The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-04-24 00:00:00

THE EX-RAILWAY KING.

The following paragraph has been going the rounds
of the papers :
" The result of the final appeal on the long litigation
between the North-Eastern Railway Company and Mr.
George Hudson was to confirm the reversal of the decision
of the Master of the Rolls, and redu,s Mz. Hodson to a
state of penury. He is now in France, said to be utterly
destitute. In addition to a subscription to meet present
wants, and in the belief that the 'Railway King' was as
much 'sinned against as sinning,' a large shareholder has
intimated his intention to ask his co-partners in the North-
Eastern Company to grant to Mr. Hudson an annuity of £2OO
A year. All interesting discussion is looked for at the neat
geneial meeting, and many believe the feeling will be in
favour of the project."

Noticing the paragraph, the Daily Tdegraph has the
following leader on it :
The King is dead—Long live the King." That is the
form in which the French people, before their great Revolu-
tion, tilted to announce that one King was dead, and another
reigned in his place. To-day we are concerned with the Rail-
way King—George Hudson —the great King George of Loco-
motives and Permanent Ways, of the Share List and the Rail-
way Market. The Railway King in not exactly dead, but he
Is rain,,! root arid branch—stnek and flocks. There is an
end of him another will soon take his place. For the moment
we are in the trough of the sea, between two waves of specula-
lion: but the temper of the country must be wonderfully
changed for the better if experience has taught as wholesale
win loin. One time it was mines ; another, railways ;
another, banks ; while piers, harbours, and hotels have each
had their turn Companies have been contrived for every
purpose short of boiling the moon—although even that little
speculation might at one time have found contributors.
Depend upon it, we shall some day begin again. Overenti,
Gurney. and Co., the London, Chatham, and Dover, the
Italian Banks, will be forgotten; or, if remembered at all,
thought t f only as we think ot last year's dreams. Will
our friends again rush down for allotments in the good old
style, and, through over-haste to be rich, end iu pinching
poverty u before? The pear, however, is not yet ripe ; lint
It may he ripening fast, and men's thoughts may even
now be turning, in a hazy sort of way, to the luscious
I nut which is dangling on its la ALA in so teniptmg a manner.
At such a moment it is worth while to bestow a minute's
attention on the fate of the K Wives, King. Poor George
Iludson and the NorthtEastern Railway Company have
pushed their dispute to a " bitter end and the remit is,
that the decision of the Master 1,1 the Rolls has been con-
firmed. The day has gone against hitn, and at this moment
George Hudson has not a penny in the world ; indeed, if all
were known, there is little doubt that he would be found
heavily involved in debt. ll eis somewhere or other in France,
leading that dreary purposeless life which too many of our
ruined countrymen are forced to lead in Continental
towns. The lord of millions, the man at whose beck and
call the rate of interest was changed—he who has lived to see
the bearers of the proudest names in England grovelling at
h•s feet, like a set of lick-splttles, as they were—ls now re-
duced to a "little glass " and a game of deminoen in front of
a French café •, glail, too, if he c,an get even that. Poor
man ! unless Ms !train has been so weakened by misfortune
that he has ceased to think at all, how the grand old days
must rise to his mind when the Duchesses came flocking to
his feasts and the Dukes followed after, each one so
ready with wreathed smiles and bated breath to
do honour to t. dear air. Hudson," the wonder of
his day tied the delight of all matikbal. Whatever
Into have been the menuss of his SP.:W(I4I(MS, whatever his
disregard of stern commercial morality, George Hudson may
find some palliative for his career in the utter baseness of
those who flattered him daring his prosperity. Now that he
is di twn, they would point the finger and shoot the tongue of
scorn at him—if indeed, they could he brought to admit that
they had ever eaten at his board and drunk of his cup at all.
The Railway King Is down at last, and " down among the
dead men let hies lie."
It was a wonderful time, that of the railway mania. A
quarter of a century has since gone over our heads; yet it
seema but sterday that the Parliamentary agents anti en-
gineers were hustling to the committee-rooms to " float "
their rail any schemes, and Corlimentary minuet were mak-
ing speeches at the rate of something like a gallica a word. In
these good days Drained sovereigns, and the air was thick with
bank-notes as with the snow on the afternoon of a winter's
day. You might have heard Mr. Cockburn's bland, musical
talk in nue room, while in another Sergeant Wrangham was
demolishing an adverse engineer, or, as the phrase ran,
setting his own man on his legs again. Mr. Charles
Austen might Imve been seen moodily poking the
fire in his own chambers The fact was, he had been so
heavily piled with fees on all sides, that if he appeared at all
In a committee-room it would have been showing an unfair
preference for one over all his other clients. A man was well
paid, in those days, who could carry a theodolite or a level—
if he knew how to use them his fortune was made. Heads of
families saw their way to sending all their boys to Eton ;
matrons dreamed of diamonds ; even governesses bablded of
retiring upon easy fortunes. The clergy in the remotest
corner of the most remote diocese talked more eagerly of the
Share Litt thsti of the Bishop's Charge; and the hearts
of half pay officers were glad. Yen hail only to be
a director, and your tenons was assured. While it
lasted, and until the crash came, wills{ a dream of fair
women, and golden dishes, and cash balances it was, to be
sure! George Hudson, the poor fellow who may be now
sometimes seen at the Calais Railway Statton, waiting ter a
Warier at the morning paper whtch is in the hands of the
ilit,u;gh uengt rto Paris, was fl, tn,,mAt in,.. '•

