The Express.
London, England, 1850-01-03 00:00:00

MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS.

(Rom th• Daft/ Nom)

NANCSISTSII. JAN. Z.
The obeerrassee of Now Year's Day in them die
tricts is only a shade lees strictly, though it say be Ism
seeredly attended to, those the pest (seat et Christmas; sad,
with the empties of • few hours' work is the yesterday was kept es • general holiday. Bo many .11111
may not make • point of goiag to a plates of worship; sever.
they all bat abetsin from beauties, and settalaly
the rule to " cat, drink, and be mmy," Ii as
rigidly observed by all who have it In their
power, as though it were prescribed by law. Could
lir. Pips ham bees embodied and come as,
es* might Jemmies him jotting it down in his es
" pretty to or. the poor in all our workhouses eating of ram*
beef and plum podding es Christmas day ;" and ft may be
soaceded as not see of the least pigmies and humaisising
hiatuses of the times that, notwithstandiag the oppress se-
ars of pour rates, and the tight rein whisk the poor law
board bath it nearmary to keep upon boards of guardians
in their • zpinditem, the screw has not born allowed
to resets this poiat. It issaid to be • " poor Mart that slaver
rejoices," aid it was maces the most pleasing eirshastmess
seauseted with the celebration of Christmas in this great
town—where, as is your own vast metropolis, aloe' with
name of wealth rad all the thimble that attend it, ws have
slowest unfathomable and incooesivable depths of wretched.
new and poverty—that we were found to have gestlths.n of
the wisest wealth and highest station acmes as, who could
consent to leave for an hour or two the Inzages of their own
Uhl. s and the endearing ties which es that day MOTs than
usually attract them to the family *helm to me that the
paupers gathered round the workhosee beard, and the
wretched children nolleeted together in the named schools,
for ones in the year wen made to fare ormaptectesly and to
tormt the distance which separates thu Dives aid Lazarus of
these modern times.

"8 L dimmed " le est down (es a mark ea this bale Of
Nude) "H L Ote a digitised ; " sad " fity-flour Misty-ewe "
pea dews "6431 " es a progressive member Os the same
bale. " One-terolue" k integrated "lest 9qn. 10. b."
Throne .beet 30 bias er peeksges of sloth pissed upon
the roam time Nam it Is full, end before the thence is
esimplees; sad the meow time far Reloading, weighing,
fiekteMnig. end Wreaks the whale 30 is only fin minutes.
' k hankies the gelds yen hardly wonder at
the deem ekelenellem of Ike dark Irks pen learn the whets
of
Mssik dosing the fles minks& He has not only had
to tee deseriptiou and weight of eseh pukes*, bat to
determine to *hike( Bee slaws of geode, charged micordim
to their respestive duels, it belong. He has a long prinfed
thief the Mails of goods in each of these clauses before hies,
•kb the prise et sea glass, and the additional instruction
that the goods are of eunie aew description, which have
sever yet bees classed, they shall be charged as fourth clue,
oe the blithest priced but one; but it is obvious there
must be a repnat of this list in his brain, and of
the " reedy Neiman" too ; for he
to the originals, best jots down the_ prices of the carriage at
once, calculated to the farthing. When the hruck is loaded
it ie shoved forward, and, by means of • tarn-table at the
end of the arab, Is plaited upon a siding which leads to the
hoist Whilst this operation is going on the top of the truck
receives the sheet or oil-cloth which is to protect the goods
from the weather, the porter wbo throws it over Salting out
the number (ia this ease " 9,364 ") marked upon it under
the hadal. a the company, sad this the clerk also inserts in
th& inveigle; sad by this time he is expected to bees the in
voice east up sad to have entered on it the total weight in
tons, hundreds, quarters, sail pounds, and the total
charge which is to be made for menage, n pounds, *billings,
and pence.. And whilst the track goes up above by the
hoist, this theme, which will have to accompany it, guest)
into the heads of ether clerks, one of whom will copy it by •
press, and others of whom wiil perform • aeries of uperatiteas
from that copy, as little dreamt of by the tradesman in Loa-
d,. to whom the goods are going, aa if the prongs were per-
forator( in semi can planet. Thts is called the general
office, It is ea cake of checks and counterchecks, and that
manes sad abstrams. One clerk exuding and testa the neuron
of the arithmetic of the clerk below, and enters the totals of
each invoice is a book, with any overcharge or undercharge
be may discover, and • copy of these has to be entered upon
a sheet of paper and sent to London. Another clerk makes
a return, which Is forwarded daily, of the totals of every
ekes of geodesist by the line, with the station, they are sent
to, 130 is number upon the London and North Western line,
and sends a copy to the offices of the company in Londe.;
or if the goods have to leave the company's lines at any point
to go upon the rails of another company, he makes out a
similar return in respect to them to be twinned to the
clearing-house, that the clerks of that astahlisismeet may de-
termine and bring out the exact proportions Icr carriage
which will be due to each onipaey ; and el complete are
the details of railway management in this respect (through
the estsblishment of the Cie weal Itailways Complete. le
C.earicg-house), that if the sheet or oilcloth which covers a
waggon only gets upon another hoe, or gets upon half-a-
dozen others in succession, an account of it is kept, and the
eighth of a penny per mite is paid to the owned for every
mile it travels upon each line, with sixpence per day for
dean& n should it be kept back al'ier dune with. Another
clerk copies the totals of each clan of goods per day, week,
and month, into an =meths book, with the stations they
arc sent to, for the use of the manager of the traffic.
