss L Hi! Jh.Hlli o2 A FAST LIFE. I sat and watched him from the opposite side of the cab. He was rather tall, thin, and of a nervous temperament ; and although not even the smoke- stack of the engine could be seen for the darkness and the drifting snow, his peering eye never wa- vered from its unsubstantial mark. One hand on the throttle, the other on the reversing lever, he stood erect and firm, intensely propelling his vision into the abyssmal darkness beyond. The "Greyhound" began to feel her feet; her speed increased with every stroke of her piston heart. Her mechanism quivered with its force; she leaped and reeled on each defective joint, but her iron mem- bers held her firm. The fireman never ceased to cast in the fuel, and the fierce flames darted ardently through her brassy veins. Suddenly a scream from the whistle, a quick move- ment on the throttle — the fireman rushed to the oth- er side of the engine — a flash of light I We passed a station and a freight train in the side-track. More fuel into the fire, and the " Greyhound " urged ahead, for now we had a straight piece of track before us. The storm abated, and the sky cleared. The fireman produced from his pocket a small cutty pipe, loaded it with tobacco, lighted it with a puff or two, and without saying a word stuck it be- GOING 8UAKES IN A I'll'E. 68 tweeii Jolin's tfcth. Jolin had taken about twenty rapid whill's, when the fireman, as unceremoniously as before, transferred it to himself, and with a few fierce draws consumed the load — a very unpolite proceed- ing, but apparently part of the discipline of the en- gine. Those few "draws'^ did both men good. John- nie's grasp tightened on the throttle, and the fireman with new energy threw in the wood. We passed a few more stations and freight trains in side-tracks, and at tremendous speed bounded from the level down a grade, the steepest on the road. Steam was shut oft', the fireman seized the brake- wheel, the whistle screamed for brakes, and we final- ly came to a stand right under the hose of a water- tank. "Engine-driving is trying work such weather as to-night's, sir," said Johnny, wiping the perspiration oflf his face with his sleeve, " when you can't see the signal lights, nor even your smoke-stack ; and you have to run like mad on bad track to make up time so as not to lose connection ; I tell you it makes a man sweat, if he's as cold as a lump of ice. " You have to go it blind ; you can't see if the switches are right, if trains you are to pass have got into the side-track; you can't make out any thing until you are right on to it i i! M 54 A PAST LIFE. I '' ' i '; 1 i'-i i ' '■ 'i I 1 ■ "It's trying work on the mind, sir, is driving an engine. " Such as us get very little sleep. The other night, now, my wife started up in bed and screamed as if she was being murdered. 'What are you doing?' she cried; and bless your life! sir, there was I, pull- ing her slender arm with all my might, while my foot was steadied against — something else, trying to 'reverse.'" Over this dream at his wife's expense John D. laughed heartily ; and as the tank was now filled with water, and a fresh supply of wood thrown in the ten- der, I wished him good-night, preferring to complete my journey in the palace-car at the rear. How little, if at all, did the two hundred passen- gers upon the train — most of them comfortably lying in their sleeping -berths — trouble themselves about the anxieties of the man on the engine who had their lives in charge 1 Sheltered from the rough weather, and warm and snug, they never bestowed a thought on his pierc- ing eyes and his face beaten by the storm as he leaned out of the cab, trying in vain to "make out" through the whirling snow some signs of things ahead. And why should they trouble themselves? A man with a good record for sixteen years had them THE IXCIDKNTS OK A Kl N. 5d 3 driving an 3 other night, ireamed as if you doing?' -e was I, pull- rht, while my else, trying to )ense John D. now filled with )wn in the ten- ng to complete !ar. undred passen- iTifortably lying emselves about e who had their and warm and bt on his pierc- ,he storm as he to "make out" signs of things themselves? A years had them in charge; one who keenly felt the extent of his re- sponsibilit}^, and would do his dutN' well, even if in discharging it he must needs come face to face with death. The trials of an engineer are sometimes almost too much for human endurance. When, before starting on a trip which he expects to be a pleasant one — the day is clear, all bodes well for his " connections " to be se- cured — he feels in good humor, and can afford to joke occasionally with his fireman, the signal is given, and away he starts. He presently begins to smell some- thing; looks round, and finds trailing from one of the truck-boxes a black cloud of smoke. This has probably been caused by dirt getting accidentally into the truck-box when standing in the running shed. Or, perhaps directly after he has got well out of the station-yard, he slips an eccentric-rod, hard to get at ^ However, all these mishaps are overcome by inge- nuity and patience ; and they seem to be very trifling annoyances when looked back upon from the side of his comfortable fire, surrounded by his wife and family, and smoking the pipe of peace after the day's toil is over. Still there are few men in the world whose lines are cast in harder places than those of the locomo- v» f ',i at • IF 'I I" li .< ' :> 1 I ! , [jr. H I 56 A FAST LIFE. tive engineer, and certainly to none, except the houseless tramp, does the winter bring more bitter or more painful trials. Without making any mention of the cold to which they are at all hours exposed, or the miseries they endure while attempting to force a lane through heavy drifts of snow, and the other rig- orous inclemencies which in their duty it devolves upon them to suffer, let us glance at the ordinary risk which they run in winter above all others. The engineer, in the season when tracks are blocked with snow and covered with ice, is no better off, as far as personal security is concerned, than the man who exposes himself in battle. When the soldier goes to the field, and takes leave of his family, they have a remote chance of seeing him again ; to kill or to be killed is his profession. But the locomotive engineer is a man. of peace; his employment is one of the triumphs of modern mechanical science. It is not taken into account that he stands chances of being smothered, scalded, or jammed to death, or of being carried home in the auxiliary car smashed to within an inch of eter- nity. In fact no one that has not experienced it can fully realize what is required of the engineer by his superintendent, other railroad officials, and the trav- eling public. Hia hours of duty are painfully long, accompanied HOW THE ENGINEER BEGINS. 67 icept the e bitter or y mention jxposed, or r to force a e other rig- it devolves rdinary risk ■s. tracks are is no better led, than the a takes leave nee of seeing profession, lan. of peace ; iS of modern into account lered, scalded, :ried home in ,n inch of eter- erienced it can ;ngineer by his ;, and the trav- g^ accom panied by the most trying privations. His nervous system is perpetually on the strain, and if he allows his atten- tion to be withdrawn for a moment from his duty — either by a thought of his family or other personal affairs (the claims of his stomach, for instance) — that very moment the whole of the precious human freight behind him may be cast into wreck and death. I once asked a man if he would like to be an engi- neer. He replied " No ;" he " would rather stop at home, and have a quiet smoke." It is estimated that there are seventy-six thousand miles of raiir ^ in operation in the United States and Canada. There must, therefore, be many thousands of engi- neers, and of course a corresponding number of fire- men. How such numbers of these men are trained, and how their ranks are supplied as they are depleted by accident, old age, and death, is a puzzle which is rather difficult to solve, especially when we reflect upon the hazard and general thanklessness of the duty. The engineer commences his career as a wiper in the boiler-shed. In course of time he becomes a fire- man on a switching-engine. Then he has charge of the engine of a "Mixed." Next he runs an "Ac- commodation ;" or perhaps it may be his chance to " ■'-^'1 Illliil i! '■;l! iJii ! '1 I 1 1 ■;!!! 1! :' 1' 11 ii 111 •[ I A FAST LIFE. Many of the "^-^^ ^^^^'^^l ^^^ control from causes o-r -V>,ch he can ^^^.^^ ^^ .h.t«ver-, and the P«"^ °„ ,„itchmen, and Wdgerepairers,trackmen,s,gnataen.^^^ ^^^ ^^ numerous other en>pW^^- J^^ ^^^ ,. ^^, „,, patchers,are all «1«™«"*^ "XaiUlittUbit out of a switch turned wrong a «-^^_;^ ^„,,,,, „, ^n gauge, a defective bndge a c^mbl g ^^^^^^ ^^^ emhanUment weakenea y ™n ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ :rrrco:rfC-e.pect..andtheygoto fV.P risk of his occupation, make up the nsK oi , to his engine is great. u v,ave flattered many a lauy. ments would have fla ^^^ ^^^^ ^ .hen he was •'--^ ^\, , „,ehine he called in words. MECHANICAL KNOWLEDGE ADVISABLE. 69 ly;" and at sioti on tbe be made up if he \vants of. engineer arise ise no control Qeir duties by switchmen, and ik of train dis- , displaced rail, httle bit out of |g culvert, or an I ^rost— these are for, and in the and they go to engine is great, heard one extol ibing ber endow- a lady. And fcnus," and bad to machine be called I not be expressed This same engineer, soon after he got the "Erk- yools," had an accident. Quite forgetting that his orders read he was to leave the yard and go west on the arrival of No. — , going east, he started before that train arrived ; and, as he graphically described it, the first he knew about the train coming east was when he found himself sitting on the top of th^, telegraph ofl&ce rubbing a sore place, with a fine view of the " Erk-yools '' ap- parently foiled in the attempt to jump on the "Tau- rus 7J It was a mercy he was not killed, he said. How he got on top of the telegraph office he never found out. If his fireman had been thrown there too, it would have been better. The accident proved fatal to him. On another occasion this same engineer, whose physique seemed to be very volatile, after the con- cussion arising from running his machine into anoth- er train, found himself sitting on the top of a freight- car three car-lengths away from his engine, rubbing a sore place as before. A good deal has been said about the necessity of engineers being mechanics. All that is required of an engineer is to know enough about the construc- tion of his engine to be ready with expedients when parts of the motion give out and simple fractures in the gearing occur. iii i i- I iiii :flli 60 A FAST LIFE. m%' iiii! i' Hit 1 i !|i ir t u M! !' Iiii'!!!!! iiihl,.:;.:.: i ;; ; i : i . ill; I - I . i: 'il' ^1 I Some men, not knowing how to handle tools, or to contrive such expedients as are necessary in case of a breakdown, have caused their railroad companies great expense, and the traveling public very much inconvenience. I was on a train which was delayed six or eight hours because the engineer did not know enough to make some trifling adjustment, and another engine had to be brought to our relief. When it came, its better qualified engineer saw what was the matter, put it right in about five minutes, and away we we.it — all thinking with one accord that no superintendent should keep such a so-called engineer in his employ. An engineer once confessed to me that he knew no more than a child about how the steam got in and out of the cylinders. He said, " It seemed to push mighty hard somehow," and that was all he knew about it. But this man was born under a lucky star, and had a good knowledge of the road on which he was running; a daring fellow, too, and one that would make up time ; and the consequence was that, with the rather unpleasant pseudonym of " Hell - fire Jack," he was a great favorite with the general su- perintendent. ' But a little knowledge of mechanics, and a perfect knowledge of the running gear of his engine, are in- dispensable to an engineer; and no man should be THE NERVOUS ENGINEER. 61 tools, or to in case of companies very much ix or eigbt r enough to ther engine it came, its the matter, vay we weat perintendent his employ, hat he knew m got in and med to push all he knew a lucky star, on which he ne that would svas that, with ,f "Hell -fire le general su- , and a perfect engine, are in- nan should be allowed to step upon the foot-board who has not been put to test in this respect by a preliminary exami- nation. No one who has not been on an engine at such a time can understand- the sickening feeling of running over a man on the track. Every instinct seems to revolt against so suddenly ending the career of a fellow-creature. THE NERVOUS ENGINEER. It is not very long ago that the incident I am about to relate occurred on a railroad in the East. An engineer, very nervous about running over people, and unusually careful in that respect, was alarmed at seeing a man standing in the middle of the track, apparently transfixed with fear — his arms extended, as if giving the signal to stop, yet never at- tempting to move out of the way. The engineer whistled "on brakes," and reversed his engine. Having done nearly all he could do, he crept out toward the cow-catcher, hoping he might in some way avert the threatened calamity. Still the engine kept thundering along, getting closer and closer, until at last the pale face of the man on the track, and his eyes in unnatural fixity, could be seen. The engineer gave one long shout of warning, and 4j V r| I I 62 A FAST LIFE. a moment afterward the man was dashed into a mill- ion of atoms; for it turned out to be a snow man, which some mischievous persons had placed on the track ; and they had gas-tarred him all over, except his face, in order the better to deceive the engineer. TOM FOTTSS STORY. 68 to a mill- . low man, ;d on the er, except ingineer. CHAPTER IV. MORE ABOUT THE ENGINEER. — JUMPING THE GAP. More about the Engineer.— Tom Potts's Tale.— The "Witch."— Jumping the Gap. — The Story of Little Johnnie, and his sad Fate. — The Engineer's Story; "Foul Play with the Lamp." — The Ghost on the Cow-catcher. — A dreadful Scare. — Diagnosis of a sickly Engine, by I. Throttlevalve. Tom Potts, a well-known locomotive engineer in England and the States, is the self-accredited hero of the following wonderful story of successful daring. I will narrate it as nearly as I can in his own words. I have heard him tell it often. " Well, gentlemen, Til say you'll think it's a lie, but I can't help that ; you have asked me to tell it ; and all I can say is if you'd been in my place you'd have seen it "I had been driving the 'Witch' for about seven months, and a sweet thing she was. I never was half as fond of an engine as I was of her. She was the kind of machine a man only gets once in a life- time. " She made her steam quick, was easy on fuel, started off lively, and went like a deer. Her cylin- ders were sixteen-inch, her stroke twentv-two; and r U %'\ r it: ♦ -. u A FAST LIFE. her drivers seven feet six; and she was as kind to handle as a baby. " To see her run off with a heavy load, light and gay, was enough to shame the *Juno,' 'Venus,' and ' Helen,' and other eighteen-inch machines. "She never wanted fixing up. 'Venus' was al- ways going in and out of the shop to be titivated, and if there's any thing I don't like, it's an engine that all the time wants to be titivated. She was al- ways ready and willing for work. Why, bless you ! she was only washed out for the sake of cleanliness — she didn't need it a bit. "She was the tidiest thing I ever see— seemed as though dirt wouldn't stick to her. "Well, what I'm going to tell came off years ago, before I left the Old Countrv, and it was on one of the best of railroads — single track then, though it's got three now, and four in some spots. "Well, the 'Witch' and I were put on the mail — one of the fastest trains ; and they went like sixty in them days. "The engineer was fined a shilling for every minute he lost He durst not go slow for fog un- less he wanted to lose his day's pay. He had to keep going right along, and see things before he got in sight of 'em. "We were running north one darkish wintry day. il'h^- TOM POTTS S STOUY. es ; — seemed as and were making our best streaks. I should reckon we were going about fifty miles an hour. " I was saying to myself, ' she's going her prettiest,' when we suddenly shot ahead as if we had been fired out of a cannon. " I knew what that meant ; we had broke loose, we hadn't a car behind us. The coupling had broken between tender and first coach. " How we flew, to be sure I I whistled the guard to brake up the train. How we bounded along ! " I could make out no objects alongside — we seem- ed to get faster and faster; we must have got as fast as one hundred miles an hour. " It was a straight piece of track for some miles. I did not shut off steam directly we broke, for I didn't want that train to run into us, which might happen if they did not hear me whistle for brakes. " It was lucky I kept her going; for just as I had had about enough of such flying a man started out about six hundred yards before us holding a red flag. " There was nothing in the way, so I knew some- thing must be wrong with the track. "You might as well have tried to stop a whirl- wind as the 'Witch' in that distance. Her speed was frightful. "There wasn't much time to think, and, as we 66 A FAST LIFE. could not Stop, the faster we went the better; so I gave her what more steam there was. She seemed to have some 'go' in reserve, for we shot past the red flag like a flash. " I saw men standing horror-struck. " ' Bill/ I said, * quick ! Get on the coke, and see what's ahead.' "He looked, and went deadly pale, tottered, and fell back in a faint " By this time I could see plain enough what was wrong. . " There was a gap in the track where a bridge had gone down! "You can't fancy my feelings just then. Going to death — death, swift and terrible — at about two miles a minute — getting nearer, nearer I I thought of my wife and child — nearer I An instant more — the gap! " ' God have mercy I' I shrieked. "Well, would you believe it? that engine just cleared that gap ! " It was fifteen feet across, and about sixty feet deep. .. ; "She jumped that gap like a stag, and what's more, she struck the rails all right on the other side, and kept right along just as if she had not noticed the gap! • i .