splendid race for wealth. a shrewd cdcul or. KIDt a good
man id busiriesdi be was. before Fortune turned hi, head. In
his dram r'a ,hop at York, or at the laiard of that Yorkslyre
line where his fitness for the work of speculation was first
tested, there was no better man than George Hudson.
W 110413 brain would not have been upset lo such homave as was
paid to him—by the marvellous res ults which seemed to follow
from his slightest act? llie promoters of he various schemes
begged arid implored George Hudson Intake the direction of
their attain.. "If Mr. Ilistlsno IFfialLi list look at it," thrice
happy would it be with them, arid all would go well ! For a
time all did g well. It seernoci RS if the than carried a talis-
ntan about with him, and could ell up valleys, or conjure down
m•eintains, hi a mere word. Then catue antoment when the
tilisman eat list, and its late owner became like any other
man—or, indeed, of less account, inaamuch as he was dated
Alai hampered by the contrast between kis present and his
past. More than this where he hail so lately seen
around him a fawning tribe of fl Moroni, he now
found nothing hilt hatred and indignatioa in every
face. "Lo ! the man who has ruined us all !" It was false--
they hail ruined themselves. George Hudson was but the
embodiment of their own mad greet for gain—of their dis-
honest desire for wealth which they hail never earned. He
was a trifle more capable, a little more daring, than Ids
fellows—that was all. The bulk of the nation would have
done what the Railway King actually did, had they but pos-
sessed sufficient cunning and bobinetat. Admiring him, they
admired themselves. Ile was what is tailed " A representa-
tive man" for England, when England was mad and scarcely
honest. Who would 'tot just then have called his child
" George " and looked on with rapture if the Railway King
had condescended to stand godfather for the brat Surely
Mr. Hudson would have taught the child his duty to his
neighbour—as duty was then widerstood.
There is no use in mor, hung about the matter. We were
all mad in those days. We have been mad many times since,
and probably, if we live on, we shall be mad again. Our
ancestors were PIA as mad as we were, or else aid Mantes are
told afoul South Sea bubbles and Misalsaippl schemer. The
"Rogues %larch "is a tate for all periods lift be true that
burnt ehild reit dread the tire, it is certainly untrue Viet those
who see children burnt ilresd it far more thane passing hour.
T .0 illicit of speculation will surely arise anion us again, and
we shall go once more throu Ii the same sorrowful cyc'e
of naming prosperity and real ruin—of wild hope and in-
evitable despair. The bait is so glitteritg, the chances Id the
board are so inagidecent, that men will say again what they
have said before. "We are not as others were. We have
heads on our shoolders. We know when to go in, 81111 when
to oome out We are the bright children of rising markets,
quick to discern the first mmplonis of a fall, and ready to
makeirood our escape. Of manse the bulls and bears will share
a common fate, as they have so of ien done before. Scarcely
one hottest man will profit permanently by all the holden,
and turmoil. A few arch-rogues, indeed, may clear if the
stakes, but ills doubtful they will long km p their Ms-
hoie at gains. It may be preaching to the waves, and plotigh-
lug the seashore ; but any wanting word that could avail to
put off the evil day of dopes would be emnething. Let him
who cin make shoes stick to his last ; let each man attend
to the business which he his learnt, and which he really un-
derstands, and never place his hard-won eariiings at the
mercy of strangers. For a while men have drawn in their
horns. Tnat Black Day at the Stock Exchange, those rows
of empty holeue in Tjburnia, those poor ruined
families who are skulking about in holes and cor-
ners like stricken deer, are not yet quite forgotten. html
have been hr null, for the moment, to a:knowledge that
high interest and bad security mean the same thing; but.the
lesson will too probably be forgotten ere lohg. The fever of
speculation will set in again, and we shall have the hot et
and the cold fit as before. Meanwhile, let us give a thought
to this wretched man, George Hudson. It is said that a pro-
ject is on foot amongst the shareholders of the NorthEasteru
Kttlway Company to grant hint an annuity of kale for the
remainder of his days. His clays Cal,a,a in the course of
nature be many, and Oriel will help Time to do his work
We should be glad to hear that the benevolent in-
tent hail beers carried out ; for surely, with all his
fanits, George Hudson did help forward the railway system
id the country. It is nod to think of the poor If, iiiway Kinn
dragging out the miseraole remainder of his days. depentlen
.11 the charity of foreigners, in a strange 1811‘1. The
umught of another dethroned king—of the King of Fashion,
Beau Brut:lintel—rises in the mind, then we speak thus
of Geoige Hudson. lie. too, was banished front his
throne ; he, too, lived at starvation point in a French
provincial town ; indeed, his end was sadder still. We
should all be sorry to hear that our fallen Rail way King, like
his Royal lir..ther, had died in a French mad-house. Let us
send the nailer 1,1 his own victims a retrospective fee for the
lesson lie has taught its. Meanwhile, people who run gain a
decent living by hods: industry must be content, and, if any
one should offer thein twenty per cent. for their earnings,
they will do well to think of George Hudson and of his fate.