who sees at • glance whether there is any
falling off, detects at once the class of goods in
which the falling off or increase may appear, so
that if there be occasion for alarm or mquiry as to the cause,
due notice may be taken of it, to ascertain it it arise from de-
prtseion of trade or competition, and a remedy be sought, if
there is one. Then there are be sides these books the ledgers
in which all the amounts have to be kept, with • view to
getting the money. Bat there are besides this office up stairs
an office for the agents' clerks, through whose bands Oleo
documents have to pass, an audit office, • collectors' office,
an inquiry Olin, aa office in which all correspondence re.
aliening the goods' traffic are " enr.lied" or starred, soothe r
when they are copied and ii.dexed, replied to and teed ; end
even this matter of correspondence, extending to about 450
letten•day, ion° trifling matter. But we go back to the truck.
of goods to be sent off to Landon by the 7 o'clock train, which
have been sent up the hoist, and have now to be " mar-
shalled " (u it is termed) in the 'Rorer order, the trucks
to toed in having precedence always, of course, whilst the
one to be left behind at the nearest station is last. 11. re
• clerk is making out a waybill, on which he enters the
number of each truck, and what soothe it will have to be
left at. This is given in charge of the guard, who at this
moment (close upon 7 o'clock) is examining the wheels
and axlee of all the trucks iu his charge, having
power to refuse them if not to his mind (but
be must Benign the reason in writing) ; atter
which he takes his place in tit! break waggon behind,
and the train rolls off. The train which we saw depart was
not one of the largest expreeies; it consisted of 3.1 trucks,
with 120 tons of goods at a charge of 21. per ton on the see-
rege, or a total of 2401. for the train. Immeoietely this
train is despatched the workmen direct their energies to the
loading of the eleven o'clock train, which is usually of about
twice the length of the other, and do not go home mete that
hour, returning to their laborious employment at five next
morning, to receive, unload, and deliver the goods which the
down trains from London and elsewhere have brought in
' during the night—calling for as much activity and
energy as that we have described of the previous
evening. Some idea may be formed cf the labours
of this enormous esfaleiehment when it is stated that
t- ere have been upwards of Iteo,ooo tons of gods brought in
and taken out of Manchester by it during the year ; that
then have been 150,000 trucks moved in and out; that
there have been about two millions of package, received and
forwarded; and that the management cif this bwiuess has
led to a correspondence daring the year in reference to
then goods consisting of 114,901 letters mkt memt rendume.
Without discipline this bode of men, receiving about 18..
• week wages, could not get through their work in the time.
Sobriety is strictly enjoined. Oaths are punishable with
seem Ames. It is surprising to observe the order and regu-
larity with which they perform the work, and the absence
of that disgusting lane cage which so often characterises
the conduct of bodies of labourers in the same rank of life.
Years ago, at this station, the bale of good. was passed from
Wind to hand with an oath, and received with an oath. lint
tae manager observed that in the interchange of these in-
civilities much time was lost. They led to quarrelling and
fighting, and • traia of goods might be delayed, and the op-
portunity to despatch it lost, through such disgraceml broils
To compensate them for the loss of such an accustomed
interchange of sentiment, Mr Salt made them a present of a
library of nearly 400 volumes of books, bought at
his own cost, which are kept in the premises, and
lent out without charge. Tnough the men are
obliged to commence work at Ave in the morning
and cannot leave till eleven o'clock at night, there is a con.