^>l II m ■ K ' 8HB JimPKD TBI GAP LIKE A STAG.' b si sv in Wi sh ki: COl W€ hu for wh cor UD1 alii con (( bel< LITTLE johnny's MOTHER. 69 "I stirred Bill up, and with both of us at the brake we managed at last to stop the ' Witch.' " She was on a tear that day^ but I never dreamed she'd jump the gap — that's a fact." LITTLE JOHNNY. "It seemed wrong to call him an idiot — such a sweet young lad ; but that was the name he went by in this little settlement of Fork's Hollow when he was alive, poor fellow I "His mother was the widow of an old engineer, and she gave birth to him after her husband had been killed in an accident on the road. " It was a pretty sight, in happier times, to see her coming to the ddp6t every night when John Hoops went by with his train, just to catch a glimpse of her husband's face ; and John was always on the lookout for his wife. "But it was enough to make a stout heart sad, when, after his death, this poor young creature still continued her journeys to the d^pot, standing there until the train John used to drive went by. " * He is coming,' she used to say to me, looking almost as she used to do before his death. ' He is coming — I can hear his whistle round the curve.' " But when the engine came shooting past, and the beloved face was not seen on the engine, she would 70 A FAST LIFE. Ii ! throw her hands up in a mad kind of way, and go home. "She did not seem to realize that her husband was really dead until the child was born. "She got her senses again then, but the poor boy never had all his. '■'You see there is a sort of brotherhood among railroad people; and when John Hoops was killed we subscribed what we could, and the railroad gave her something, and what with the work of her own hands and the little help she got from her friends she and little Johnny managed to get along nicely. "Johnny from his earliest days seemed fascinated by the railroad ; and when he got to be about fifteen, before he was half my size — I have been at this sta- tion pretty nigh twenty years, sir — nothing pleased him more than to swing a lamp or wave a flag when it was necessary to stop a train, ours being a flag-sta- tion, at which no trains stop unless there is some- body to get off or get on. • •• " It was soon a regular thing, as Johnny grew up, when the whistle of an approaching train was heard at the curve, for him to rush from his mother's side and, if necessary, stop the train. "All the engineers knew him, and used to like to talk with him, asking after the widow of their old friend, and such like pleasant talk. I ; m Wm LITTLE JOHNNY ANU UIB WIDOWED HOTUKK. th st< ta: m sa( th< he li no an by Jo] ha^ she gin tak LITTLE johnny's SAD FATE. 73 ^' Most eDgineers like to get past a flag station if they can without stopping, but all of them liked to stop at Fork's Hollow, just for the sake of seeing and talking with that poor boy. " This went on for several years, Johnny's interest in stopping the trains being still all-absorbing. " He never appeared to think of any thing else. " He was always happy when he was doing it, and sad when he was not. " Well, it happened about two years ago that in the middle of the night, as I lay in bed, I thought I heard the whistle of an engine at the road-crossing. I immediately forgot all about it, but soon heard the noise of a train passing the ddpdt, a special — ^rather an unusual thing on our branch ; but as it had gone by, I went to sleep. " In the morning, on the platform, there lay little Johnny, dead I " He could have had no lamp ; and why should he have tried to stop the special ? " You see those marks on the side of the freigh^ shed? "That's where his body was thrown by the en- gine, and where you are sitting I found him. " His poor mother died just after his corpse was taken home, and we buried them both together. "A sad story, sir. 4 T4 A FAST Lift:. "There's a whistle at the crossing, and here comes your train. , . " I must signal her to stop ; but whenever I do so, I can't help thinking of little Johnny." #^: FOUL PLAY WITH THE LAMP. An engineer who had neglected to display his red lamp flagging-signal, and' being reminded of the omis- sion when approaching the train against which he was bearing the flag, attempted to prevent the inevitable collision by a mode not in the rules, made the follow- ing singular statement to the General Superintendent: " You see, when we got the order I went to the front of the engine, to help my fireman to fasten on the lamp. The iron strap had got bent, and would not go into the slot made to hold it. So we tied it on with a piece of rope. It delayed us about a min- ute fixing that." "Was it lighted?" ;-, " Yes, sir. After taking so much trouble to ftx a lamp on, we should not be so green 8^9 IQ go.^way without having a light in it. j-?''^ ,:'fe; "Well, we were^.a little bitly^p^pe^iiind had not much to spare to save j^bj^^ Jf^osectiop. ; I was keeping a sharp lookout ahe^^ «H FOUL PLAY WITH THE LAMP. 76 " Well, sir, you may think I've lost my senses, but I tell vou solemnly that I saw a woman, or a woman's g^st,' walking straight up the middle of the track toward my engine! "It was no use whistling, she was so close. I crawled out of the cab-window as quick as I could, and went along toward the front just in time to see the form sitting in the buffer-beam, and putting out the light in the red lamp. " The creature got off when it saw me, and walked away in front of the engine ; and as we thundered along after it, it somehow disappeared. " I got back into the cab, trembling some. " I told John the lamp was out, and to go and get it and light it. " After be had done it, we went out and tied it on. " I went to see if it was burning all right, and it was burning bright. " I said nothing to Jack about what I had seen. " Well, it was more than three minutes, and we were going our smartest, when I saw that same figure walking up the track toward the engine as before. " ' Jack,' I cried, ' look there I' " Jack had already seen it, and had sounded a long whistle, and begun to put on the brake. " * Go to the cow-catcher,' I said ; and he crawled through the window. S! 76 A FAST LIFE. ''A few moments after he came back, his face pale, and his eyes starting out of his head. He look- ed at me, and I looked at him, but we said nothing. " I pointed ahead, and there it was ! " I got out and fetched in the lamp. "The light was out 1 " * I saw it open the lamp-door and blow it out,' said Jack, in an awful terror ; ' and then it got down and walked away in front of the engine.' " Well, I guess there never was two men on an en- gine so mortally scared as my fireman and me. " However, I went out again with the lamp and tied it on^ I also turned the rope once or twice round the door, so it could not be opened without some trouble. " * Jack,' I said, when I got back into the cab, * there's going to be some dreadful thing happen to- night. That woman's a ghost of evil. No living be- ing could do as that has done.' "Jack's teeth were chattering with fright, and so were mine, for the matter of that " I felt we had been singled out to be the cause or the victims of something awful. " * Keep a good lookout, Jack,' I said ; * we're only a mile from G , where we are flagging No. 174 to, and we must show the light if all the she-devils in hell are agin' us.' " I ordered Jack to the front of the engine to watch the lamp. A DREADFUL SCARE. 77 " He did not seem to like it, but he went. " I wrote on the back of a time-card these words : " * For God's sake, don't pass the switch. We are flagging No. 174.' " I stuck the paper on the end of a bit of pine wood, and kept it ready. " When I looked ahead again, I saw the shape, as plain as I see you now, sir, walking toward us, and afterward get on the front of the engine. " I could see the head-light of No. 185 in the side- track, and I was 'Sure our flagging signal-lamp was out, for there was that female figure walking ahead of us on the track for the third time. " I wasn't so scared as before, so I just lighted the pine stick in the fire-box, and held it up flaming bright with the paper on it "As I passed the engine of No. 135 I threw it to- ward the engineer. " It was getting dark, but by the engine light I saw him pick it up. " He read the paper, as you know, sir, and waited till No. 174 had got in ; and so there was no collision. "My story may seem strange, but it's true, as Heaven is my judge. " You may discharge me and Jack, if you like, for not showing the flag signal, as you say ; but I can't alter what I've said. I '.it i; i If: hi 78 A FAST LIFE. " When we got to tbe end of the trip, I found Jack had fainted away, and was lying senseless on the front of the engine ; for that she-devil had put the lamp out somehow, in spite of him and the rope I tied round the door." THE engineer's DIAONOSIS. An engineer once sent in the following diagnosis of the complaints of his engine, " Juno :" ill i. " Deer Sir, — Her bilera want purgin bad she dont make her steam cheerful sum of her jints is stiff sum loose her moshun aint reglar as it was 15 year ago she wonts a noo bonet on sniok stak her big and little ends wonts looking 2, her bufer beem is shakey her pump licks bad and her tender dont hold her liqids her smok stak sits loos, you out to pak up her pistens her cowketcher is rotten it wont hold a caf on it she kant drop her sand shese heavey on grees her left hand steem chist kivver is busted off her valves are weezy she rattles like a bag of ham- mers her bell is krakt, pit cocks wont squert water free and shese finally used up. ef you wont me to drive her you've got to get her to hold sum steem jist now she kant make enuff to wistle with, but she'll make a heep of scrap iron. Yours trewly "Jacob Throttlevalve." THE ENGINEERS '^ UORO." 79 CHAPTER y. JIM riley's "dorg." The Engineer's "Dorg."— Life at D .—How Jim Riley became acquainted with the " Dorg." — Salvation gets some Idees. — A vol- unteer Lookout. — Dead at his Post.— Recollections of a Friend.' —A Miner's "Dorg." It is some years since that well-known engineer, Jim Riley, told me about his " dorg." Jim Riley is dead now ; he died at bis post, like a man — bis band on the throttle, and his look ahead. The "dorg" soon after crossed the Styx. If he did not follow his beloved master, he no doubt went to the place where the good dogs do go. I can not relate Jim Riley's exact words, but they were something as follows : " He's a sort of long-backed mongrel hound. I call the way I come by that sweet animile kinder sing'lar. '* It was a time ago, when I was runnin' on the P. and A. Line, out West ; and, what's kinder curious, it warrt't Jim Riley as got the dorg, but the dorg as got Jim Riley. " It happened thusly. ]-V •m 4*'l 80 A FAST LIFE. inm ; (( D was the west end of the P. and A. Road ; and D was the hardest spot on this airth just then. The citizens drawed their shootin'-irons quite frequent, and made holes in their bodies. *' If you wanted a hole made, you only had to acci- dently spit on a man. " It was a live place. But it wasn't a faster place for livin' than dyin'. " Women and children died nat'ral out thar, but all proper citizens died vi'lent "Well, one mornin', while busy wipin' up the 'Perhairie Flower' — that was my engine — I heerd a consid'able kind of janglin', and raytber more shootin' than ornery at that time o' day. "It was about 7 o'clock a.m.; my card-time to leave was 7.05. " I nat'lly looked out to see the shootin'. "About fifteen citizens were slodgin' up the track straight for me and my engine, and occasionally shootin'. " One shot landed on my smoke-stack, another on the cab winder, soundin' like a cheerful musketer agin' my ear. " Some more arrived, permisc'us. " What in thunder were they shootin' at ? That's what I wanted to know. Was it Jim Riley ? "Just then I noticed what they were after — a lit- JIM riley's "dorg." 81 tie dorg runnin' up the track, and that dorg was comin' straight for the * Perhairie Flower.* " The citizeDs hadn't had no shootin* quite a spell, 80 they reely enjoyed that dorg. " He carried one fore leg, and sometimes one hind leg; and when he fell down and howled the citizens d rawed on him, and were haviu' a reely nice be joyful time. " They enjoyed that dorg. "But that dorg managed to climb up the cow- catcher and on to the * Perhairie Flower.' How he did it is a mystery, but he did. He walked along the framin' and crawled along into the cab winder. ''I just looked at him, and he looked at me, quite wistful. " You see I was layin' low, so as to miss lead ; but when I looked on him, and he gazed on me, why, bust me, if I didn't feel 'most as if he was my own child I " The lid of the box on the fireman's side was open ; and that dorg just looked at that box as if to say, * Jim Riley, s'pose this poor, broken-legged dorg gets in there, and you shet down the lid?' " *Get in quick,' says I, 'and save your poor life from them exuberated citizens.' " He slid in ; and I warn't long droppin' the lid. "As I done so the citizens got quite near. How- 4# If If ■ fit 82 A FAST LIFE. ill ever, I had time to pick up about four pound of dirty cotton- waste, and pitch it into the fire- hole just as one on 'em stepped on the foot-plate. " ' Whar's the dorg ?' says he. " ' Whar's the mongrel ?' says they, as they clam- bered Oil the ' Perhairie Flower.' "I p'inted solemn into the fire -hole; and they crowded round to look at that dorg frizzlin' I "You oughter seen their disapp'intment. They said it was a derned shame to burn a live dorg. " ' You're a devil, Jim Riley,' says they, * to throw that (l^rg into them flames 1' " You see, they wanted to shoot him some more, and nat'lly didn't like bein' disapp'inted. " They looked at me with horror — them virtuous citizens — and walked away from Jim Riley; Jim Riley was too much of a devil I "A minute afterward, the ' Perhairie Flower' was making her usual streaks on the plains. " I thought I'd examine the dorg. "He was layin' cryin' in the box, and be had a right to. He had one fore and one hind foot smash- ed, his hide was likewise peeled off here and there ; he also had a jaw broke. " Poor critter I "Me and my fireman washed his wounds with warm water out of the b'iler, and bandaged 'em. He (( SALVATION GETS SOME IDEES. 