The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-05 00:00:00

THIRD EDITION

SUN OFFICE, SIX O'CLOCK.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.—This Day.

BRIGHTON RACES-'IBIS DAY.
EY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
SUSSEX STAKES.

Quadrille
1
Adamas filly
Rest

Four ran.
OVINGDEAN PLATE.

Birdlime ..
Dora
Ten ran.
BRIGHTON CUP.

Caller Ou
cr.o.
12TH BIENNIAL STAKES.

Fille de I'Air

RAILWAY REFRESHMENTS.

There are a good many things in England that disgrac
the nation, and make us, or ought to make us, ashamed of
ourselves. There is the Haymarket at night, and there are
the F eople who playfully spend their leisure hours in heaving
a succession of half bricks at their wives. Bet, in one way,
there is nothing so disgraceful to England as the arrange-
ments at railway stations for what are termed refreshments.
The peculiarity of this national blot is that it is very definite,
very patent, very annoying, and easily remediable. No
human wisdom or efforts have as yet succeeded in cutting
to the root of the evil that fills the Haymarket. Acts of
Parliament have been passed, and passed in vain, against
that cruelty to children which does not awaken the resist-
ance of parents. Very brutal men, very drunk, with half a
brick near them, cannot resist the presence of a mark so
convenient, so patient, and often so aggravating, as a wife.
But it is absurd to suppose that there is in any deep
cause
or any profound social disease at the bottom of the contri-
vances of these wretched places. The English mind, though
slow to effect its purposes, could surely, if it tried, get rid of
the monstrous mismanagement which presides over all the
details of the system. Squabs of pork pie, offered without
the slightest reference to the season, old jam three cornered
puffs, fossil sandwitches, sausages concealed in heavy
pastry, sugary brittle cakes, and packets of sugar plums,
cannot be the only things that inventive Englishmen might
think of. As to the beverage, if at any station in England
a cup of coffee is sold, we should be glad to hear of that
happy place. In all those wretched refreshment rooms that
we have visited, we have found a curious brown dilution of
chicory, or imitation of chicory, sold as coffee, for it is not
even good chicory. It is a liquid only sold at stations and
bad hotels, and to make and sell it must be one of the most
mournful and degrading of occupations. Perhaps it is too
much to think of tea. For even in the better class of Eng-
lish hotels a really decent cup of tea is unknown. We are
not sure that the people whi keep refreshment rooms know
what tea and coffee are. They probably think that their
countrymen are born somehow to drink the imitation
chicory with which alone they are familiar. Now, in a na-
tion so rich as England, and where we persuade ourselves
that comfort is so well understood, it is disgraceful that a
traveller cannot get anything to eat and drink better than a
squab of pork-pie and a cup of imitation chicory. This mis-
management is disgraceful, because it is mean, and ignorant,
and barbarous, and because it wickedly causes much unne-
cessary discomfort. It is disgraceful, exactly as the old style
of Irish cottage was disgraceful. It degrades and annoys
everyone that has to do with it, and makes people satisfied
to give and satisfied to receive a mere cheat and imposition.