Biderable interval in the middle of the day when they have
nothing to do, and this interval, formerly a temptation to
drunkenness, is now often devoted to reading. Mr. Kaye,
one of the principal clerks, informed us that on seeking the
library on one occasion ter a book, he found every voition
except one had been taken out—and that tolitary volume
was one of two bibles the library contains!
Such are the men employed at the Manchester station of
the London and North-Western Railway Company, and such
the circumstances under which they were gathered together
last evening to enjoy their new year's treat. Their ban.
quetting-hall wean immense arch which leavens* the centre
of the ordinary arches at right angles, forming an int/real
communication between them, laid with rails anti turn-
tables for the railway trucks. Visited at ordinary times,
teen at midday, it would present the appearance of a dark
and gloomy, but lofty, cavern ; but the ready hands and
willing and ingenious minds of these workmen had trans-
formed it into a fairy palace. It has a spacious
platform at one end, and midway along one of
the aides an orchestra has been erected for musicians. The
rough woodwork of which it and some other contrivances
are composed are screened from observation by • profusion
of evergreens disposed in most tasteful devices. The gloomy,
cavernous looking archways which open out of it on either
side, filled up with hollies and tell sad graceful laurel trees,
become elegant recesses. A profusion of similar lofty ever-
greens, kindly contributed by Mr. Leigh of Adlington Hall,
form a semen at either end of the room, concealing from view
immense stoves which have been kept well supplied with fire
to give warmth to the place. The tables are loaded with
Leicestershire pork-pies and plum-cakes, purchased by the
hundredweight, and the beverage for the guests is tea, sup-
plied from numerous urns, which have been planet at con-
naient distances; and jets of gas from nearly a thousand
burners throw a find of light over the whole scene—a scene
to which, after all, the pea is able to do bat poor and far from
sufficient justice. Mr. Salt and his brother officers occupied
seats on the platform ; toasts and compliments were passed
with hearty good will ; music added to the charm of the pro-
ceedings ; the evening closed with • ball; and • real treat
was enjoyed by these sons of toil, which in some respects
men of wealth and station, whose lot has been cut in happier
hours, might justly envy them of.

Next to the pleasure of witnessing them seasonable tier-
eims of sheeny, may be noted the kindly displays of hospi-
tality between employers ai.d workmen which often mark
this period of the year, and shed a ray of sunatine over
the labosreeslot. I was invited last scalar (the evening
of New Year's Day) to witness one of these scenes. It
was the annual treat given to the porters and workmen
employed in the goods department at the Manchester ter
minus of the London and North Western Railway—the
department over which Mr. Salt (the author of a new
week of railway statistics, recently very favourably
reviewed in the Daily News) presides. This
least, given to &boat 3UO workmen and their wives, it will
hardly be supposed in then days of declining dividend...—
whets a meeting of shareholders is like an antaanlage of en
many bears with sore heads—can be paid for out of the fords
of distempers.: directon woali as soon think of placing
their unhappy semen in the pillory. No : Mr. Salt is a
strict diaciplinartan amongst his workmen, and to carry out
his plans has established a system of fines for breaches of that
disc ; line, and these fines go to a fund, which ha
generously adds about 501. a you to, that his
men may thus enjoy themselves. But before we
Went to see them feast, it was thought nut much less its-
toreeticg to take an opportunity of beholding how the) could
work. And upon this point • few words may not be once
usable to some of your readers who are not familiar with
the dotaPs of railway management in this department of its
slain. They may rest assured that it is a much mem
animating sues to witness one of those long gouts' trans
which they may have seen pees them ea the railway, in the
warn of tormation and putting together, than to watch It
dragging its slow length along, coven d up in unsightly
weather beaten oil-cloths, with the interminable inidai
" L.& N. W. 1t.," which so constently meet the eve, god
with a long line of figures underneath them, such as" 95467,"
denoting the proms -in number.
Your London tradesman suds himself in a fin:-clew
carriage at Eus•on-rquere, at five o'clock in the evens,"
with the luxury of easy cushions to rest upon, the sofesti
and warmest of rues fur his tcet, and a lamp throwing ho
banned light from above over the whole interior. Even
ventilation is not lost sight of as another essential comfort.