83 lay in the box day and night, and never moved ex- cept when I spoke to him. He'd just raise his head and gaze on me then, seemin' to say, 'Jim Riley, you've acted like a man toward a persecooted dorg, and as long as I live I'll never forget it.' "The boys in the runnin' shed treated him kind. In a few weeks his feet got better, and he was soon O.K. " But he wouldn't leave the engine, and it's reelly surprisin' how that dorg loved me I " He sot on the box and watched my doin's ; and every time I took my hand off the throttle he'd come and lick it " He was wonderful attentive to every thin' doin' on the 'Perhairie Flower.' He sot and studied. Any critter as sits watchin' and study in' for weeks as he did must get some idees ; but that dorg got a heap. "He seemed quite happy, except when we got near D ; and then he'd try to open the box. I always opened it, and he got in. "I was glad when the 'Perhairie Flower' was put on a run on the east end, so we never went near D after; but that dorg was consid'ble gladder than me. -^ ' ' " I said he'd got some idees. Well, one day my fireman, who was kinder thoughtless, did not pull the bell-rope at a crossin' whar he should. That dorg '"4 I A 84 A FAST LIFE. noticed it, and gettin' on his rear he took the rope in his teeth and sounded that bell ! Yes, he did, just as true as Gospel. But that ain't a patch on what he does now. " I thought he'd orter have a name, so I suggested 'D ,' after the name of the city whar he was persecooted ; but he shivered at it. " I let that slide, and mentioned ' Salvation,' in al- lusion to his rescue. He wagged his tail, as though 'Salvation ' was a joyful sound, and barked ; so I con- cluded to call him that. " It was shortened to 'Sal' at last, which, bein' a fe- male word, didn't describe his state. " The P. and A. Eoad, whar we run now, is curvy ; but * Salvation ' always goes and sits on the buffer- beam, keepin' a lookout ahead. " The wind sometimes is enough to blow the skin off him, but thar he sits ; and if any thin' is ahead he runs in at the cab winder barkin' I "He can see farther than me. Yes, he can. I never busted a steam-chist kivver since 'Salvation' sot in front, 'cause I never had to suddenly throw back the ' Perhairie Flower.' " ' Salvation ' always barks in time. " Yes ; thar he sits at the front. He don't care for rain, wind, or cold ; they can't drive him in the cab. Thar he sits in storm and darkness, doin' his dooty. DEAD AT HIS POST. 85 " I'd like to see the switch - lights, he don't ; it would improve my eye-sight consid'ble. " If a train is on the main track when we get near a d^pot yard, he barks till it's clear. " * Salvation's ' bark 's better'n all my tootin's. "He gen'ally rings the bell goin' through yards, and keeps a good lookout at the cab winder. He jumps off and on at switches, and would set 'em his- self if he could ; yes, he would. And, would you believe it, he barks once for * brakes,' twice for ' off brakes,' and three times for ' back up.' " This was Jim Riley's story of "Salvation." He ran the "Perhairie Flower" for many years afterward. He and his faithful dog were inseparable. When Jim Biley was killed — a broken rail throw- ing the engine on its side and crushing him — with what sad distress did his poor friend "' fc^.Jvation '' howl over his body, licking his livid face, and refus- ing to be comf^ ted ! He foUowea his master to the grave, and a few days afterward was found lying on the buffer-beam of the " Perhairie Flower," dead at his post. I i I'll 11 THE miner's "DORG." When Jim Riley had done talking about " Salva- tion " one night to some men hanging round the bar of the "Settler's Saloon," a stranger, who had been 86 A FAST LIFE. an attentive listener, and to whose clothes the yellow dirt of the mines still clung fresh, attracted notice by going straight up to Jim Eiley, remarking, as he took Jim's hand, '* Pard, that dorg o' yourn's is a dorg ; but if my beest warn't dead, he'd chaw his head off 1 TUB MINES. " That animile o' yourn's a engineer — mine was a miner ; and I tell you, Jints, he had his p'ints. " He had a sad accident, an' my pards nearly bust- ed with grief when he went under. •'I tell yer he'd a chawed 'Salvation's' blarsted head off if he'd bin alive. He was a comfort to me in sorrer. "I made some po'try on him, which are as fol- lers : - ' 1 THE MINERS '' DORG. 87 "Yen never knowed that dorg, paid? Why, sho ! come cheese it, Jim ; Thar ain't a cuss in Devil's Fork, As disremembers him. Yer see, 'bout then she passed her checks To be a angel, pard; An' if He huln't sent that purp, It might ha' gripped me hard. THE nOBO. ^ t i I *■ -II . h " 'si •'Yer never knowed that dorg, Jim! A sorter yaller hound — I called him ' Gouge ;' he wam't no slouch When fightin' war around. He di'n't take lon^ to peel his teeth An' make consid'ble litter; The way he wrastled, bit, and clawed, Improved a human critter. 88 A FAST LIFE. "Neow, purty soon thar wam't no dorg Abeout that claim but him; An' though he couldn't cuss an' drink, We doted on him, Jim. Bat arter that he lay and moaned — It busted me right up; Knys I, 'that beast must have a muss, Or he's a dog-goned purpl' TUK H0SB. "'My pardSj'says I, 'I quit the ranch; "Gouge" sickens at the Fork;' Yer ought ter heerd my pardners weep — They doted on that dorg. He had a accident, did ' Gouge ' — Yer never knowed him, Jim? Sho! I feel a kinder chokin', A-thinkin' abeout him. THE MINKKS " DORG. *a (( »> 89 ' 'm TUB FAUUMEB8 WEBl'tNO. 'He seed a circus elephant A hobblin' reound abeout, An', - len the cuss warn't lookin', He grabbed him b}' the snout, lis •* 'r TUX AOOIDENT. lil 90 A FAST LIFK. That clumsy critter put bis foot Too suddint on the greound, An' spread that dorg like punkin-sass, On twelve squat yards areound. (He never spoke agin.) THX BEMAIN8. *'Yer oughter knowed that dorg, Jim! I've played my hand, that's clar ; He filled her place down here, pard; ril jine 'em both up thar 1" HOW A FIKEMAN BEGINS. 91 CHAPTER VI. THE FIREMAN. The Fireman. — How he begins. — Wiping the Engines in Slied. — Remarks on the Firing.— Facing Death for Duty. — The Fireman's Story. — A Smash. — The Yardsman. — How Trains are made up, — The Yardsman's Story. — A narrow Escape. — Detonators. — A new Style of Signaling. — The automatic Bell. " * What did J do when I started ?' " *' Well, the first thing was to wipe engines after their day's run. They have to be wiped and rubbed down, you see, after every run, just as if they was bosses ; and mighty unpleasant sort o' work it is, un- til you get used to it. " You see, a engine don't cool down right off when she comes in, and it's pretty hot work handlin' ma- chinery jist after a hundred-mile run, and the steam only jist let out of her boiler. Then, shed foremen don't let a wiper wait round till she's cooled down comfortable. " It's a greasy, cramped kind of business, is wipin' ; and I was glad, I can tell you, when I got charge of a gang of wipers — I might say a 'generation of wipers.' *' Soon after that, they gave me a job as fireman ■M K 1' .,». >«lrt^^.v»»r<^Of • 92 A FAST LIFE. on a switchin' -engine in the yard here. I worked at that for a spell, and then got to be a regular fireman on a freight-engine. " P'raps I might have been lucky enough to be a engineer on a yard-engine in time; but as I didn't see any chance of it just then, I concluded to take first opportunity to fire on a passenger-engine ; and here I am. " I've fired on this engine for nigh a year. Before that I was on the ' Juno,' the first passenger-engine as I fired on. " Firin' an't such bad sort of work. You've got to work hard, that's a fact What with chuckin' cord- wood most of the time the engine is runnin', and helpin' wood up at woodin' depots, not to speak of tendin' tanks, oilin', and jumpin' off every now and then to turn a switch or couple-up cars, a fireman has his hands about full enough. " * Tryin' for the health ?' Wa'al, I can't say as it's so much worse than other jobs. Of course, if you've a wer.k chest, or an't got a good constitution, the work will very soon spile you ; but if you're pretty strong and healthy, exposure to the weather don't do you much harm. "It an't pleasant, though, in the cold weather. I've known as many as thirty or forty of our firemen and engineers at a time laid up with frost-bites, and not FACING DEATH FOR DUTY. 93 able to stand on their /eet for weeks together, let alone doin' any work on a engine. " ' Dangerous, though, an't it ?' Well, people often fancies as there's more danger about our work thpn there is. If you was to go into figures, I dare say you wouldn't find as a fireman runs any worse chance than a workman in a shop or a sailor on board ship. " But, talkin' about danger, there's one thing to be said, though you'll p'raps hardly believe it, but it is quite true, and that is, that many a engineer or fire- man has gone and faced death merely for duty. "There's more than one pitch-in as I could tell you of when engineers had time to jump, if they'd wanted to ; but they stuck to their engines, and met death instead of leavin' their duty. " It an't as dangerous a thing as you'd fancy for a man to jump off a engine, even if she's runnin' twen- ty or twenty-five miles an hour, if he knows the way to do it. • "When a engineer or fireman sticks to his engine, and knows a collision must come off in a few seconds, he does it from a sense of duty — not because he don't know that he'd have a better chance of savin' his life if he jumped. " The first engineer of a passenger-train as ever I ran mates with was killed just in that way. * 1 :[.'''fc :l F , IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ^ .4^4 ^:^* V 1.0 5 »Ki 122 1.1 ' S 114 ^ £ lis |2|0 ||||l.25 IHi^i^ Fhotographic Sdmoes Ccsporation ^^ '-4 ^. 33 WIST MAIN STRHT WIBSnR,N.Y. MSM (7U)I72-4S03 >^^^\ ^ ^V^ ^ v\ \\ i\ 94 A FAST LIFE. mi (' la iilRMrll in,,/ V' THE fireman's STORY. " There was a long grade on one part of the road. We used to ppin down it at a high old swing, 'spe- cially when there was time to be made up ; and jist at the foot of the grade was a curve off to tbe left. "One day we come rattlin' down the grade at top speed, for we were nigh twenty minutes behind time. "Just as we got on to the curve we sighted a lot of cars right in front : they had broken loose from a special freight "We must have been goin' forty miles an hour, and there was these cars only two or three hundred yards ahead I it " I don't know how I looked, but I saw my mate turn pale and clench his teeth. He didn't lose his nerve. In a instant he had reversed, and next mo- ment he was over to my side, lendin' a hand with the brake. * " * Stick to her,' he said ; * remember, we've passen- gers I God help 'em 1' "We gave a last swing at the brake. 'Say your prayers, mate ;' and right after there was the crash. "When I came to myself, I was lyin' on top of a bank fifty feet from the track. "I must have fell soft, for no bones were broke, Bi,.' A SMASH. 95 and in a minute or two I was able to stagger down after my mate. "There they were, jist bringin' him out from under the tender. His poor face had a corpse -like look which told me he was goin'. " When we collided, the tender and two next cars telescoped and mounted the engine; and when Bill was found there was the sill of a baggage-car layin* across his chest, crushing in his ribs. " He jist looked up at me. ' It's all over with me, George,' he whispered ; * but you'll tell 'em I stuck to her to the last' And in another moment it was all over. "Still, it an't such a bad sort of job, an't firin'. You see, he's always on the travel, and sees a good deal of life ; and then he gets as good wages as most kind of men on a railroad. If he attends to his du- ties, and don't go to drink, he's pretty sure to be a engineer some day, as I hope to be soon." I do not think it necessary to apologize for intro- ducing the following graphic description of a night- ride on an English railroad: ^ ^ ON AN ENGINE. " * Many things,' sang the greatest of Greek poets, 'are ingenious; but there is nothing more ingen- '1* i I I i * Ml ' is J iK^ A FAST LIFE. 'i.f ious than man.' Had the poet, however — may his shade forgive the anti-climax — been able to ex- change his sunny Athens for our land of fogs, and, anticipating two thousand years, have found himself by my side on the engine of the express, he would probably have discerned a point in his remark which he never suspected when he made it. Man has achieved greater attainments now than taming the * proud-necked horse,' and steering under the waves that roar around him ; and one feels a sort of regret that the poet who could so proudly appreciate and so eloquently celebrate those rudiments of the future triumphs of his race was never permitted to see them in the plenitude of their glory — to behold them as we behold them now. I never fully realized the aw- ful power of man — the sublimity of the might he wields — till I took my place on the engine of an ex- press-ttain. A train at night is a spectacle of terri- ble magnificence anywhere, but we have become so familiarized with it that it has lost its force, and we simply regard it in the ordinary realistic light in which we look on any other casual object We can stand unmoved on a railway, see the iron mass that whirls a helpless freight of our fellow-creatures sixty miles an hour dash flashing past us, hear the scream and rush, feel its hot blast on our face, and the earth quivering under our feet without the slightest emo- THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 97 tion. But take your stand on tbe engine itself, and all is changed. Then every thing regains its signifi- cance — every thing presents itself in a new and ter- rible light ; and, helpless in the horrible presence of death, you feel absolutely no control over youp emo- tions or actions : you are in other hands than your own. Let the firm hand of that bronzed figure be- side you fail ; let the sharp eye read false the bits of flickering glass that twinkle in the distance, and you know well that in one minute you may be a shapeless mass of flesh, ' undistinguishable in mem- ber, joint, and limb.' These feelings were not alto- gether absent from me when I, a few nights ago, mounted, for the first time in my life, the engine of one of the night expresses. We were to run about seventy miles without stopping, and I was advised, therefore, by my friend the engine-driver to provide myself with something hot, * the hair bein',' as he re- marked, ' werry sharp in the early morning.' The engine which was to take us wa'" one of the most splendid on the line, bright and new with its polish- ed boilers, through which the steam was hissing, glit- tering under the station-lamps, and its tall, bold fun- nel, with its rim of copper, smoking idly, like an effete volcano. Gradually the carriages filled; presently the sharp whistle of the guard rang through the air, and an abrupt scream almost simultaneously foUow- 6 ill J ( M if;, i' win u 4H Aft A FAST LIFE. I Vf - tli ed from the engine. The steam was turned on. A thrill Oi^life seemed to vibrate spasmodically through the iron frame of the huge mass of machinery before me. It panted hard, and, shooting up huge volumes of dense vapor, began slowly to move. Easier and easier seemed the effort, and in a few minutes we were fairly on our way. Out into the night we pass- ed, faster and faster became our speed ; the course was cleared, its ragged outskirts were disappearing ; fields and plains were bursting on our view, and with a dull, hollow roar we passed over two bridges — the shadow of lurid lights and feathery drifts of smoke flecking for an instant the inky surface of the waters beneath. On we sped. On each side of us now were the open fields ; the cattle lay motionless, heaps of white, in the glimmer, careless and stirless, though we passed them so close ; ever and anon the dark form of a grazing horse would betray a mo- mentary restlessness as we shot by. The tall leafy trees, the hedges and brooks, were sleeping in peace, and though there was no moon we could somehow see them quite distinctly. Sometimes we would pass a quiet country village, with its beautiful spear-like spire and its shadowy burial-ground, where the white head-stones looked, in the spectral light, like the ghosts of the departed brooding over their place of rest What a contrast to the mad hurricane of iron II at GOING AT FULL SPEED. 99 that was flaring past them I Our speed now seemed perfectly awful. "The wheels bounded and sprang, and the roar was so deafening that when I tried to ascertain from the stoker close to me at what speed we were travel- ing, he could not catch a word, though I shouted at the top of my voice. The metals running parallel with us seemed dashing along in headlong chase af* ter us, and telegraph wires dipped and twisted as I looked at them. Far in the distance I could discern masses of black ; they seemed miles away, but in a few seconds they assumed the shape of bridges, and with hollow whirl we shot them behind us. Pres- ently I saw masses of lights, motionless heaps of trunks, signal-posts and lamps. Nearer and nearer we drew ; it was a large station. Never shall I for- get this scene. Just as we entered it, the driver hap- pened to throw open the furnace, and in an instant the white ghost-like smoke which floated like a ban- ner over our heads was changed into a lurid mass of flame; the draught, as we entered the station, blew it about in every direction, and a blood-red mist en- veloped the whole engine. In a blind fog, with the whistle screaming in my ears, the wild echoes boom- ing and reverberating from every part of the roofed station, the hot furnace licking in the coal at my feet — I could see nothing, I could do nothing, and I held i| "I 1 , A^iii,« ;H: 100 A FAST LIFE. I! f ■■■. : I I tightly on to the rail, stunned and helpless. Again into the night we passed, as the confused mass of lights flashed by. I saw the signals change from white into blood-red as we flew past, but it had no significance for me. Every thing seemed mad. I never realized till then what an 'accident' really meant; never understood the debt of gratitude we all owe to the fine, conscientious, laborious fellows into whose hands we intrust our Uvea For the whole length of that journey the driver's eye never wandered from the front; his keen forward-search- ing face scarce one moment altered its position, and it was easy to see that the wear and tear incident to such prolonged tension had marked and marred his face ere its time. At last our speed slackened, a blood-red light flared on the metals before us, morn- ing was lacing the clouds, and very glad was I to grasp the hands of my swarthy companions, and, stepping on to the platform at my destination, wish them good-bye and God-speed. With the roar of the engine still ringing in my ears, and the glare of the signals even yet vexing my eyes, I betook myself to rest, glad to be safe again on terra firma^ gladder to have gained the experience I had gained." ISf: HOW TKAUfS ARB MADE UP. 101 THE YARDSMAN. Yardstnen are employed at large stations wbere trains are made up for dispatch. The cars which are intended to form a single freight or mixed train may be scattered widely over a d^pot yard. There is one in the warehouse track ; another in the lumber side-track ; another in a coal side-track ; another in repair-track, among defective cara It is the yardsman's work to accompany a small switching-engine, the engineer and fireman of which are under his orders, and collect together all the cars suitable for dispatch on the train he is making up. These switching- engines move about with great rapidity. Tbe yardsman, knowing where the cars he wants are, couples on to one, then to another, and another. The engine " kicks" them into a side-track and returns for more. In this way the cars are pick- ed out and the train made up. In these operations a yardsman runs great risks ; and in the matter of coupling cars, he jeopardizes his life oftener than a freight brakeman. Many yardsmen are killed — by being crushed be- tween cars, by being run over when not aware of an approaching engine, or caught by the foot be- tween the rails of a switch, and so held until knock- ed down and run over. r ¥ ' 1 1 .1 ^ li \ 102 A FAST LIFE. i- i;. i: V :■' h 'k: : ' m ' ! ' '''K ^ t The work is also very hard, but liberally paid for. A yardsman is on the move from morning to night, getting under, and over, and along, and coup- ling and uncoupling cars, putting brakes on and off*, and all the while doing his work systematically, so that trains may be made up or distributed with the least amount of switching. He knows every inch of his large ddp6t yard ; the beginning and end of every side-track, and the pe- culiarities of every switch ; keeps out of the way of engines coming and going; is on the lookout to utilize every fraction of a minute, to seize every chance to cross this track, to get along that, to run a little way here, or a little way there, to dodge in and out along the crowded lines with his engine, and so collect his cars. It oflen happens that a minute lost delays a yards- man's movements for hours ; in his work every move- ment is of the greatest value. Sam K , an experi- enced yardsman, had a narrow escape. He told me about it THE YARDSMAN'S STORY. "You see, sir," he said, "we were backing some box cars up to couple on to a flat car. We were about a yard off the flat, and I noticed the draw-irons A NARROW ESCAPE. 