The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-12-23 00:00:00

THE RAILWAY GUARD.

Our Own Commissioner "of the Daily Telegraph has an
excellent article on the over-worked Railway Guard, from
which we make the following extract : -

It is quite a mistake to imagine that the guard, as
a rule, has an easy time of it. The well-brushed coat,
with the polished buttons and untarnished braided
collar, is doubtless in a great degree responsible for the
popular delusion. He does not look like a hard-worked
man as he steps out of his break on the tmin's arrival
at a station, and in his neat, brisk way, superintends
the delivery and embarking of the luggage; but the
handsome coat is more for the public gaze than the
guard's comfort. He takes it off while at work and
slips it on when his platform presence is required, just
as a maid-of-all-work slips on a decent apron over her
drudge-branded gown when there conies a gentle
" rat-tat " at the door. In his break he toils in his
shirt sleeves. Ile would never get through his work
if he did not so far strip to it. At every sta-
tion of importance, letters and parcels and packages
of every description pour in upon Lim, and these he
has to sort and arrange and place in proper order
for prompt delivery, for should it happen that he
" over-carries " a parcel or a letter he will be fined
from a shilling to half-a-crown ; the latter sum being as
much as he would probably receive for ten or fifteen
hours " overtime." Nor is this the full extent of the
over-carrying penalty. It is currently reported and
believed among tile men themselves, that a more vigi-
lant watch is kept for over-carried goods at Christmas
than at any other season. Such a slip- -and it may
easily occur in the vase of a man who is worked
the whole week through eighteen hours out of
twenty-four—rosy mean not only a short week's
pay, but the utter wreck and annihilation of
long cherished hopes of new boots for the chil-
dren, and a Christmas gown for the wife, or the
replenishing if the empty coal-cellar, or the payment
of long arrears of a doctor's bill. It may mean all
this, and for one simple reason. Railway guards, if
they are so well behaved the whole year through that
there is not a single complaint lodged against them,
are nroznised a gift of three or four pounds at the
year's end ; but a single fine of a pAry twelvepence
IR enough to bar their claim, and very frequently it
does so. I think, of all the complaints these hard-
worked fellows had to snake against their employers,
they mentioned none with such bitterness as this.
" But you can't imagine that the officials are RO mean
as to strain their energies, at this time of year, so
that they may find cause to fine you, and so shirk
the good-conduct money?" my friend Mr. Vincent
asked. At which the men shook their heads. They
couldn't say that, but what they could say was, that
there were more men fined during the last fortnight of
the year than in any two months during the same
period. This, however, was a minor grievance. Here

is one of a sort that is better deserving public attention.
Step forward, John Robinson, seventeen years
guard on the Midland, and tell your story. "I've
been seventeen years in the service," said this man,
"and at present I'm getting twenty-two shillings •
week. I've been lately reduced. I did have thirty-two,
but awhile ago there was a stoppage on the road, and I
was ..ut in the pouring rain till my clothes were wet to
my very shirt. When we gat° London I was se cold and
tired—l had been on fourteen hours already- that I
ventured out and got me a glass of spirits. For a
year almost I had been doing 2.300 miles a week of
about ninety hours to the week. But that didn't plead
hard enough for me. They brought me down to twenty-
two shillings a week, and sent Inc to these parts. I
had never been here before —didn't know the names
even of the local stations or a single mile of the
line and its gradients. They sent me here on
the Saturday to take charge on the Monday; and so,
to pave the way a little, I took a ticket en Saturday
night and went over the ground as a passenger; but it
was too dark for me to make much of it, and I hat to
come on Monday and tell the engine-driver the fix I
was in. Be was a wad-natured chap. We can
manage it,' says he; 'when I want the break slack or
hard Fll blow the whistle slack or hard,' and so he did,
and no in a week or two I picked up a knowledge of
the way. But it was a mercy that we did not have a
'pitch ' (accident), for I give you my word, gentle-
men, that the road I am alluding to it one of the
awkwa.rdest bits to be found in England.