Railways continue to be a fertile seed plot of grievances. In 1876 Charles Keene devises a patent costume for collisions, closely resembling that of a diver. This was the year in which Captain Tyler's report on the Long Ashton accident to the "Flying Dutchman" on July 27 prompted _Punch_ to a scathing set of verses on the G.W.R. directors, of which the motto was, "Westward Ho! with grim Death." The introduction of the Pullman dining-car in 1879 is welcomed in a lyrical effusion, to the air of "The Low-backed Car," in which _Punch_ contrasts the discomforts of "Mugby Junction" days with the new amenities of travel:-- Five minutes, a frantic fixture, You strove with might and main To gulp some scalding mixture, While the bell rang--for the train! Your tea or soup you swallowed, As much as did not fly On your shirt-front or your waistcoat, From the dense crowd hustling by. While the minxes at Mugby Bar Smiled, serene, upon the war, For they'd learnt the art, And looked the part-- Of "We are your betters far." But in Pullman's dining-car, Sir, Now run on the Northern Line, You've a soup, and a roast, and _entrées_, And your cheese and your pint of wine. At his table snug the passenger sits, Or to the smoke-room moves, While on either side the landscape flits, Like a world in well-greased grooves. Thanks to Pullman's dining-car, No more Mugby Junction Bar-- No more tough ham and chicken, Nor passenger-pickin' For the minxes behind the Bar! [Sidenote: _Punch is a Railway Critic_] _Punch's_ jubilation was short-lived; and in 1883 his discontent takes the form of a wholesale indictment of unnecessary noises, draughts, dismal chilly waiting-rooms, atrocious refreshment-rooms, undistinguishable station-names. The regulations and adjustments of Railwaydom, he sums up, "can only be praised in the same spirit as that in which Charles Kingsley lauded the British North-Easter." On the question of Railways in the Lake District, about which Ruskin had raised an exceeding bitter cry, _Punch_ seems rather to favour the Philistine view:-- Let sentimental Ruskinites the thing disparage, Most scenery afoot you miss--it cannot be denied: The Nature-lover's point of view's a third-class smoking carriage, 'Twould be a blot if there were not a line to Ambleside.