103 were uneven. When they met they would overlap, and I should likely be a dead man. " I could not get out, because we were close along- side the warehouse. I was in a tight place. I thought I'd drop down and escape, but the brake gear was out of order on the box car, and I knew I should lose my legs that way. " I had just about three seconds to make up my mind which way I'd take it — lose my legs or my life. *' I thought I'd rather be killed than crippled. So I threw my arms uj^— I had not time to pray — and I suppose I was badly damaged. " I'm right again now, after a three months' lay- off; but no more 'yarding' for me; I an't lucky. I've had both arms broke, right hand smashed, lost a finger, had my foot hurt, my body bruised, and came mighty nigh being squeezed out altogether. "I don't hanker after 'yarding;' but if you've got an inside place, such as wipinl^ lamps or checking baggage, name the pay." . FOG-SIGNALS, ETC. Detonators, fog-signals, or torpedoes, as they are va- riously called, are used to stop trains when there is danger ahead, and when the weather is such that ordi- nary day or night signals would not be seen in time. 1 «'i 104 A FAST LIFE. i When a train breaks down on the main-track, if the night is clear, a brakeman is sent half a mile back with a lamp ; if foggy, he takes with him five or six torpedoes, and fastens them down at distances of one hundred or one hundred and fifly yards apart, on the left and right hand rails alternately. When an engine runs over one of them, it ex- plodes with a noise sufficient to attract the engineer's attention. If only one is run over, it is taken as an intimation to go cautiously ; if more, to stop at once. !;■.'; ti A NEW DEVICE FOR SIGNALING. Accidents have occasionally been caused by engi- neers not being able to distinguish at night whether trains they have to meet at certain points were stand- ing on the side or main tracks. A device has recently been adopted by some roads to prevent such mistakes. The head-lamp of an engine is fitted with a shade of green transparent material, which can be drawn across the light at any moment by the engineer. When in the side-track, the white light is exhibit- ed ; but when it goes out on the main-track the shade is drawn across, and the green light is shown, and continues to be shown, as long as the engine remains on the main-track. This distinguishing light is a great advantage. AUTOMATIC BELL. 105 On a bar in front of the light are hung figures designating the number of the train, so that all train-men and others interested in the movement of trains are informed at once what train it is. Another novel adjunct to the locomotive is the automatic bell. Passengers may have observed a bell immediately over the cow-catcher. This rings incessantly while the engine is in motion, thus giving good warning to track-men and others on the track, and teams approaching the crossings. The bell is worked by an attachment to the eccen- tric rod, and is a most valuable contrivance for the prevention of accident 106 A FAST LIFE. .iii m ^1;: ilpiifeii iy CHAPTER VII. THE DEPOT AGENT. The Depot Agent. — His Duties. — How a small Station is run. — ^The Agent at Leisure. — Fun by Wire. — The puzzled Agent. — A Flag- station. — How not to do it. — The Depot Ticket-clerk. — ^Why iie is barred in. — A rough Customer. — The tiresome old Lady. — A Case of " Inquire within for every thing." — An anxious Moment. — Meanness of a Passenger. — The lost Ticket. — Remarkable Inci- dent in the Career of a T. C, and blissful Result thereof. The d^p6t agent is responsible for every thing tbat goes on at his d^pdt, the prompt dispatch of trains therefrom, and the proper maintenance of dis- cipline among baggage - masters, yardsmen, switch- tenders, porters, police, and other employes connect- ed with the operating of the line, exclusive of engi- neers and trackmen, who, of course, are under their own foremen. His duties at a large d^pot are manifold and on- erous. He must keep his eyes on every thing. A vigorous d^pot agent will make his men indus- trious, and the working of his d^p6t energetic and prompt ; while, on the other hand, if he is easy-go- HIS DUTIES. 107 ing, it will be readilj seen in the slow movements of his men. At a certain depot, where things would not go right anyway, man after man was discharged in the hope of improvement, but all to no purposa TBI D^pAt AOEMT. At last it was suggested to dismiss the ddpot agent ; and as his successor was a quick, bustling fel- low, every thing soon began to work to a charm* W it h 3' SI: I' M m Wll :| ilii: 1U8 A FAST LIFE. The above remarks only apply to large ddpdts, where many men are employed, but there are places where the agent is the only man ; and he has to act as baggage-master, switch-tender, porter, ticket-clerk, telegraph operator, etc. Of course, the business is small, but it keeps him pretty busy, as his work comes upon him all at once, and about the time trains are due to leave or arrive. He would be better able to perform his duties if he had three heads to think with, and a corresponding number of speaking attachments, and three pairs of hands and arms ; but as he has not, he acutely feels the disadvants^ge attending the nature of matter in general — that it can only be in one place at one time. He has to make a rush at a trunk, go back to the telegraph office and send off a few clicks, sell a tick- et, run outside and set up a target, light a lamp and go and swing it, lay it down again and go and send off a few more clicks, fetch a baggage truck and put a few trunks on it, get his pen and make out a way- bill, put some water in the water-cooler, address a few reports to the general superintendent, and wipe his perspiring brow while answering the interrogatories of waiting passengers. Then, when a train comes in, be wants to tell the engineer something, and inform the conductor, who ^^mi^ THE AGENT AT LEISURE. 109 is standing at the other end of the train, of the orders affecting him. At the same time he has fo take the trunks from the train baggage • master's hands, and answer the questions of loquacious friends who recognize him from the cars — all in the space of a minute. Away goes the train, and the man who was so full of business a few moments before has nothing what- ever to do. For want of better employment, he may go and have a game with his wife and children, and play at checking them for some distant place, pretending to dismiss his four-year-old boy — who is to be a bag- gage - master when he grows up — because he says he would not check the trunk of a traveling ele- phant. Or he may light his pipe, and go and con the docu- ments he has on hand ; or enjoy a friendlj^ click of conversation with his operating friend at X . Such conversations sometimes miscarry. An agent telegraphs, " Well, my blooming, sweet- scented daffodil, how are you ?" A strange operator may get hold of his message, and, under a misapprehension, hand it in to the gen- eral superintendent. That is very awkward. Or he may say, as a preliminary to a little talk, i^'r^hi no A I'AST LIFE. i u i I'lr i 1 }'■ '' III i iSii 1 ■ ^ ; i ■ ' i §*"* P ■ ll- ■ ^s| 1 U- !■ 1 ■■-.ii ''■ i i li §!St "Well, my gay and festive cherub, how do you feel about now ?" To which may come the tart reply from a female operator, who has answered his signal, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Leave the instrument, you old man, or I will tell your wife I" THE PUZZLED AGENT. The following is rather ludicrous : The evening was hot, and the agent at M was lying down on the lounge to wait till the night-train slacked up for the mail-bags to be put on board. He laid his lantern on the floor and fell asleep. Suddenly he was awakened by the thundering noise of the train slacking up at the d^pot. Hastily jumping up, he seized his pants in one hand and the mail-bag in the other, and reached the platform in the nick of time, just as the train was passing. ^ , Not fully awake, he hurled his pants on the for- ward platform of the rear car, and then, realizing his mistake, attempted to rectify it by throwing the lan- tern after them on the rear platform. The train was gone, yet there he stood with the mail-bag in his hands, and his snow-white garments gently fluttering in the soft, undulating, summer air. If there had been another car to pass, the poor HOW NOT TO DO IT. Ill PULLMAN PALACE CAR iJ. TIU PERPLXXKD BAOGAQI-IIAH. sleepy man would probably have thrown himself on board, and left the mail-bag to take care of the d^pot 1 Feeling that he had completely mixed matters, he rushed to the telegraph instrument, so as to set things straight at the next station. 1: n i ' I ■'Sir I 111 1' ' k ;j nj , 'jfli i 1 * ii|:i li -ii" ' |- ;i|i|. t''> ^iii'' >i 11 ''*^'' '* p; '■ ■' m ■:■{:• ij R Mil . f;„, •••* ■: hi -•Sii', '! *l\i ■ ■■■■' ' 1 H i H 1 j'-'', 1 *,>i; .,.';;:. Ill i: '';^ 'fi^A i : 1 ; ^' ^'i '' M |:.'> fl fe f| iiii si' . ' »,! i^; 11 1 ■ rl! ' ' li -: : 1 1 11; ! 1 i ' ill. 112 A FAST LIFE. " Click, click " — " Send back mail-bag. Pants and lantern here 0. K." He felt relieved, and went to bed after that ex- ploit. A FLAG-STATION. A good story is told of a station agent on the line of the X. Y. and Z. Railroad. It was proposed to make one of the stopping- places a " flag-station," where it is necessary for the agent to display a signal to an approaching train, if he has any passengers to go by it, and at which it does not stop unless that signal is displayed, or the conductor has passengers on board for that station. On one occasion, before the agent had "learned the way," a train came thundering along for , not intending to stop. Out rushed Mr. Agent, a little behind time, with a red flag. The whistle sounded and the brakes were put down, and the train stopped, but not until it had run quite a distance beyond the station. Then the train backed up, the conductor jumped off, sang his old-time song of "All aboard I" in a musical tenor, and asked the agent where his pas- senger waa " Oh I" said he, with sweet innocence, " I haven^t any body to get on, but I didn't know but you might have somebody to get off 1" WHY HE IS BARRED IN. 113 The conductor gazed at him with mingled feelings too deep for utterance. He went and whispered to the engineer; but the fire-box was quite full of cord- wood — and so they could not have got that agent in without losing time. THE DEPOT TICKET-CLERK. The duty of a ticket-clerk is to answer questions and sell tickets. He answers more questions than he sells tickets, for almost every body who buys a ticket has at least three or four questions to ask. Travelers seem to think the ticket is "mighty dear" unless two or three pieces of information are thrown into the bargain. There is, for some reason, a sort of natural animosity between the ticket-purchaser and the ticket-clerk ; and it is .f certain he could never carry on his occupation if he were not in an inclosure. Perhaps his being barred in so that he could not be got at, even if any body wanted to get at him in the worst way, has a tendency to arouse the feeling I mention ; at all events, it exists, and if he were not fenced in he would need to be a courageous fellow. TUK TIOKST-OLKBK. 4 ,,;^ 1 '^ , ■I- i f> filiih ifliii!'' m ■'■■■ 114 A FAST LIFE. The apartment he occupies has generally only a small hole for communication between himself and the public outside. This hole is big enough to admit a man's head. His head is all the ticket-clerk has to do with ; he does not require to see the remainder of his propor- tions. He will sell a ticket to a man with one leg as readily as to a man with two. He will make no reduction on account of a man not being " all there." A man who had*been pared off a good deal by oc- casionally getting too near buzz-saws, thought he was entitled to travel at half-fare, as only about half of him was left over; but the ticket-clerk would make no allowance as long as he had his head on. Passengers are not carried by weight If they were, I don't see how the business could possibly be done, weights vary so much, from time to time, in both sexes. " Look here, young man," says a rough kind of fellow through the hole, " how do prices run in these times to D ?" " Fifty-two cents," replies the ticket-clerk, with the greatest urbanity. ." TShat's pretty dear ! I'll give you fifty." " Can't take less than fifty-two." THE TIRESOME OLD LADY. 115 " You can't take less 'n fifty • two I You don't mean to say you want the two odd cents?" " Yes, sir. Fifty-two centa is my tariff. Will you take the ticket?" "Yes." Ticket-clerk stamps the ticket, and the fifty-two cents are slowly handed over. " Well, you air the meanest cuss I've met to-day !" says the individual, thrusting his head through the hole. " You're a mis'able skinflint ! If I had you out here for five minutes, I'd knock Che spots off you — I'd put a head on you I" As the man appears to be capable of knocking the spots off him, and also of putting a head on him, the ticket-clerk glances at the door to make sure it is bolted, and with a ghastly smile surveys his secure position. An elderly lady takes her turn at the aperture. The ticket-clerk is busy ; morning trains are near- ly due to leave, and passengers are rushing in for ticketa " Good-momin', young man," remarks the elderly lady ; " it's a nice mornin'." " Do you want a ticket, madam ?" says the clerk. "Of course I want a ticket, young man. •You wouldn't see me here if I didn't want a ticket." ■ in 116 A FAST LIFE. i'ft i ■lIlN- m » Old lady smiles at this, and looks round for ap- plause ; but the public, waiting their turn at the win- dow, don't see the point "Where do you want a ticket to, madam?" again asks the ticket-clerk. " Why, I'm gwine to see my da'ter. She's been "What place?" jerks the ticket • clerk ; "where does she live?" * "Why, young man, she don't live thar ; you see, it came on to her kind o' suddent, and — " "Now, look here, my good woman," begins the ticket-clerk, fairly but of patience. . " Now, don't ye call me a woman," cries the old lady. " Ye skinny whipper-snapper, I wouldn't han- dle yer dirty tickets ; I'll pay on the kears to a gen- tleman.^* With this insulting emphasis she makes room for an old lady who forgets the name of the place she is going to, and requests the ticket-clerk to read over one or two lists of places. She says if she heard the name, she should know it in a minute. Fitssy old Gentleman. "Look here, young man, what time does the next train call ?" "5.45, sir." " 5.45 !" rejoins the querist, in astonishment. " I thought it was a quarter to six. How you do change I" , A ROUOH CUSTOMER. 117 " Look here, mister, you didn't give me enough money. I handed you a ten-dollar bill ; you must have took it up, and I want five dollars more." Ticket-clerk looks at his cash, and finds he has not taken a ten-dollar bill that day so far. He re- plies : "You must be mistaken, sir; I gave you your proper money." " Wa'al, I say you didn't ; do you want to cheat me?" " No, sir ; I merely say I gave you your proper money." "And I merely say you are a thundering liar; and if I had you outside this hole, I'd bust yer snout I" Ticket-clerk instinctively feels if that organ is in its proper place, and the conductor's "All aboard I" attracts the pugnacious traveler to the cars. This is the kind of individual who sends such pre- cious efiTusions as the following to the general super- intendent: " Sir, — Your ticket-clerk at is a theaf ; he robd me of a five-doler bill, and when I taxt him with his vileny, he aboosed me in the wurst wa. Yew had better discharg him rite away. *. "A Reglar Traveler on yer Rout." J H ■ :4 ' I ii u p 118 A PAST LIFE. fi i-i: ■ ,■ - Of course the general superintendent would take no notice of such an epistle ; but these are the charges, treatment, and nuisances to which a ticket-clerk is subject. He must have patience enough to bear abuse without retaliation, and to answer with appar- ent pleasure daily, hourly, weekly, all the year round, the same old, commonplace questiona "What is the fare to ?" "When does the next train start?" " Does it go to ?" •i " I guess it don't go so far as , does it ?" "What is the train before that; and what is the train next to that?" " Is there a sleeping-car on it?" "Is there a smoking-car on it? If there an't, I think it's a derned shame." " Is the next train on time ?" "Does it mostly run on time?" ^ "Will there be a berth to be had?' - "Is there mostly?" "Will it connect?" " Where is the saloon ?" "Young man, you seem kind o' snappish. Where's the general superintendent's office; I'd like to tell him to keep more civil men on this route." " If you will just put your head through this hole, I'll bust yer nose," etc., etc. MEANNESS OF A PASSENGER. 