The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-29 00:00:00

The Engine-Drivers.

Yesterday, the strike being at an end, and the
whole of the engine-drivers and firemen, together
nearly 400 in number, having returned to work, the
passenger traffic of the London, Brighton, and
South-Coast Railway Company was resumed as well
on the main lines as on the subsidiary ones, and the
excitement consequent upon the dispute in the early
part of the week had died away. The leaders in
the movement, being better employed, held no meet-
ing at the Green Man, in Tooley-street, their head-
quarters, and the authorities, at the London Bridge
terminus, were relieved from the embarrassment
they had experienced on the two preVious days. The
men are much pleased with the result, and have
gone to work with a will. They have not quite at-
tained. all they wanted, but the directors having
generously conceded nearly all they asked, and
having besides met them half-way in the only re-
maining point of difference—that of promotion—.
both parties are satisfied, and the pride of neither
hasbeen offended. All or most of the trains to and
from London and Brighton, as well as those on all
the coast lines and branches between Portsmouth,
Hastings, Horsham, Guildford, and Tunbridge-wells
have been running since Wednesday, and yesterday
the ordinary trains were resumed over the whole
suburban system between London-bridge, Victoria,
Crystal Palace, Croydon,.Epsom, Leatherhead, and
Dorking, and on the South London line.
Some misapprehension appears to exist outside as
to the actual time the drivers are ordinarily upon
their engines from day to day. During the dispute
it was said, and rightly said, that 10 hours a day
was surely sufficient for a man to be so engaged,
and especially in winter, having regard both to the
safety of travellers and his own needful rest and re-
creation. The directors complain that this part ot
the case has been misunderstood by the public, and
in consequence invested with an appearance of
hardship which does not really exist, or only to a
limited extent. In proof of that they cite the case
of the driver of an express train on the main line.
He leaves Brighton in the morning for London,
where he rests some hours, and on leaving his engine
in the evening on his return to Brighton he may
not have been more than four or five hours on ac-
tual duty during the day. That, however, is an
exceptional case, and occasionally the interval of
rest is abridged by his having to take a goods train
from the London-bridge station to New-cross and
back. Another driver will go first from Brighton
to Hastings in the morning, thence to London, and
then from London to Brighton. That is considered
a long day, but a longer day still is where a man
drives an engine from Brighton to Portsmouth,
thence to London, returning to Brighton iu the
evening. That the managers say is the longest
day's work they have, and even in that case the man
is not more than about seven hours upon his engine.
He has, however, in addition, to be at the station

half an hour before the train starts in the morning,
and on his returning in the evening he is supposed
to be occupied another half hour in seeing that his
engine is all right before he goes home. During
the su►nmer season, when the passenger traffic is
brisk, a driver performs the distance from Brighton
to London and back, twice in a day, but in that case
he is paid for overtime. These are matters on
which the directors and superintendents desire to
be set right with the public. Again, they say it is
unjust to the highly-skilled men, and to the public,
as respects the greater safety of railway travelling,
to claim that all engine-drivers shall receive a uni-
form rate of pay, without distinction. They con-
tend that • an engine-driver requires training just as
much as a man put to any other trade, or perhaps
more. In the South of England drivers have
usually been agricultural labourers, and are first
put to clean engines, then to act as firemen, after-
wards as engine-drivers, first of ballast-trains, until
they have acquired a sufficient amount of experience
to justify their being intrusted with the driving of
passenger trains. The men, on the other hand,
say that after a certain time a• man is, or ought to
be, a properly-qualified driver, and being so that he
ought to depend upon his superintendent or fore-
man promoting him. One reply of superintendents
and managers to that is, that there are many
men good drivers, but whom they would• never
think of trusting with the charge of an express train,
from want of nerve. However that may be,
the whole secret of the recent strike— and it may
be well for those whom it concerns to remember
it—is said to have been the tardy and procrasti-
nating spirit shown by the foremen as a body for
years past in recognising the claims of drivers to
promotion, and, consequently, to the higher rate
of pay. That, again, is said to have resulted
from the pressure put upon the directors at meet-
ings of the shareholders to economise expenditure,
and again by the directors upon those below them.
It was the feeling of hope deferred, consequent
upon this pressure and upon the neglect or delay
of foremen in recognising merit in those below
them, that culminated in the recent rupture, which
has caused the company considerable loss and the
public more or less inconvenience.

SHIPPING INEELLIGENCE,

(By Tel egraph .)

GIIATESEND, Friday Morning.
Arrivod, March 28.—Leo, steamer, from Rotterdam ;
Earl of Aberdeon, stoamer, from Hamburg.

Arrived, March 29.—Ann Falcon, from Demerara ; En-
thusiast, from Barbadoes ; Arabia, from Jamaica ; Samson,
from Guernsey; Dagmar, steamer, from Englehohn; Diana
steamer, from Amsterdam.
Sailed, March 29.—Marion, for Bermuda; Lady Douglas,
from Montevideo; Lord John Russell, steamer, for Dun-
kirk.

DEAL, Friday Morning.
Passed (in tow).— Confidence, from Yokohama, for Lon-
don.,

WHETHER NINA BALATEA IS MR. ANTHONY
TROLLOPE'S ? —lf criticism be not a delusion from the very
bottom (writes a reviewer in last Saturday's Spectator),
this pleasant, little story is written by Mr. Anthony ,
Trol-
lope. We have no external evidence for saying so, and
. there the presumption against it that Mr. Trollepe's
name is worth a great deal in mere money to the sale of
any book. S till, no one who knows his style at all can read
three pages of this tale without detecting him as plainly
as if he were present in the flesh. Indeed, the
present writer has applied what the scientific men call the
best test of scientific knowledge—the power of prediction
given by the hypothesis that "Nina Bahttka" is written by
Mr. Trollope. The critic said to himself, "if it is written by
Mr. Trollope, I shall soon moot with the phrase, 'made
his way," as applied to walking whore there is no physical
difficulty or embarrassment, but only a certain moral hesi-
tation as to the end and aim of the walking in question,"and
behold
tnarkwas m withinl a page d
o,
came
e the of
vtheerypopihnrtasaet
in whichth the
e silentpeculiar
rs re-
mark
And of such test-phrases we could indicate a
dozen or so which, as far ar we know, aro found in Mr.
Anthony Trollopo's stories, and in those alone. We do
not know why the eminent novelist in question should
have been unwilling to give his name to this little tale.
It contains, to be sure, none of his English store of expe-
ieuce cf society, and not much even of the social nuances
of the country he describes; and its strong point is
not Mr. Trollope's strongest point, namely, manners
subtly described with a flavour of satirical humour ; but
for all that, and perhaps in consequence of the absence of
this illimitable subject on which he refines so skilfully
there is a force in the main idea of the tale, and a grace in
the picturesque framework of Prague scenery and customs,
which adequately-supply the place of the author's usual
skill in.tracing the refinements of English social habits.,