Six hours afterwards he finds himself seated at supper at
his betel at Manchester. Next day he takes a run
tboital our manufactorm' or merchants' warehouses;
select a bale of goods here, and perhaps five or
:en elsewhere; dines at three or four o'clock;
is in the express train with his face to London
by • 'inlet after five again ; sleeps at home, after a jaunt of
nearly 400 miles, and an absence of only about 30 honer,
without the loos of a night's rest. The next =onion, when
he visits his itsfahlishment in London—say at nine o'clock
he ti ols the fabrics which he hod finished selecting at Man-
chester the evening before—no male, whether at one ware
noose or fifty, and without regard to weight, whether In
hundred pounds, or fifty or a hundred toes—lying at hie
shopdoor. If the mention of a reality so extraordinary
as this fails to awaken thoughts skin to those excited by
the story of Aladdin's wonderful lamp, it may be questioned
whether the reader, could he have all the details, all ve
machinery, all the activity of mind and body, all the skill
and lemony which have been at work in the int. real of
16 to 17 hours. in the packing, transport, and dello ry of
the., goods, placed before him • t a glance, would not
marvel mon at the bare Gets thus revealed even than at
all he extrannanciee of Ruse rn romance. Were these goods
endowed with power to look after themselves—to walk to the
statics, take their tickets and their places in the waggons, and
unload and deliver themselves at ti.e j .urney's end, rulwaye
have been long enough et work now to have enabled t eeiple
to suppress any rising tendency to manifest their though."' in
core...ions of vulgar surprise; bat when it is re eoliected
that a bale of hoods is so much inert matter dependicg for
in safety on cue in packing, on a simple lab-I, and the intel-
ligence brought to bear upon it in every direction where it
passes—that it is one of six or seven thousand puke.. es
which pan threugh the company's hands every day, and that
whatever accident attends it (whether it be left at
• wron nation. raiedirected, overcharged, lust, or
stolen) \here must be such an see. not kept of it
and recorded in the company's hooks, that the superintend.
est of the department may be able to put his finger upon It
and say almost at once where the error originated, and who
is to blame; and that if this were not done, in lest than two'
days t e whole business of the com,tany would he thrown
into a mass of inextricable confurion ,• a glimmering idea
may be formed of the feat which has to be accomplished, and
which, regular as clock-work almost, is accomplished.
Tee Linden-road station and terminus of the company at
Manchester is over a series of lofty and exec dengly spacious
archer. extend ng to a groat distance, and as the cemnans
an sufficiently confined on the top of dies* arches for room
03 conduct their passenger traffic, all the goods Defile is pre-
pared and Laded for transit underneath, in the arches them-
selves; and each railway truck or waggon, as soon as loaded,
Is pissed upon a ooist worked by a power'ul engine, and
Shed wholesale up to the rails above, ready to be marshalled
the train in which it is to forma part. The goods earri-d
by the company are brought to, and taken teem, the station,
I not by the company's own servants, but by two delivery
agents, Messrs. Pickford and Co and Messrs. Chaplin and
Horne. The two principal goods trains which the com•
pang run at night to London are one at seven,
arid one at eleven. The first is called the goods
express train ; it leaves Manchester at seven at night,
and reaches Euston-square almost to the minute at seven
next morning, so that, after taking off stoppages, it travels
when in motion at something like 20 miles the hour. It
would be by this train the London .neltsmen's goods, before
alluded to, would be despatched ; and we were allowed to
lie present to see the preparation for starting the train. The
two delivery agents, who keep about 80 lorries or teams In
work, usually set about collecting the goods to be despatched
by this train at fin o'clock in the evening. Each team
has its allotted district of the town, and it is
wonderful to note with what precision they drop
upon the warehouses at which the goods are to
be had. There might be something of Instinct about
it; they rarely step at a doer where they are not wanted ;
and from half past lies or six o'clock ibey begin to pour into
the arches at the railway station to unloal their goods. Aud
here a scone of activity commences, aided by a nice division
of labour, such as is rarely seen. Down the centre of each
of them arches is a stage for receiving and weighing the
goods upon. At convenient distances slong this stage are
placed small cranes of the oldest sad simplest construction, in
couples (one on each side) to lift and move about the pack-
ages of goods. Tne lorries or carriers' waggons take up
a position along one side of these cranes, and on the opposite
side are the empty railway trucks ready to receive the
goods. The driver of the lorry mounts to the top of it for
unloading, and inserts the hook attached to the rope of the
nearest crane under one of the bandages. The cranetnan
lifts the package upon the stage, where a third man receives
and guides it upon the plata ills weighing machine, and
unhooks it. The weigher Inserts the hook of the other crane
in the bandage as the first is let go, and shouts or sings out
in a drawling monotonous voice, " H. L. diamond—fifty
four, thirty one—one, two, ten," or some dollar description,
and, en the last words are out of his mouth, the package is
swinging over the railway truck, where the loader having
spread • sufficient quantity of straw on the bottom of his
vehicle, to prevent the heads of any nails or bolts in it from
injuring the gods in transit by friction, receives the
package in its proper position, scatters straw over it, end
awaits the arrival of another package, which is already on
its way towards him with the same deliberate steps as the
lest, and &command with the same, or similar, myeteri.