119 So goes the ticket-clerk's work from day to day. As I said before, if he were not fenced in he could not perform his duties; it is necessary to fence him in. The most anxious moment of the ticket-clerk's day is when he compares his tickets on hand with his cash. His money may balance, and it may not If be comes out ten dollars short, he had better have been laid up at home all day with a jumping headache, or a blister on his back and a poor man's plaster on his chest. He had better have suffered any thing in the way of temporary ailments, for when he went to bed he would have been better off than if he had gone to his office. A young man said, with great glee, that he had made " a good thing." He had handed in a five-dol- lar bill for a ticket which was a dollar, and received nine dollars and the ticket in exchange. He seemed to think this result was in some way traceable to his superior abilities. I suggested it was a mistake of the ticket-clerk, and that of course he handed it back. " Handed it back I" cried be, as though an offense was implied to his common sense. " I should guess not — not for Joseph! Oh dear, no! Oh yes, of course not!" W\ 120 A FAST LIFE. 11 „ I remarked that that would have been the proper course under the circumstances. *' Now, look here," he said ; " I reckon it an't oft- en I have a chance against the railroad company, and I've got them this time, that's sure." Determined to rectify the matter, I left this nice young man, and informed the ticket-clerk of what had passed. Getting the depot master to take charge of his of- fice for a moment, we went to the man who was "five dollars ahead," and who, by this time, was informing another listener of the circumstances. The interview ended by the money being refund- ed, much to the chagrin of the nice young man. He declared he never would have dreamed of re- taining the amount if he had thought for a moment the loss would have fallen upon the ticket-seller. Of course the loss would have fallen upon the tick- et-seller, and his wife or children would have had to forego their new boots, or something else equally necessary. ' A man must have a curious notion of morality who would rob a corporation, and joke over the ex- ploit, but who would shrink with sensitiveness from the thought of defrauding a ticket-clerk. Such losses always fall upon the ticket-clerk. " Look here, young man," cries a thin, elderly lady, sa THE LOST TICKET. 121 " I gave you the money, but you did not give me my ticket." "You are mistaken, madam; I gave you your ticket," replies the ticket-clerk. " But I tell you you did not !" rejoins the elderly lady, stamping her foot. " Do you want to take ad- vantage of a young woman ?" Ticket-clerk says he does not feel like it, and asks her if she has felt in all her pockets. " Yes, I have, sir." . . "Have you looked in your parse, madam?" "Yes, sir." " Madam, might I ask if you could have put it in- side your dress, near your — ^your chesty for instance?" Ticket-clerk blushes. "Young man, I will thank you not to give me any of your impudence ; you've no right to suppose I've got any tbing there." But, having by this time furtively introduced her hand into the locality in question, she cries, " Well, I swan I" and draws out the ticket Some people seem to ask questions for the mere sake of asking them. "Young man, when does the next train go to L ?" "Six P.M., sir." " When does the one before that leave ?" it 122 A FAST LIFE. m i : % ... "There isn't one." " Well, I guess you had me there I" " I want a ticket to W via X— » " You can not go to W via X ; you must go via Z ." " Well, I'd rather not go on that road. They had a sraash-Up the other day. Why on earth can't I go the other way ?" " Because the train doesn't go." " Young man, I'd recommend you to keep a civil tongue in your head." The accommodation has gone, so the ticket-clerk shuts the window and tries to get a few moments at his accounts. They entail a good deal of work. But some one taps tremulously at the window. Clerk determines not to notice it — must do his books. Tremulous tap again. Clerk thinks it must be some sweet, timid young lady, gets up, and goes to the window. There she stands, just as he had pictured — timid, lovely, and in distress. " Oh, sir, can you let me have a ticket to C ; I have no money; but I'll give you my papa's ad- dress. He will send it to you, he will indeed I I've had the misfortune to lose my purse, and by another misfortune I'm traveling alone." m hi A REMARKABLE INCIDENT. 123 his Ticket-clerk rapidly forms an opinion of his sup- pliant, and says, "Well, miss, we ticket - clerks have not much money of our own, and can't afford to lend it ; but I will advance the $5 60 if you can promise to send it back in two days." The fair petitioner assures him he can rely upon having it back by then — he can, indeed ; and hands in her father's address, written on the back of her photo. She asks ticket-clerk to accept it in recogni- tion of his kindness. She disappears, and the ticket-clerk gazes long on the picture. He repels the thought that that money will not come back, like more he has lent in the same way ; he feels it must come back — H IS: *'Sach eyes as those coald ne'er decdve, Those lips ne*er utter words antme." The money did come back ; and so did the young lady and her aristocratic papa.' She insisted on counting it out of her father's purse, and handing it over herself, much increasing the happiness of the ticket-clerk, who began to feel the tenderest interest in his beautiful creditor. He would have said, " Oh no, keep it, I beg ;" but that would not do. ? 1 124 A FAST LIFE. I should now explain that the ticket-clerk was un- married, and an uncommonly nice young man in all respecta He had no father. The beautiful young lady was also uncommonly nice in all respects. She had no mother. He was invited by the father, who was also an uncommonly nice old man in all respects (he had neither father nor mother), to call at their hotel. The young lady begged him to do so, and he did. ******* So the twain were made one, and they lived hap- pily together, especially the ticket-clerk, he having, like Adam, no mother-in-law. The moral of the foregoing story is 0. K., if the story itself is not. It is written for the encouragement of drooping ticket-sellefs. **»*<' felg1 lit I ^'^ "' if f I: ' "I XBK BXTBOTUAL AT TUE HOTEL. m w ji; if I, ■ >.< hi' i 1 1 1 NECESSARY TRAVELING PRECAUTIONS. 127 1^ CHAPTER VIIL THE BAGGAGE-MASTER. The Baggage>master. — ^Unceremonious Treatment. — A Man of few Friends. — The disappointed Travelers. — The Ass's Appeal to Jove. — Moral. — A good Idea. — Accidentally Shot. — ^Truly Remarkable. —A fancy Inventory. — Baggage Registration in Europe. — The Baggage-master's Story. — Old Perk among the Trunks. — ^The mys- terious Groan, and extraordinary Contents of a Piece of Baggage. — Happy Denouement. The proverbial baggage-master is the bete noire of railroad travelers. How systematically, dear lady, you pack your trunk, wrapping up in your under-clotbing with care the little indispensables liable to fracture I Now, you think, if your baggage does suffer a little rough usage, that glass ware will certainly be safe. The hack is at the door, the man adjusting the straps, and you suddenly find you have forgotten the cholera mixture, without whicn, in the rummer months, you can not think of traveling. The bottle is hastily thrust inside, with a sort of ifTT i'^ 128 A FAST LIFE. LI' I misgiving that it should have been wrapped in one of your petticoats ; the trunk is strapped, careful- ly placed on the hack, and away you go to the ddpot. It is presented to the ddpot man to be checked. That functionary has had a good breakfast and feels strong; his muscles contract and extend with vigor. He views the baggage, gives it some un- ceremonious turns, teetotum-like, and upside down, and after having kicked it and otherwise maltreat- ed it in the most superfluous way, "concludes" to check it. He checks it. You pocket the duplicate. The railroad company is responsible for it now, and that thought gives you ease. But you can not become indifferent all at once ; so you cast a furtive backward glance toward the place where you left it, just in time to witness the prowess of the d^pot man, who essays to throw it on the iron baggage -truck. He hurls it too far, and capsizes the vehicle, which falls with all its weight upon the luckless end where you know is the cholera mixture. Walk on, dear lady ; " what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve." Do not stop to witness your precious trunk ruthlessly thrown into the bag- gage-car ; you are painfully conscious of what is in e n UNCEREMONIOUS TREATMENT. 129 s in it; the baggage- master is not And it is really won- derful how, after all that rough handling, the china dolls for your nieces and the bottle of cholera mix- ture are not broken into a thousand atoms. The baggage-master has few friends among trav- elers. He is the iconoclast of household gods. Many a nervous traveler — nervous on account of his baggage — has left his comfortable seat at a local stopping-place to saunter by the baggage-car, hoping to assure himself, by a sidelong glance at the familiar name, " Thomas Jones," printed on the end, of the safety of his valise; and that nervous traveler has returned a sadder and a wiser man. He has espied that valise on the top of many others, but so placed that the least jolting of the car must shake it down and out of the door-way, to be lost forever. Or he has observed the gymnast in charge, with- out any apparent reason for so doing but the mus- cular exercise afforded, fling it from one end of the car to the other, and remorselessly pile upon the fra- gile thing the heaviest Saratoga trunks. The observer retires to his sleeping - berth, and dreamingly wonders whether the valise would be bet- ter on top or at the bottom, while the lines run for- ever i.i his head — the very rattling of the cars pro- nounces them — 6* i It 'S }\ 130 A FAST LIFE. t',*\ " Take it up tenderly, ,/., Lift it with care, Fashioned so slenderly, Bottles in there!" It was at a miserable station in the Humboldt Desert on the C. P. B., when my friend, with whom I was making a trip to California, remarked with a beaming smile upon his face — a smile of pleasing an- ticipation — that he thought the proper time had come to make a visit to his portmanteau ; the alkali had made him thirsty; and in that leathern receptacle was a little of — just think of it, in the Humboldt Desert — a bottle of fine old rye whisky 1 He came back. T had in the interim been getting two half- glasses of cold water ready, and, turning round at his approach, presented the tumblers for the fine old rye. I was terribly shocked at the blank and woe-begone expression of his face. If he had lost his mother-in-law he could not have looked more grief- smitten and dismayed. The bottle was broken, and the spirit had fled 1 It is not to be expected that baggage-masters with heavy trunks to lift and sort out, often in a very in- suf^cient time, will always manipulate them with the delicacy their owners could desire ; and it appears to me that, considering the vast amount of baggage handled by baggage-masters, the aggregate damage dei hf£ THE ASS S APPEAL TO JOVE. 181 done is little, and is less owing to the strength of baggage-masters than to the weakness of trunks. Every body knows the fable (Lessing's, I think) of the Ass's Appeal to Jove, W^:BmW^W¥'. TUE UlfiAFFOINTMENT. The fortitude of the patient ass had given way un- der some new trial ; and, with a tear trickling down his honest nose, he appeared before the god. " Oh, mighty Jove !" he said, " why should I bear i ■'i :4 ^ 132 A FAST LIFE. these constant cruelties from man ? Why should I be treated more unmercifully than all his servants ; I who toil from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, and am contented with the humblest fare — a little straw and water. No service, however toilsome, can conciliate him, and my patience even seems a cause for punishment. Soften his heart toward me, oh Jove, and your petitioner will ever bray." To this the god replied how deeply he regretted he had no power over the heart of man ; but added (laying a finger on the side of his celestial nose, as though a bright idea had struck him), " I think I can do something else as good. I will make your hide so thick and tough that the hardest blows will never give you pain." Which was accordingly done. Moral. — Seeing the hard treatment to which trunks must inevitably be subjected, have them made stronger, and defy the baggage-master. a good idea. Some general superintendents adopt the judicious course of making baggage - masters "contribute" to the claims arising from the careless handling of trunka This has a salutary effect, and, if persisted in, may perhaps bring about the happy time when trunks will be handled as tenderly as if they were babes. ACCIDENIALLY SHOT. 133 A grim kind of retributive justice is chronicled in the following extracts U\>m a newspaper, handed to me while writing the foregoing: "AcciDKNTALLY SiioT. — A baggogo-man on the nine o'clock train for N. F. was badly wounded in the leg by the accidental discharge of a revolver in a valise. Surgical aid was rendered by Dr. , who happened to be in the dd|)ut at the time." r •1 CtTr-:^ i TUB OABBLRSB BAOOAOR-HAN. "Accidentally Shot. — A baggage-man on the B. and N. F. Road met with an accident which, according to report, will prove fatal. It seems he was engaged receiving baggage in his car while it was stand- ing in the d^pot in B., when he picked up a sachel which, in carry- 184 A FAST LIFE. ' Ing along the car, he knocked against a trunk, and an explosion fol- lowed. It was found that a revolver which was in the sachel had been accidentally discharged, and the ball had entered his leg and passed upward into the groirl." After baggage-men have been "accidentally shot" a few times, as narrated above, they will probably be careful how they knock valises up against trunks. m TRULY REMARKABLE. It is a noteworthy fact that, when a piece of bag- gage goes astray, it always chances to contain a most valuable assortment of articles, i. e., according to the inventory accompanying the claim of the owner against the railroad company. A claim for a lost bag came recently under my notice ; and when it was found it contained all that a bag of its size could contain — a shirt, a tooth-brush, a comb, and a paper collar. The inventory was : 6 fin da shuts $30 00 6 box fin lining koUers 10 00 3 komes and brushes 7 60 3 2* brushes 1 50 Amount expended for nu thinks to git along with... 25 50 Total $74 60 On making the observation to the claimant that the bag, according to all that could be learned about A FANCY INVENTORY. 135 it, was a very small one, he remarked that "Sich bags held a heap ; you never knew when sich bags was full." The inventory should have been : . C 1 shut $1 50 12t'> brush 25 Ikome 25 1 paper koller 02 Total $2 02 But the company got out of this claim by handing the owner his bag. He said, as he walked away with it, that he felt " darned glad to git it back anyhow." But he looked " darned " sorry. The system of checking baggage in use upon American railroads is an excellent one, and so well elaborated as to afford proper security to the owner, and enable the companies to trace it, with an ap- proach to certainty, when it goes astray. A trunk is checked in the "Far West" for some remote Eastern point, the duplicate being handed to the owner as a receipt for the same. It passes over five or six different railroads, and its number is reg- istered in a dozen different books, with particulars as to date, etc., by ddpot and train baggage-masters. The trunk does not exactly " leave its foot-prints on the sands of time," as the famous Sir Boyle Boche #>' ?!