The Washington times., 1895-06-02
People You Soe Passing
Through Railway Gafo8
Curious Scenes and Incidents to Interest the Student
of Human Nature-AIl Phases from the
Farcicalto the Tragic.

Tennyson fashioned the beautiful story
OF Godiva while he waited for the team
at Coventry" There are stories at all rail-
way stations-sad, humorous, gay. grave,
lively, OF severe-for the railway stations
are the gateways through which people
20 from one world to another.
You can take a seat any day for an hour
or two at these receipts OF customs and
read certain chapters from the life and
habits or nearly everybody who fits in
or out, sits down, lounges around, rushes,
dawdles, puffs, blows, rams, reads, or does
any OF the manifold things that people do
IN the great passing show Of the hour.
There may be grander railway stations
in the world than those of Washington,
but the latter have the advantage OF
being the centripetal point of the great
popular tides OF travel Everybody comes
here at least once in a lifetime. The
Italian boast is ''see Naples and die" In
America they say "see Washington or
die
SHARP OBSERVERS.
While there are no local types OF travellers,
the Pennsylvania and Baltimore stations
are good places TO note the cosmopolitan
types OF rovers to and fro on the face of
the earth. The best-read men in human
nature on the wing are the blue-coated
gentlemen who, in one capacity or another,
are face to face with the kaleidoscope every
day at these railway stations, as, for in
stance, the men who run the bureaus of
information, the day guards, and the night
gUe-1s.
Nobody who is at all familiar with the
mastery ingenuity and rapidity Of the
huTyirg public in asking questions at the
bureau VIII object TO the proposition that
the quiet-lOOkng patient gentlemen at the
window ought to get salary at least equal
10 that Of the president of the Pennsylvania
railroad.
"Oh. yes, could tell you lot OF stories
about people and their ways. +" said a guards
man the other day, but / haven't got the
time. That woman over there has both
cred the life out OF me for the last hour"
he went on
Why, what's the matter with herr" was
asked.
''Oh. nothing much. She got off the Sea
board Air Line little while ago and went
into the baggage room and whispered to
one OF the clerks Has he come yet?' The
clerk passed her on TO the ticket agent there,
] sent her TO the bureau Of information and
there she is again.
''She is from Hamlet, n. c., and there is
some mistake about the whereabouts Of
him They have teIephoned up to No. -
F street fer the gentleman she is looking
for. There he is now"
ONE THING AND ANOTHER.
The gentleman came in; there was some
embracing, and one thing and another. Said
he, chucHng herunder the chin, as they went
out, galiy:
Why. your letter was from Spartansburg
and / concluded you would be here on the
Southern railway. / came here this morn
ing TO meet you and was disappointed that
you hadn't come"
''Oh, well, - she said, Il ran over to Ham
let 70 Tell Aunt Mary good-by and l took
the Seaboard Air Line, and that's how it
happened"
THAT kind Of thing goes on all the
time" said the gGsF6 and I'll bet you ten
cents that her trunk is still al Spartansburg.
She is no doubt from the country and
expected that We should know him by
sight.
The people that come in are tail a S bad
asthat but wehaye some pretty tough things
TO unravel sometimes. People get in here
from all parts of the South looking for Mr..
Fred Jones or Mr. James Robinson who
used to live in Augusta or Savannah or
Mobile That's all in the world they know
about them, except perhaps occasionally
they know that the Jones or Robinson
boards with lady by the name OF Williams
that works in an office.
Some how OF other the Almighty is the
only directory for this kind, for they find
out somehow what and who they want"
HE STARTLED THE LADY.
Just then a man with a steDtorian voice
and terrible nasal twang shouted out list
OF names of stations ending with the words
"and all points South" A lady who had
been reading a yellow back book got up
with a start and approached the musical
crier and asked.
Is that my train"
Where are you going madam" said
Stentor.
ITO Charlottesville"
mo madam, your train left twenty
minutes ago."
That woman wants to swear now"
said the guard, but she won't have that
book with her when she comes here to-
morrow"
Oddly enough the title of her book was
more haste, less speed
Wei, yes, sometimes funny things
happen, bat you can't think of 'em when
you want TO. There was one case last
Saturday that would have made a wooden
dog laugh.
a fat man walked in that door there
just as slowly ss if he was taking morning
walk He was smoking a cigar, had his
hands in his pockets aud was making for the
gate there.
In rushed a man, putting and blowing,
IN terrible state of trepidation.
81 beg your pardon" he said, out of
breath, as be got up off the fat man. He
had knocked him downin hismed rush tothe
iron gate.
The funny part OF the story is that the
"a tman's train was leaving the shed as he
sauntered leisurely into the depot, and
the train of the lightning express man
didn't leave until O'Clock next morning.