River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1880-07-15
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ENGLISH RAILWAYS.
Inferior AccOmmO datiOMs as Com
pared with Our Own.

The first thing which an American
tourist in England learns, sometimes
through infinite botheratiOn, is that in
himself and his luggage. In our own
country writes Charles Congdon, we
have reduced this method of locOmo-
ton to perfect luxury, and are so
guarded by the company and its depot
masters, and pOrters and conductors
wrong if we try. The names ofthe way
stations are bawled in our ears; we
should hear them though deaf as adj
deIs; the conductors answer all ques-
tons with indOmitable patience; the
cars are so perfectly distinguished that
blind man could hardly get into the
wrong one; and, upon arrival, the lug
gage is delivered with such mathemat-
ical accuracy that there is not the slight
est danger of your walking off with
somebody else's carpet bag. In Eng
land you are waiting for a train,
no means of knowing when it arrives;
half a dozen may come up or down,
and not one of them be that which you
want; and to get into the wrong car
riage may be to. go to Lands End, when
YOU want 10 90 to London. | once
bought a second-class ticket and upon
the strength of it rode fifty miles in
third-class carriage without finding out
my mistake until wonderfully beney-
client guard informed me of it; but
when | got into the more expensive con-
veyance | could see no difference be-
tween that and the humble quarters
which | had left Both were equally
comfortable. AS you seat yourself i'll
what is no better than a shabby box,
you remember the long, light, commo-
dious cars at home with regret. Half
the pass engers are riding backward
There is a row Of them at one end of
the car, and another row at the other
and there you sit in the most decided
state of ris-d-Ts conceivable staring
each other out of countenance. There
is, of course, no such thing as making
transfer from one car to another. You
are locked in, and there is no getting
out, unless the guard pleases to let you
out.
There are no appliances for washing,
There is no icewater. There is no peri
patetic dealer with cough candy, fruit
and the morning newspapers. You are
there, not to enjoy the journey, but
simply to make it. You are to be trans
ported like any other parcel of mer
chandise. Everything is solid, but
everything is square and hard, with not
one pleasant ornament, not one allevl-
ating bit of color for the eye to take
comfort in The cushions are of green
OF black leather, instead of plush The
padding only reaches about alfway in.
The windows are small and few; and,
upon the whole, you are not deslrous
of having the journey prolonged for
the sake of any physical enjoyment to
be gained by it. You feel all the time
as if you were freight; and so you are.
But, by way of compensation, you also
feel that you are handled with care,
and that you will be promptly deliver
ed at the station for which you have
bought your ticket-if it chances to he
at the end Of the route. But if you
wish to stop off, rs we say in Ameri-
ca, you must exert all the faculties of
your nature and develope the station
which You want from the sagacious
depths of your inner consciousness. No
| friendly Boanerges of conductor bel
lows the name of it. A perfect stranger
| is expected to know upon sight, and to
alight by kind of intuition as surely
rs an Englishman would if it happened
to be his beloved birthplace. So you
bore your fellow-passengers by asking
questions with true American freedom.
You beg to be informed if We are pretty
near Stratford2 If the next station is
Slough How soon shall we he at Car
| Isle? Sometimes they answer you civ
lily. and sometimes, am sorry to say,
they do not but always they appear to
regard you, if not with contempt, at
least with pity why, here is a full
grown man, they seem to say, who
doesn't know where Slough is Where
can he have been all his hfe?' You
feebly but desperately exclaim that you
are Il stranger; and then they pity you
more than ever