• A 136 A FAST LIFE. might have said ; but its course is noted by so many registers that the chances are always in favor of find- ing it. There is no system of checking baggage in vogue in Europe as practiced in the States. There is a plan of registration on soi ae roads which is cumbrous and impracticable, except to a small extent, consisting as it does of giving a written receipt, the duplicate of which is pasted on the trunk. But the burden of looking after it falls generally upon the owner. A newly-arrived European lady, having received checks for her baggage in New York, gave them to her children to play with ; and on a gentleman re- marking with polite concern that she had better take care of those bits of brass, she replied, " Ho, hit does not matter bin the least; there are bothers just like them hon the trunks." Nothing is so calculated to disturb one's equa- nimity as to find at the end of a journey that your baggage is missing. The bride without her trous- seau stamps her pretty foot and cries bitterly — the bridegroom swears ; the parson without his sermons doesn't exactly swear, but just makes a few cursory remarka The irritable man in such a case is like a tomeat a-curving of his spine; and the philoso- pher can't " philosophe." It's of no use telling him Job had patience. Job never lost his trunk. OLD PERK AMONG THE TRUNKS. THE baggage-master's STORY. 137 ; f * 1 " It was several years ago I was sitting in this very baggage-room, and old Perk — his name was Perkins, but we shortened it to Perk — who was baggage-mas- ter before I was, was sitting in that same corner as you are, sir. It cost him so much of his pay for spectacles trying to make out the numbers on the checks, that he gave up the job soon after his eye- sight failed, and I got it. " Before the old man died he used to come down here quite frequent to sit with me, and have a talk through the night Old Perk was fond of his 'bac- co, and never could enjoy it so well as among the trunks. " Well, one cold and stormy night in the middle of winter, when it was about time for the lightning express to put in a show, I took my lamp and went to find out how she was. " I was not long finding out, for as I stood there I heard an awful smash. " The lightning express had run into a switching- engine at the east end of the yard. "That made things lively for a Uttle time; but the wrecking gangs got the damaged engines clear, threw the broken baggage-car on one side, coupled another engine on ; and the train, with a very short m ■ T H A ip.;4. im^ 138 A FAST LIFE. delay, went on her way West, leaving the baggage all piled up in this room, to be sent on by the morn- ing train. " As I said before, it was a cold night, and when the work was through, I was only too glad to get near the stove and have another smoke with old Perk. Perk had made up his mind not to go home that night, for fear of losing his way in the drifts. " ' Did you ever hear that story about that trunk ?' said old Perk. "I said, 'What trunk?' " ' Oh, sha .V I I'll tell you all about it' "And old Perk told how one of the night hands, named Tim, was always coming into the baggage- room to keep him company, as he said. But Perk used sometimes to fall asleep, and dream that Tim was 'going through' the trunks. " Tim had a sneaking kind o' way. "Well, one night, when old Perk was part asleep and part awake, he thought he saw Tim try to open a box. " 'What are you doing, Tim?' "Tim said he was just tightening the ropes round that trunk, "A few minutes after, old Perk was aroused by a piercing shriek. "Tim, the trunk pilferer, had unlocked a trunk THE MYSTERIOUS GROAN. 139 and raised the lid, and, while stealthily feeling inside in the dim light for what he could get, had drawn out a ghastly human hand and arm, while a horrid skeleton sat grinning at him in the box. "Poor Tim I He could not drop the cold hand he held in his; it seemed to hold him like a vise. He fell on his knees, and the cold sweat poured out of him while he cried, *Howly Mary I howly Mary! howly Mary !' and at last swooned away on the floor. " The medical student's box nearly cost poor Tim his life. The fright threw him into a fever, but I guess it cured him of opening other people's trunks. "When Old Perk had finished this unpleasant story he fell asleep. I began to feel uncomfortable ; the room smelled close ; Uiy imagination was excited. "I looked at the trunks suspiciously, and had a vague idea that all the lightning express baggage contained .human limbs, dead bodies, and grinning skeletons. " Old Perk snored ; and to drive away unpleasant fancies I began counting how many times he would snore before three o'clock. "He had snored just one hundred and seventy- three times, when I thought I heard a groan I " You might have knocked me down with a pick — I mean a tooth-pick — ^I felt so scared. If U m i ■ i I m 140 A FAST LIFE. ! I " I rudely shook old Perk. " * Was that you, old Perk ? Did you moan, Per- kins?' " 'I guess so,' he cried, and went to sleep again. "Again I heard the same sound, only longer. " My hair got up. " I felt a clammy moisture oozing out of me, I was so frightened. " * Perk,' I said, * say that was you ; you groaned, didn't you, Mr. Perk. If you did, for God's sake say so, Mr. Perkins I' " I shook him so much that there was no fear he would go to sleep again. " * Don't make a noise like that. Perk,' I said ; * it's almost enough to frighten a fellow — ^you should not do it. Let's have another smoke, Mr. Perjsins.' '' But I had not time to light up, for a cry, quick and awful, knocked pipe, 'bacco, and matches out of my hand ! '' I darted toward old Perk. His face was blanch- ed, and his limbs trembling with fright " ' The box ! the box I' he said, and fell heavily down, scared out of his sensea "Bemembering I had a bottle of medicine in the lock-up, which gave off a smell of brandy, I put it to Mr. Perkins's mouth, and then, desperately seizing a hammer, began to burst open the box on which Perk had sat -f •I SI ' il i :i:i THB TOOITO IjIbT VOJpm X» TBK TBUHK. .. <-■' ..^^^ %£■ CONTENTS OF A PIECE OF BAGGAGE. 143 %^' " Between each blow was a stifled groan. " It was a hard box to open. " ' Perk, hurry up ! Get that iron bar I' " The old man came to like a shot, and between us we loosened the lid. " The moment we had done so it flew open I "I expected a horible sight — a grinning skele- ton with a spiral -spring backbone, or something of that sort at least ; but bless you, sir, there sat in the trunk the loveliest young girl, her wavy yellow hair streaming over her neck and shoulders (*the Lord be praised I' cried old Perk), her large blue eyes beaming with tears of thankfulness for deliver- ance. She tried to throw her arms round my neck, but bless you, sir, they were so stiff she could not do it " * Lend a hand, old Perk,' I said ; and together we lifted the poor, stiffened young lady out of her prison- house. " ' Let me hold the dear creature on my knee,' said Perk. "'No,' I' said; 'Fm- going to hold her on riiy knee.' " ' Lei me chafe her limbs, then,' he said. "'No,' I said; Tm baggage-master, and'Pm go- ing to do-all the chafing, necessary on this occa- sion.' ■'t ' , I I 144 A FAST LIFE. Jiii 1^' i r : : '* ■ ■' 1 ) ' ■ •> \ t" ^' ■ Q I •2^" ■ .■;! >; * y ^ t i:' Hiiiiiuiii "So I chafed her until her arms could wind round my neck ; but I had to hold her on my knee a long, long time — the dear girl was so stiff. " Old Perk gave her a little of the medicine, and then she began to talk a little. You should have heard her, sir — she was so full of love and gratitude toward me and old Perk, though I must say she did not seem to care much for Mr. Perkins." " How came she in the trunk?" "Why, ^ou see she was an orphan, and the adopted child of a rich, miserly old uncle. He wanted to get her through to without paying her fare. He thought he could do it by putting her in that box with a few air-holes, being allowed one hundred pounds of baggage free." " Did he claim his baggage ?" " Well, I guess not, sir. He must have been kind o' scared when he found the box did not reach C , and so afraid it liad been damaged in the smash-up in the yard that he durst not ask after it" " What became of the sweet young woman ?" " Well, stranger, that sweet young woman is my wife, and as it's getting toward morning, I guess I'll just ask you to go and sit in the waiting-room. I want to go home and hold the baby while she gets up and dresses herself." THE BKAKEMAN^S ASSURANCE. 145 CHAPTER IX. ;:! my brii . I gets THE BRAKEMAN. The Brakeman. — Mistaken Zeal. — Some of his Daties. — An easy Job. — The Freight Brakeman. — Dangerous Work. — An unsuitable Applicant. — An uncomfortable Dance. — The Brakeman's Story. — Fall into Black Creek. — Results of a Brakewheel giving way. If he is engaged on a passenger • train, his chief employment (as it appears to passengers), if it is win- ter, is to put wood in the stoves. It matters not whether the car is cold or stiflingly hot, his duty is to put in wood. You can not stop him putting it in ; he will do it. The passenger brakeman is usually a person of considerable assurance, and if he feels talkative, or " good," as he would term it, he does not wait for an introduction, but goes and chews his pea* nuts and pop -corn by the side of any traveler near whom there is a vacant seat If there is not a vacant seat, he scotches himself up against the arm of it It is one of the brakeman's privileges to get his pea-nuts and pop-corn free; he gets them on these terms from the newsboy. 7 'i >v - jrt-1 it ' 146 A FAST LIFE. iff p'^flf,: m:' The newsboy thinks it best to agree to these terms. The brukcmuQ is vivacious and muscular; and will ask you for a chaw of 'bacco in the most con- fiding way.* lie has to help the conductor to eject passengers from the cars when necessary. This is a part of his duty which he performs with alacrity, and in a masterly manner. His practiced eye detects the recusant passenger's weak point, and his ripened judgment in an instant plans the modus operandi of attack. A nervous gentleman once said that a brakeman never approached him without giving him the im- pression that he was taking hia measure with a view to putting him off the cars. He had once been dumped on a lonely strip of prairie-land, on the suspicion that he was a card- sharper, because he offered to bet the brakeman, in a trifling humor, that he could not pick out the knave of clubs from three cards. The brakeman's duties on a passenger -train are not arduous. In addition to attending to the signals of the engi- neer, he has to look after the stoves, as before re- marked, lamps, bell-ropes, ventilators, and water-cool- er& He is also required to lend a hand at wood- I sj al cJ THE FREIGHT BRAKEMAN. 147 engi- re re- -cool- wood- ing up the tender, and loading up baggage, if nec- essary. The duties of tho freight brakeman are much more arduous and dangerous, the coupling and un- coupling of cars being an occupation attended with much risk to life and limb. When I see a brakeman go between two cars to make a coupling, it seems to me that he is playing a game of " catch who can " with death. What hands have been smashed, what arms crush* ed. what legs severed, and what mangled bodies have been dragged from under the wheels where brake- men have tried to couple freight cars 1 Accidents from this cause go on steadily increas- ing with the greater number of miles in operation and the tonnage carried — just as they will continue to increase until a complete change be made, so that the coupling may be done by a lever from a platform of the car, or above, or at the side. Many companies would adopt a coupling of this kind if others with whom they run in connection would also do so ; but it would be useless for one link in a through route, over which the cars of several companies run in common, to adopt such a contrivance if other companies on the route de- clined. Nothing but the compulsion of the Legislature 148 A FAST LIFE. »' ■t • ii|,; will bring about an improvement against which there is no practical objection except the expense. The freight brakeman, nevertheless, becomes fa- miliar with the danger, and thinks all men mortal but himself. Balancing the slanting-pin in the heel of the draw- bar, he leans across the track, and as the car to be coupled approaches, supports the link in one hand. When cars come together with some force and con- tinue their way for several yards, the brakeman coupling for a moment is out of sight ; you don't know whether he is safe or not. He may step out vigorously, crying "All right — go ahead," or the poor fellow may have ceased to speak forever. These men are subject to many dangers in winter, when cars are covered with ice and snow. They have to climb and run along the roofs, springing in the darkness from car to car, when a false step would be instant death. m ■ S'-i >'■ M W AN UNSUITABLE APPLICANT. It was only a short time ago that a man of fifty asked to be employed as a brakeman. I remarked that he was too old, and that his back was too stiff for such work. He was quite hurt at my disparaging allusion to m AN UNSUITABLE APPLICANT. 149 his back, and declared his back was " as good a back as mine." " He knew more about his back than I did," etc. I then told him that if he were started as a brake- man he would certainly be killed in a week, and he could not decently come there and ask us to be at the expense of burying him. He said he didn't want any man to bury him ; he could bury himself without any of my assistance. I then made a remark about his legs being rather slow, when he left the office highly incensed. Jt is nevertheless a fact, though this would-be brakeman would not admit it, that youth and strong and active supple limbs are absolutely necessary to a brakeman. It is no unusual thing to see a brakeman dancing a hornpipe on the top of the cars, to keep himself warm in winter, and jumping from one car to anoth- er in an unnecessary and superfluous way, his object being, perhaps, so to expend his surprising energy. But I saw one, not very long ago, behave himself on the top of the cars in a way which could not be accounted for, even on this supposition. He began by roundly swearing (against the rules and regulations) so that he could be heard fifty yards away. He then threw himself into a variety of con- tortions ; and finally, taking off his coat, he planted :•'> ^^^ ni0t9graphic Scimces CorparEdian gC^^ <\ ^^ <(s\ ^r\\ 33 WIST MAIN STRHT WmTIR,N.Y. 14SM (7l*)t7a-4S03 4^0 I m mi I; ^"^ ' 188 A FAST LIFE. • & M'nday'i) nut Saturdav) Chic. Ei. 10 00 8 30 12 45 1 10 1 30 1 35 245 11 11 23 12 15 12 20 1 25 2 05 8 15 435 4 40 6 30 8 15 P.M. (M'nday's not FridHV) S. B. tx. i-< 0> 00 e> A e> e 04 -^ 458 5 36 545 705 7 16 765 8 00 9 30 8 15 P.M. (Sunday's not Mondav) Em. Ex. oa uaqM ® «* » ON . o g £ Pacific Ex. (Sabbath incl.). 8 12 NiOIlT. Noon. P.M. A.M. 1 '40 «et«t-»«o>coe>a>o»ooe i-ii-irNeje»r-'iHiHi-i®»e«s»«r»ei»'j. 318X— 297 Y— 286 Z— Chioaoo 1 1 o ■^f ooe>o> e>e>xoo«ao»- »-• 1-1 rH Stte* 1 ■w T0 11 1 .o8,3jq3 joj aiwt iiqi no na-iOiMj Atlantic Express (Sabbath Incl.). P.M. 1 — 11 35 11 25 10 42 10 20 10 15 936 9 17 845 8 80 6 15 6 10 420 6 16 P.M. Z. Mixed (Tri- weekly). A.M. 10 40 P.M. 5 30 S!$8!95g 85S!g lO CO 0) 04 r1 r^ 04 et iH iH 00 f T4r OS 0000 tf ¥. a SSI iSS s « rH^ a«3 «| u|«i)Se CO o •iqt n»qAV-'a'K S5 THE FUN TO BE FOUND IN SOME. 189 OOlg '••UB ; lt^>^ V no wa-wi" J ss s^ *. «8<0 ^lO ^ " Going East " is one of the compiler's jokes. You see the words. "Read up." He wants you to read up, so that nobody may fail to hear the fun. You try to "read up," can't do it; try to "Read down," suc- ceed — evidently a joke. Look at " Z Mixed." It flashes across our hori- zon at C like a meteor. "Through without change" — lawless, no connections, isolated, a mere fragment of some dismembered train which haply used to run some years ago, but now no more — its continuity is gone; it has become a mere figure "C 6.00." Melancholy fate! If it starts from C at 6.00, where does it go to? Where does it stop? Alas I it is one of those trains which never leave and never arrive : an exile at C , far from its home at Z . In the same column it is stated that M is late L . If M is late L , where is L ? means late leaving; very »> Perhaps "late L— likely. The " Mixed " has an abiding-place in the same column. There is something dark about that train. It arrives at Y at 2 — , and the next station, Z , at 40 ; evidently an average of 2.40 between the two places. This "Mixed" train runs through to Chicago, which is more than the " Morning Express " does in 190 A FAST LIFE. •J ^'ni .'f the next column. Can the figures have slipped? Or is the "Mixed" timed to run into the "Morning Express," as a regular thing, at Z ? The "Morning Express" has the peculiar habit of arriving at E fifteen minutes after it departs from that place — a retrogression which seems to be neither necessary nor funny. It does the same thing at other places. It departs first and arrives at the same place afterward. In the next column is the " Pacific Express," which, it is stated, runs on the Sabbath. This train begins well, stopping and starting in an orderly manner ; but soon becomes eccentric, and fiies past stations, arriving at some but not departing, departing from others and not arriving, and finally finds its fate, at no time at all, in the gloomy confines of a.m.'s and p.M.'s. In the next column the information is given that Sunday is not Monday. Much obliged. We are also told that Monday is not Friday, and in the next column that Monday is not Saturday. This is very useful; probably Monday is Tuesday. The " Emigrant Express " arrives at the minutes first and hours afterward ; for instance, at C 57.7, probably meaning that it runs there in 57 minutes, and lies there 7 hours. It goes to the next station in 25 minutes and stays there 9 hours, and so on. EXTKAOBDINABY TBAINS. 