The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-04-03 00:00:00

RAILWAY TRAVELLING IN AMERICA.

The Special Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, in an
Interesting article (one of the "America Revisited" series),
entitled "To the Rome of the Setting Sun," relates several
incidents of travel in America. We make the following
extracts from the article :

• • . "So I took the North-Western from Chicago
to Council Bluffs, a distance of nearly five hundred
miles, designedly delaying by one day my departure
from the City of High Pressure in order that I might
secure a section in one of the newest and the hand-
somest of the Pullman Sleeping and Hotel Cars,
the International.' The interior of the car was
a marvel of decorative cabinet work; but there
is no need for me to describe its internal
arrangements, seeing that they are in the narpn
similar to those of the Pullman Restaurant Cars which
when I left England were beginning to run on the
Great Northern Railway between King's-cross and
Leeds. The American bill of fare, however, com-
prised sundry daintiea which might be looked for in
vain in railway England. We were offered prairie
chicken, blue-winged teal, and golden plover, oysters
cooked in half-a-dozen styles, stewed tomatoes, sweet
Potatoes, and a pleasing variety of omelettes. A lady
and gentleman partook of an omelette au rhunt, to
which fire was duly set. It was good to watch the
cheerful blaze; nor was the sight by any means sterile
in suggestive elements.. •

- ------- - - -
I have somewhere read that Demooritus of Abdera,
When he was wea.ried with overmuch studying, com-
Pounding chemicals, dissecting swine to find the seat
of the gall, writing tractates upon the folly of man-
kind and the like, would, in the cool of the evening,
trot down to the haven, and divert himself by
listening to the brabble ef the bargees and the fish-
wives. Such distractions we may enjoy, whole-
selnel3,, without being either DCMOCTItIISeS or
dwellers among the Abderites. Thus, lest I should
grew cloyed with golden plover and omelette
au rhum, and the other delicacies of the Pullman
Hotel Car, would I saunter through the train from car
to car, until at last I reached the remote " smoker," or
car devoted to the temporary accommodation of those
who wished to enjoy the solace of a pipe or a cigar.
More than once have I remarked that the deficient
accommodation provided for smokers is the one gretrA
drawbaok to the comfort of American railways. In
England the rights of the railway smoker are secured
by Act of Parliament. In the United States he
has no such rights, and his enjoyment of the few
and far-between privileges which he furtively
snatches is fiercely disputed by the fair sex. Thus
the car known as the "smoker" is usually relegated
to the least eligible part of the train, next to the
baggage car; and it generally, even on the best ap-
pointed lines, is the untidiest and least cleanly com-
partment of the train. As misery is said to make a
man acquainted with strange bedfellows, so the habit
of smoking brings all sorts and conditions of people
together; and I have math the oddest of acquaint-
alices, and listened to the drollest of conversa-
tions, among the omnium gatherum of humanity
herded together in an American smoking car. As for
the possible "rough," there is not much need for you
to trouble yourself about him. If you refrain from
adopting the asinine practice of carrying a revolver
under peaceable conditions of travelling, it is with
the extremest rarity that you will find a revolver
drawn upon you. It is, as a rule, those who
needlessly talk about shooting who run the
greatest risk of getting shot. It is not by any
Igniins certain that you will get into a quarrel by
rermsing to drink with the first possible rough who
accosts you, whereas I have been told over and over
again that to accept a drink from a total stranger is a
iae oied non in the West. It is a case of "inside or
Out" I was assured. Either you must swallow the
dram or run the risk of ulterior consequences in the
way of steel or lead. Frequent experience, how-
ever, leads me to the conclusion that if you civilly
tell your unknown friend that you have "sworn
On," or that "you are not equal to anything
else before supper, lie will take your refusal in
choroughly good part. Of course, there are ex-
teptions to the rule; but of one thing be cer-
tain, that if by ill-luck you do fall serose a rough
American who is wholly or partially "tight," and pro.
Portionately fractious, or prone to exhibit tendencies
of an "ugly " or violent nature, the vast majority of
yolar fellow-travellers will be peaceable
.and. law-
abiding persons Whose interest lies in the direction of
the rough being' "run out" or "chucked off at the
earliest possible opportunity, Ile not afeard. then, to
Zle with the raatg-headed in the "smoke,' weep

yourself toseurself as reasonable discrimination shall
dictate ; but speak when you are spoken to shortly and
courteously, and you will get along very comfort-
ably. . . .
Perhaps the most amusing travelling companion
that I fell across was a little old fellow in a sealskin
cap, who was a cripple and moved on crutches, but
who will always be embalmed in my memory as the
Happy Man. He said not a word to me nor Ito him,
but whenever in the course of our five hundred miles'
journey it happened that I strolled into the "smoker,"
there was the little crippled man, sitting in the warmest
corner, with the soles of his feet comfortably wedged
against the wall of the stove, and singing softly
but merrily to himself, as though he would never
grow old, and there were no such things as sorrow, or
discord, or poverty in the world. He had gotten what
is called a 'Dime Songster"—" America's own Motto
Songster," I think—with him, and, beginning at the
beginning, was going right through the two hundred
double-columned pages of that admired Little Warbler.
"Our Star-spangled Flag of the Free," "Never go
back on the Poor," "Kicking a Man when he's Down,"
"Prove yourself the Poor Man's Friend," "The
Patriot's Dream, "Brooklyn's Great Fire," "Cus-
tard Pie," "Give the Working Man a Chance,"
" tolEes's Verdict," and "Sunday Night, when the
parlour is full "—these were among the songs which he
sang, or rather intoned. His rendering of a chorus
was delicious, and there was something inexpressibly
pathetic in his tol de role" and "right tol de rol
lay." In his tunes there was not much more variety
than in that eating-house gravy which serves for beef
and mutton, pork and veal alike; but it was some-
thing of a hymnological melody with a comic flavour—
say the "Old Hundredth combined with "Jim Crow"
in slow time.