ems exclamations from the man who weighs it. Packages
weighing from one to five hundred pounds are
teeellg about upon the stags with the aid of
the erases, and the quick eyes of the men who
murk them to seise the proper moment for hoisting them, as
though they ware so many bundles of feathers • and the
loader as he builds them up into a load has attained by
practice such lice discrimination and judgment that he
guides them as het would were they but a to is his hands to
the place when they will peek most firmly, at once, and
rarely in the course abases or indite ci days has he ever to
move them, through miscalculation. Whilst we have been
engrossed in looking at the workmen thus sugagod, for live
or ten urinates, • new object has attracted our
attention. Perched up aloft at a window be-
hind the railway truck, under • gas light,
is a man with • pen is his hand, and his eyes directed
towards • abut of paper under his noes. He appears!. be
in • fit of abstraction so deep as to be insensible to may.
thing simian before or aroma him, and to every nand, gee
he is supposed to knew every thing that is rand sm. Ths
skeet of paper before him is the invade of thee giggle mks
Owed Ia the railway truth. The flint words b. ennieng en
it weft "London truck," which mum • :ruck going to
Leaded; the next " 2,974," whith is the number
' of the track; and to these particulars he adds
the same of " Pickford." se doh memos that the
goods era eons gned to Pitaatord in L indon fur de-
'rho jareon of eir:spie above aiuded to, uttered in
a tom incompreheseik.le to the stranger, he inserts with al-
I meet unerring Cali in this invoice, and as the ink Howe
from bit pen they appear Is a much more intelligible form.

TIIRRE LIVES LOST ON THE EAST LANCASHIRE
RAILITAY.—On Tuesday miming, one of the most dreadful
aseidants which has occurred in that locality for a long
period of time, happened at the Maghull Station, on the
Rest Lancashire Railway. It appears from the narrative of
a passenger that a train left Preston at a quarter before
eight o'clock in the evening for Liverpool, with only ode
mange attached to the engine, consisting of But and
second clue compartments. At the Ormakirk station
there was a considerable accession of penengen, for
whom it did net spinier that there was ads-
gnats room. When the train arrived at the Magbull
etatioa there was a spare carnage on the siding, and to get
hold of this carnage the train creased the line on to the
other rails, and for about tea minutes wee 'moving up and
down an the rails on the wrong side of the line, when an
alarm was given that a train was coming up, and being in
the way of any train on the wrong rails, it was apprehended
by the passengers that a train might be coming up on the
same line as that on which they were moving, and, curler
thin apprehension, several of the passengers jumped out,
when a train towards Liverpool paned at a rapid rem, and
the night IV dark, sad the passengers on the track of the
M undt* no in a state of the utmost contusion end
alarm,
ahem, three them were caught by the engine end killed
on the got. Their bodies were inunedlateiy picked op, het
is •daseking state of lllsUlatios. We tame not been able
to hen the names of the parties, bat it is believed that they
were country people who had bean trenseeting blokes,. at
Orniskirk. Rad these nAketnne:ie people retained their
mate, they would have sustained no injury; but the concise-
' ass meving eat the train up sr:4 down the fined the station,
I the knowledge that they ee' re on the wrong rails for their
own male, and the IOW: of the approaching engine, appear
te have anima • peoie.., resulting in this melancholy carmine-
Um. Whether atone attaches anywhere or net cannot as
• yet In samr:alned, but no doubt the whole of the facts will
transpire at tit, inquest to be held on the bodies of the rm-
. ketultlie pampa.

THE EXPRESS THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 3, 1850.