191* i? ng of sirts ► be ling ithe hicb, egins aner ; .tions, from ate, at and lU that Jq are le next is very ninutes - 57.7, ninutes, ; station 1 so on. But the worst feature is that it reaches V at the decimal time of 00.3. Can it mean 3 o'clock, and short of W , where dinner is intimated? But the emigrants never get there. They see the din- ner-station; but, like Moses on Pisgah, they view the Promised Land from a vexatious distance. Em- igrants suffer many privations. The " Steamboat" and Chicago Express leave New York one hour and Boston one hour and a half apart When they get to A they are 3 hours 25 minutes from each other, and reach E with 3 hours 55 minutes between them. But here the Steamboat Express waits until the Chicago Express comes along, while the Chicago Express waits 8 hours 15 minutes. The engineers and conductors "learn to labor and to wait;" or perhaps they live at E , and go home and sleep there. But it certainly would be more convenient for the public if, when the " Steamboat " Express reaches E at 10.50, it would take breath and proceed at 11, the time of the " Chicago Express," and the latter train, on arriving at 2.45, could go on as the "Steamboat Express" at 2.55. Strange the company never saw thia Perhaps they will say that it was a mistake in the time-table ; but that won't do. On the other side of the time-sheet we are told to " Read down :" same old joke ; can not do h. We 192 A PAST LIFE. 11 read " up," and find, instead of going West, the cur- rent of the trains is, like Professor Wise's air current, toward the East. It seems to be characteristic of the local "Mixed" and "Way " trains, that they run from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The " O Accom." does so ; but the Atlantic Express (Sabbaths included) does not. The next train, " Z Mixed," we are told to try weekly. This train does not start from Z , as one might suppose it would, but from Y ; and how it leaps the chasm between O and Boston is not stated. The jump is rather a long one — 624 miles. We are told that the " Day Express " is not daily — ^is it nightly ? Why say it is, and then it isn't ? Probably intended for another joke. Still, this train seems to be more reliable than some others. It actually starts, goes well for over two hundred miles, and there it vanishes ; it arrives some- where in the A.M., but nobody knows where. We are told in the next column a little more about the names of the days of the week : that Friday is not Saturday, Saturday not Sunday. This is useful and entertaining. The next train is a singular one.- It starts from P.M. in the West and runs to A.M. in the East, not stopping at such places as Chicago, Boston, and New WORKING TIME-CARD. 198 York. It is specially stated that it makes the stops of Night Express on Saturday night ; it is also stated that the Night Express " does not stop." If it does not stop, what becomes of the passengers? (proba- bly no passengers on that train), and what becomes of the New York Express on Saturday night? These two trains appear to be those on which the companies carry travelers free, if the word "Pass" stands for any thing at the head of the column. No trains go to K , but then none leave, so it is all right. The man who made the time-card knew what he was about. He knew if he made any trains arrive there, they would have to depart again, caus- ing no end of trouble. ' WORKING TIME-CARD. The working time-card provides only for regular trains, the minimum number generally necessary for the business. But it must be remembered that lines of impor- tance run many extra trains every day, as the traffic arises. The working time-card, therefore, is only a basis of running; and even if there were no specials, it would be too much to expect, in the nature of things, that a working time-card of a large railroad could be exactly followed by all the trains for a single day. 9 '1 a SI 1 1 194 X FAST LIFB. * • «,t8 off its time-card time, others are If one train gets on to ^ gpeoial trains, ^ec^sarily affected; '^^^^.J^^: J their move- even in the absence of ««« ^^a,, «tUl fur- rte:rt:^r:oCr:™-.romthe.or.n. time-card basis »[ "^ . ^(,be Telegraph Train Hence arises the occupation ot I Bispatcherl QUEBULOUS QU£STI0N£B8. 195 ■I. iXQ ns, ive- fur- CHAPTER XIII. THE TELEGRAPH TRAIN DISPATCHER. The Train Dispatcher. — How he watches the running of Trains. — # Different System of running Arrangements. — The '' Rights of Trains." — "Holding" Orders.— The heavy Responsibilities of the Dispatcher. — Hard to please every body. — Specimen of Telegraph Train Order.— Designations of Trains.— Rather mixed. To the uninitiated it is a mystery bow so many trains are safely passed by each other in a single day on one track. If those irritable travelers who always find some- thing to find fault with could only know what inge- nuity and vigilance are rc^jciired and exercised to prevent the trains they travel by from being delay- ed, their criticisms might sometimes be different. It is a common thing to hear a fretful traveler ex- claim, " Why ever don't these kears start?" If they started when this passenger wanted, per- haps he would be reduced to his chemical constitu- ents in a minute or two, when the train got under headway. But he does not think of that. ! i f ■ t . (^ '* H ;i II IW A FAST UrB. l» think YTben tbey step into the How few P^-'P^ 3 l^ ttemselves two bun- Bleepmg-cw at mght, and find ^^^ d J and fifty «««« ''':;y °n J^^^^ Jg ^.tehed UghMV>a-UthatU.et..-^ by an eye that durst not sleep, a ,e\al i n^ight occur ^^^ -^.^^^JUle would, bouse without causing the sjg ^^^ .^ ^^. if made by the telegraph train d>spa keeping clear of regular wa^ ^^^ ^.^.^^^ ^^ *'^ ^^tr i Sg passenger-trains i„«, two or 7;; J,„ b asfreigbt,stock,or «!.. first-class; and others, su ^^^^ .^f^^„, ed, of an inferior o^-^^ -^*^ „, p^senger-trains, class must keep out "^^fJ^J^^ia fall behind their even though passenger-traws should card-time. .rraneements are almost The systems of «''""8 "^g ^^^ ^^^ve - varied as ^^^.^-XXZlsity, resemble rr :: pS^-nd . . these p.u.ple.s -r:rri:s:rrSa.uranroad. i. THE "rights" of TRAINS. 197 I tbe un- lay- ibed iTTor rcial ould, e re- card- n dis- to run, divided r- trains or mix- inferior jr-trains, indtbeir re almost all strive resemble principles t railroads, passenger-trains run on their card-time regardless of any other description of train, but must not go be- yond their crossing points with other passenger-trains without special authority; but on some lines, the trains going in one direction have the right to the road over trains going in the opposite direction. For instance, supposing the trains going West have right of road over those going East, trains going East must not encroach on the time of West-bound trains, but must either wait for them, or claim the dispatcher's attention; who can, by issuing an order to the West-bound train to wait at a certain point, either for a limited time or indefinitely, forward the East-bound train, and thus frequently avoid serious delay to both. The thing is, to secure the train having right to road before allowing the other to proceed. Each dispatcher's section is from fifty to one hun- dred miles in length, according to the number of trains running, difficulty of working, etc.; and where continual day and night work is required, there are generally three dispatchers to each section, who work eight hours alternately. Where the work is heavy, this is as long a time as a man can efficiently attend to it Where there are many trains running, interrup- tions and delays are frequent 198 A FAST LIFE. >m Engines and cars may and do break down and block the road ; and when such blocks are serious and of long duration, all trains become more or less disarranged. Then the dispatchers' hands are full, and more than full, in getting them right To perform his work thoroughly the train dis- patcher's mind requires to be ever vigilant, carefully planning to avoid delays, and seizing every oppor- tunity of pushing trains rapidly and safely over the road. At some points he must "hold" trains, that he may be enabled to send others forward ; and at other points he must withdraw or cancel " holding orders," to avoid unnecessary delays. No railway employ^ has more continual responsi- bility in his hands. His work is one constant strug- gle against delay and accident, and occasionally he has to supply intelligence as well as running orders to train-men. When two trains going in opposite directions are at stations ten miles apart, it is perfectly plain that one must suffer delay, and that the community on that one will abuse the railroad. A false calculation which delays an express-train twenty minutes puts a hundred and fifty passengers out of temper, who remember one fault and forget fifty virtues. HARD TO PLEASE EVERY BODY. 199 After ill humor is once generated, the car is too warm or too cold ; the conductor too familiar or too formal; the brakemen indolent, if not worse; the newsboys pertinacious, solicitous beyond endurance; and the general superintendent no man for his place. Then the conductor, as the most available victim, is deluged with all sorts of questions about connec- tions, speed, and time ; and he, having a hundred other things to think of, perhaps answers abruptly, and destroys in a moment the good reputation he has been struggling for hours to maintain. It is a pity the supply of men with angelic tem- pers for railway positions is not adequate to the de- mand. There are many difficulties and intricate posi- tions constantly arising for the dispatcher to solve, and his solution must be sent in not later than — at once I And these solutions must be strictly cor- rect Neither can the telegraph dispatcher please the train-men. Every conductor wants his own train to get the preference. When conductor of No. 54 freight gets to the train dispatching office, he pokes his head in at the window, and cries out wrathfully. ;^l 200 A FAST LIFE. 'I " Why did you fellows let No. 202 special get ahead of me ? Hadn't I been long eno' on the road to-day?" « ■ " No. 202 had stock on, and you hadn't," is the reply. " Yes ; you think more of cattle than you do of us," rejoins the conductor. The dispatcher had all the trains under his care. The conductor had only his own. The following is a specimen of a train dispatcher's order: X F. a RAILROAD, Telegraph Train Order. Troni , to Conductor Brown, and Engineer Jones, of No. 14, Ex. Train, at Station. April 14th, 1873. Meet No. 13 Exp. at M . No. 216 Spl. left G 12 o'ek., and runs to D ahead of you. Flag No. 218 Spl. to G 31. Reed, at l?d? m., by F- [See other side.] Receiving Operator. (Signed) A, B. C. Train Dispatcher. On the back of the order are the following instruc- tions : I TELEGRAPH TRAIN ORDER. 201 instruc- *' Conductors must not receive this order unless it is indorsed on this side by the Receiving Operator for the Train Dispatcher, with the Train Dispatcher's initials, and signed by '9.' "This order must be read aloud by the Conductor to the Engineer, and fully understood by both of them before starting ; it must then be handed to the Engineer, who must hand it to his Locomotive Foreman at the end of the trip. X. Y. C. " Genl. Suptr The figures "31" mean "do you understand?" "9" is the train dispatcher's abbreviation, and means that the order is completed, every body con- cerned understands, and that it is all correct, or "O.K." The conductor acknowledges this order ic this way : " 32 " (meaning " I understand ") " to meet No. 13 Ex. at M . No. 216 left G 12 o'clock, and runs to D ahead of me, and to flag No. 11 218 special to G— It would be difficult to describe in a comprehen- sive way — and it is doubtful whether such a descrip- tion would be interesting — all the minutiaB of the train dispatcher's operations. No one who has not been a train dispatcher on a crowded single-track railroad can understand what a strain such duties are upon the mind, nor what a moment of anxiety it is when, fearful lest in the mul- tiplicity of arrangements he may have forgotten one essential order, he scans his record-book. When he 9* U 1 : i I i I" i it ji* i !a 202 A FAST LIFE. finds the order there, his sigh of relief sounds like "God be thanked, it's all O.K." On some railroads, dispatchers do not designate trains by their numbers or names, " Express," "Ac- commodation," "Way," "Through," etc., but by the names of their engines. TBS TBAIN DIBPATOHXB. A train dispatcher started up from his instrument recently, remarking that he guessed things had got pretty mixed, and he'd like to be relieved by the next hand. At W "Catamount" had jumped the track; "Zebra" was stalled on the grade outside the yard; " Hippopotamus " was out of water ; " Snorter" had blown off a steam-chest cover; "Snake" could not crawl up the slippery rails; "Fly" had burst a flue; RATHER MIXED. 203 ke ate the rument lad got by the ) track; He yard; ;r" bad )uld not staflue; "Dragon" could not drag on her cars; "Thunder" and "Lightning" coming East, and "Whirlwind" and "Chaos" West, were making big licks for the d^pot ; and he guessed old Dan and Jack would have to be mighty spry with the switches, or some cow- catchers might get hurt. In the arrangements the dispatcher makes, he takes into consideration the side-track accommodations at various points, so as not to get more trains there than he can get out again without delay; makes allow- ance for the weight of trains, the different powers of their respective engines, the state of the rails — wheth- er slippery or not — grades, and all local peculiarities ; keeps himself informed moment after moment, for the trains are moving all the time, and changing their relative position in regard to each other; prevents de- lays to all, while giving especial attention to the most important With his fingers upon the telegraph-key, he sends his orders every instant through the wires ; and, having twenty or thirty trains in his guiding hands at once, stands, not like Benjamin Franklin with his kite, but more like twenty or thirty Benja- min Franklins rolled into one. 204 A FAST LIFE. '4 CHAPTER XIV. THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT. The General Superintendent. — What devolves on him. — A bnsj Man. — How his Work begins. — His Visitors. — Office-seekers' Assiduity. — How the G. S. gets through his Correspondence. — Short-hand and its uses. — Some People's Style of Dictation. — ^The Stock Shipper's Claim. — Applications for Passes. — The comic, the pathetic, the business Style. — Editorial Compliments and Abuse. — The sentimental and the disinterested Applicant. — Dismissal. — Conclusion. In the foregoing pages I have referred to a few only of those subordinate employes on railroads whose duties more closely concern travelers. I should not here refer to the general superintendent! if the omission of that functionary would not seem to imply that he were considered of less importance than a switch-man. On the contrary, there are few occupations in life that call for such varied abilities, or are accompanied by such work and responsibility, as that of the gen- eral superintendent of a large American railroad. On him devolves the charge of those manifold op- erations by which net revenue is obtained ; his con- stant struggle being to keep the earnings up and the WHAT DEVOLVES ON THE SUPERINTENDENT. 205 expenses down. He is as busy a man as can be im- agined. Let us follow him through a day. It frequently begins at 1 A.M., when the knock of the night watchman rudely disturbs his slumbera A telegram ? Perhaps seven or eight of them. The rain has badly washed the track in some places; or a bridge has suddenly given signs of unsafety ; or the main-track is blocked by some trifling accident to a freight- train, and five hundred or six hundred passen- gers in the night expresses East and West can not pass each other ; a hundred worse things than those may have happened. To put on his clothes and set out for the d^p6t is, as the novelists say, the work of an instant I have always thought it an unfavorable feature of electricity, that it has the power of conveying mes- sages after one has left his office and gone home. If there were some counteracting power in darkness to prevent the operation of the electric current after sunset, it would be a sweet boon. Having surmounted the difficulty which interrupt- ed the working of the line, by slewing, the track, un- der-pinning the bridge, ditching the cars, or in some other way suggested by experience, advised train dispatchers, division superintendents, and other sub- ordinates of the necessary action to be taken under the circumstances, the general superintendent may 206 A FAST LIFE. mv. be excused, it being 8 A.M., if he so far forgets bis duty to the railroad as to eat bis breakfast That disposed of, the master mechanic, the car su- perintendent, the track superintendent, the general freight agent, the general passenger agent, the pur- chaser of stores, the fuel agent, and other officials come along, all wanting to consult with him on mat- ters affecting their departments; outsiders hanging around in what they consider " coigns of vantage," to catch him when he gets through with that other man. The man with the patent car-coupler, the patent switch, patent axle-box packing, new lubricators, pat- ent brake, car-window fasteners, car-locks ; the agent for the newest thing out in the labor-saving way, is "all there;" the discontented shipper who wants a special rate because he regularly ships two ounces of tobacco a day, is there; the man who believes the fair thing is not done by him because his competitor over the way seems to get along better, is there ; the man who can't get cars enough, the man who has been charged demurrage, the man who has a claim for personal injuries, the man who has lost his trunk, are all there. The interesting woman, who wants a pass because she is an orphan, stands timidly by; the man who has been insulted by the conductor, and will take a season pass and say no more about it, is there too; and the messenger is constantly running to him with telegrams. OFFICE-SEEKERS ASSIDUITY. 207 his su- eral pur- cials mat- B,"U) man. )atent s, pat- agent vay, is ants a ces of es tbe petitor Ire; the ho has aim for ink, are 8 a pass by; the tor, and out it, is running It is chronicled that office-seekers actually swarm- ed down the chimney, and crawled between Abraham Lincoln's legs. The general superintendent is beset somewhat in the same way. He is button • holed as he turns a corner — noise- lessly surrounded while he is busy writing a dispatch — fenced in by importunate applicants on every hand. At such a juncture, if he have an engagement on the line, it is well to execute a flank movement, a sort of leap for life on the rear car of a passing train. The besetted man is free again. Then, with his short-hand clerk, he can get a chance at his correspondence. The ready writer opens his bag, which is bursting with letters ; and the general superintendent, taking them as they come, rapidly dictates his replies and instructions to all whom the matters affect. The way in which some such men, with the assist- ance of a good stenographer, get through an immense pile of correspondence, is what is vulgarly called a "caution" to less ready men. They will dictate sixty letters in twenty -five minutes, some long and some short, containing perhaps five thousand words altogether; give the reply to a long letter while in the act of reading it ; and arrive at yours truly when concluding with truly youra 208 A FAST LIFE. I ^ .-■■ ,!■ ' vi il'Li It • Bailroad-men who can put business through in that kind of way, as A. Ward would say, are the sort of railroad-men to get through that kind of business. Here is a problem. The train is going forty miles an hour, the short-hand clerk is writing at the rate of two hundred words a minute. Forty miles an hour is two-thirds of a mile, or 1176.38 yards per minute — over 16 yards a second. Now, by multiply- ing 1176.33 by 200, we arrive at the extraordinary number of 835,266.00. What does that mean ? A ready correspondent, accustomed to dictate to a stenographer, will reply to thirty letters while anoth- er man is making up his mind what kind of answer to make, or patiently puzzling over the proper turn- ing of a phrase ; or while a woman would be con- templating the address, and wondering who the letter could be from, when she might find out instantly by opening it, unless it were anonymous. A recent writer observes that during the past few years there has been very great impetus given to the study of short-hand in the United States, chiefly ow- ing to the demand for sbort-hand writers — a demand which is certain to increase in the future. In our great cities there is hardly a public office of any sort where one or more short-hand writers are not to be found, to the mutual advantage of employ- ers and employed. THB SHORT-HAND WRITER. 209 To the employer it affords a pleasant and rapid way of getting through that portion of his work which most hard-working men find irksome, while the short-hand writer has the easiest and most cer- tain way of learning a business or profession thrown open to him. In no other possible way can a lad just entering an office gain the same speedy and thorough knowl- edge of the working of that office than as the short- hand clerk of the head or manager, and especially is this the case with those who have to enter the world early and without influence. From the very nature of the work, he is thrown in constant communication with his employer, and in the majority of cases be- comes his most confidential clerk. In this country, short-hand writers are now em- ployed on all the railways of importance. Most of them began life as office lads, and in a few years be- came private secretaries; and it is safe to say that nine-tenths of them owe to their knowledge of short- hand their escape from years of drudgery on scanty salaries. , Wherever there is a large amount of correspond- ence to be done, there is room for short-hand clerks — in Government offices, law courts, banks, newspa- per, express and mercantile offices ; and in these of- fices positions can be found for all who will perfect themselves in the art. 210 PAST LIFE. if: It requires considerable practice to dictate letters to a short-hand clerk well ; the rapidity with which the speaker finds his words taken down is apt to sur- prise and confuse him, and he finds he can not keep the young man busy. Such an attempt to dictate as the following is awful to the expert short-hand writer : [Clerk just engaged at $1200 a year to help Mr. Pomposus with his correspondence.] Pomposus. " Prepare to take down a letter." Short-hand writer is annoyed by this; he is al- ways ready to take down a letter. That's what he is paid for. P. (dictating loudly). "Sir!" (Short-hand writer starts). "Have you got that?" Short-hand Writer. "Yes." ;: > P. " I didn't see you writing I" JS. " I hope you don't think I'm a ?" P, " Just let me see it." & points out a microscopic circle at- one end of what looks like a stray eyelash. P. " Yea Ah, of course. I see. How far h,ad we got?" S. "Sir." P. "I say how far had we got? (Getting angry.) S. " I say, ' Sir.' " P. "Well, rub it out Put 'Dear Sir;' we had ich iur- eep vful Mr. is al- at he L liter jtid of ar had angry.) we had SOME people's style OF DICTATION. 211 bettfcr be civil. Say ' My dear Sir ' — * My dear Sir ' — No, that I won't ! Confound the fellow I Write to him stiffly, stiff as starch; say — Now, are you ready? Well then, go on. * Sir, — On my return from New York, your communication has been laid before me.' No, don't say that ; say, ' New York is laid before me on returning from your communication.' No, that won't do ; say, ' Your communication has been laid before me on. my return from New York.' No, don't say New York — I'm not bound to tell the fellow where I've been to ; say, ' Your communication has been laid before me.' Got that? Very well, keep it Now, let's see what we had better say next? Just read over what you've got — if you can " (offen- sively). S. "Your communication has been laid before I « me. P. " Quite right ; you take down letters splendid- ly. Young man, I guess I'll finish this letter myself; and I'll give you another trial to-morrow. You'll soon get on, if you persevere." It is needless to say that the expert short-hand writer did not choose to keep his situation. He would rather accept one-third of the pay from a man who could talk one hundred and eighty words a minute than be pestered by the blundering reitera- tions and alterations of such a thick-head as Pompo- 212 A FAST LIFE. ' ' •»■ BUS. P. also came to the conclusion that a short* hand writer was a nuisance — he got the words down too mighty quick. The general superintendent has got through his morning letters, and is revolving in his mind the ne- cessity of increasing the rolling stock of the com- pany, or a knotty point in some traffic agreement with a connecting road, when he is startled by the somewhat coarse inquiry of a stock shipper who has ferreted him out, "When that 'ere claim of his is go- ing to be paid ?" and " Guesses he'd better talk the thing right eout, then and thar." The superintendent gives a sigh of resignation as the short-hand clerk produces the papers in the case ; and, after a good deal of discussion, the stock shipper is informed that his claim is worth $2000.43, which will be paid — no more and no less. " Wa'al neow," says the stock shipper, " youVe ciphered that down fine. I put it down at consid'ble more ; but I always shipped this way. I like the road and I like you, so I guess I'll just take it. You can strike off the 43 cents. I want to be kinder liberal." The superintendent no sooner leaves the cars than he is surrounded by people wanting something. He discusses the business of some, makes appointments with others, keeps the telegraph wires busy with his messages, attends a convention of railroad managers. THE superintendent's WORK. 218 ►rt- wn bis ne- 5on\- nent r tbe 5 has isgo- k the ion as I case; bippet which youVe [isid'ble be road ''ou can iberal." ars than ng- He intments vrith his aanagers, find returns in the evening to head-quarters — riding on tbi< engine, so aH to observe the merits of a newly- applied air-brake. He would bo glad to go home, but that is impossi- ble. A crowd is waiting for him; some of them have been waiting since the morning, when he rather abruptly left them. They must all be attended to. A large package of letters has accumulated during his absence ; some of them will not wait, so the short- hand writer — who wrote out the previous lot while the convention was sitting — gets another dose. A few more telegrams have to be answered, a few final stragglers talked with, and, glad to feel a lull in the pressure of the day, the general superintendent goes somewhat wearily home. The fire burns brightly ; wife smiles : " Well, Wil- liam, what will you have for tea — a mutton-chop, or some oysters?" Perhaps he says, " Well, of the two I'll take both — the oysters first." Soon afterward he can say with the poet, *' My pipe is lit, my grog is mixed, The cartain's drawn, and all is snug ; ^ ' Old Pussy in her elbow-chair. And Tray reposing on the rug." But this repose may not last long. At times there appears to be a fatality affecting even the best-man- I 2^4 A FAST LIFE. aged railroad, accident after accident, affording the general superintendent no rest Suddenly there comes a rap at the door — a telegram : car off the track — main-line blocked — night express delayed — what's to be done ? Shall we do this, or shall we do that? He has to lay down that pipe and leave that grog; likewise that house where all is snug — that cat a-purring in the chair — that dog reposing on the rug ; run ap stairs and kiss the children, put on his ear- flaps, say good-night to his disappointed wife, and go out into the blinding snow and bitter frost to join the auxiliary — to go to the scene of difficulty, and, dur- ing the bleak hours of night, use his energies and ex- perience to put things straight, and clear the.track. APPLICATIONS FOR PASSES. Probably one of the most troublesome duties of the general superintendent is the necessity of read- ing and answering the shoals of applications for passes which are constantly pouring in on him. The following are specimens of many of these com- municationa The first is from a gentleman whom the superin- tendent has never heard of before, but who evidently thinks he can get the documents by a little facetious- ness: THE COMIC, PATHETIC, ETC. 215 he sre the 1— (do rog; cat rug; , ear- id go n tbe , dur- idex- ack. ties of f read' ins for him. le com- juperin- /idently icetious- " Dear Sir, — I am going West. My hat's chalk- ed on most roads; can you chalk? " Ever of thou. * * * " The following is from one who tries the pathetic style : " Sir, — ' Man's inhumanity to man makes kount- less 1,000,000 mum,' as the poic says, so does my wife — in fac have been treeted skaly out West wich we was injooced to cum here under promise, we would not ask if i was not a kinder railroad man — in. fac we wanter go East and money's tite. I don't ask as a rite, but would like you to male us the pa- pers and oblige " Yours respectfully, and so is my wife, ((•X- * *»» The next makes application on account of his ex- tensive freight business over the line : " Sir, — I ship piles of stuff over your road, and I ought to get a pass. Have got one over most roads. Send it to Cheekville P.O. The stuff I ship is a sarve for drawing corns. If you have got any I'll stop and fix you up strate. Make it for self and lady — my lady operates on her own seek. Tele- graph as to corns to 5th Avenue Hotel. " Yours and cetry. * * * " 216 A FAST LIFE. The following is from the editor of an unknown paper publisher, in an unknown place called Small- yille, inclosing an extract from his sheet, calculated, as be thinks, to tickle the documents out of the gen- eral superintendent : "Sir, — I inclose you with this an extract from my influential and high-toned journal, which you will see has allusion to yourself. I think I was not going too far when I stated that you were the 'brightest star in the railroad firmament ;' * that your practical knowledge was unequaled;' and your ' executive abil- ity of an order that would qualify a Napoleon, a Jackson, or a Washington. " I was also erring on the side of modesty when I stated that 'your accomplished wife and interest- ing children were rich jewels in your wreath of fame, and the eclipsing constellation of the social circle.' "Send pass for my wife, her mother-in-law and grandmother, and nurse and six children, over your well-managed road, on Tuesday, sure. Don't include me — can not leave my arduous and weighty duties in this district. " Yours to command, * * * * *." If the effusive writer of the above does not receive 1 ted, gen- ainy will going ghtest actical e abil- leon, a f -when nterest- jath of 3 social aw and rer your include y duties )t receive EDITORIAL COMPLIMENTS AND ABUSE. 217 the passes he requests, the next issue of his paper contains something like the following : " We are sorry to hear such bad accounts of the Railroad. A short time ago it was a pleasure for us to be able to speak of it in terms of .commen- dation. The track is simply execrable, and an in- junction should be served on the company not to run precious human lives over it at a greater speed than four miles an hour. The cars, also, are more like piggeries. Under the present management the road has gone to the bad. We can account in no other way for this almost sudden change of affairs than by the rumor that one high in authority is the victim of excessive habits. We once had occasion to speak of him in laudatory terms; but, painful as the truth is, it must be told : he reeks with gin and bad tobacco, and a more melancholy sight was never our lot than that of this broken-down, blear-eyed, pim- ply-faced, blotchy-nosed imbecile shuffling along the streets, followed by his raw-boned, draggle-tailed wife, and their unwholesome offspring." This is very touching : " Respected Sir, — I hanker after going to see the grave of my poor brother. Let^me kiss him for his 10 •: >l M m U 218 A FAST LIFE. mother. I and the only dependent upon a widowed mother and orphan. I want to bedew his grave with tears, but I can not do it without I get a pass over your road. I'm sure you won't refuse when I say again, let me go to Johnsonville, Maine, and kiss him for his mother — leastwise the sod. If you can't go the whole hog, can you go a half- fare ticket? "Yours in affliction, * * * * *» Here is an application from a gentleman, who ap- parently is very disinterested : "My dear Sir, — I hear your road is improved wonderful, but I take no man's opinion ; I want to see for myself. Mail me a pass, and I'll take a trip over it, and let you know what I think. "Truly yours, * * * »> , DISMISSAL. We are told to invoke blessings on the man who invented letters. It is a hard thing to do, after hav- ing written letters all day, to find out you have to continue doing so all the evening to keep up with your business. A fretful man in such a case is like- ly to bestow maledictions on the inventive faculty of Professor Cadmus. A freight agent at an important station on an En- DISMISSAL. 219 trip *'» an En- glish railway had a shorter way of disposing of his correspondence than by short-hand. He put his let- ters in the fire, and never answered them at all. His superior officers, thinking their commands had not reached him, sent copies, and called for replies; but they did not come, although they did call for them. A considerable portion of the company's business was becoming stagnated, and the machinery of the department was hampered in its action, and chaos was imminent. At this juncture, Mr. Piddington, general freight agent, thought he would have other copies made of all the letters he had written, and, as he was not per- sonally known to the recusant freight agent, take them himself and see what became of them. He started off, and duly arrived at the office of his subordinate, and found him sitting in his comfortable office, in the fragrance of a choice Havana, apparently enjoying his ease with dignity. " The general freight agent," said Mr. Piddington, " has found his letters addressed to you go astray ; and I have therefore thought better to make sure you get them." "Ah," said the imperturbable freight agent, receiv- ing about a hundred duplicates, "he does, does he? The old fool is always sending me his letters. This 220 A FAST LIFE. tr; , I* I '■■".I & - 1 ■M^ is the way I treat his stationery ;" and suiting tin; action to the word, threw the whole bundle into the fire. The next document the man received was his dis- missal ; and if he had put that into the fire also, he might have been in the company's employ now ; but he had the weakness to read it, and the result was inevitable. THE CONCLUSION. There are other men and things connected with the working of our Modern Highway which might be entertaining to refei; to ; but it was not a part of my intention to go over the whole range of the subject. 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