Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years
History
Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years
Railroads
As an early morning train drew up at a station, a pleasant looking
gentleman stepped out on the platform, and, inhaling the fresh air,
enthusiastically observed to the guard, “Isn’t this invigorating?” “No,
sir, it’s Croydon,” replied the conscientious employé.
YOUR TICKET.
On a Georgia railroad there is a conductor named Snell, a very clever,
sociable man, fond of a joke, quick at repartee, and faithful in the
discharge of his duties. One day as his train well filled with
passengers, was crossing a low bridge over a wide stream, some four or
five feet deep, the bridge broke down, precipitating the two passenger
cars into the stream. As the passengers emerged from the wreck they were
borne away by the force of the current. Snell had succeeded in catching
hold of some bushes that grew on the bank of the stream, to which he held
for dear life. A passenger less fortunate came rushing by. Snell
extended one hand, saying, “Your ticket, sir; give me your ticket!” The
effect of such a dry joke in the midst of the water may be imagined.
—_Harper’s Magazine_.
AN OLD SCOTCH LADY ON THE LOSS OF HER BOX.
Dean Ramsay in his _Reminiscences_ remarks:—“Some curious stories are
told of ladies of this class, as connected with the novelties and
excitement of railway travelling. Missing their luggage, or finding that
something has gone wrong about it, often causing very terrible distress,
and might be amusing, were it not to the sufferer so severe a calamity.
I was much entertained with the earnestness of this feeling, and the
expression of it from an old Scottish lady, whose box was not forthcoming
at the station where she was to stop. When urged to be patient, her
indignant exclamation was, “I can bear ony pairtings that may be ca’ed
for in God’s providence; but I canna stan’ pairtin’ frae ma claes.”
RAILWAY MANNERS.
A gentleman was travelling by rail from Breslau to Oppeln and found
himself alone with a lady in a second-class compartment. He vainly
endeavoured to enter into conversation with the other occupant of the
carriage; her answers were invariably curt and snappish. Baffled in his
attempts, he proceeded to light a cigar to while away the time. Then the
lady said to him: “I suppose you have never travelled second-class
before, else you would know better manners.” Her travelling companion
quietly rejoined: “It is true, I have hitherto only studied the manners
of the first and third-classes. In the first-class the passengers are
rude to the porters, in the third-class the porters are rude to the
passengers. I now discover that in the second-class the passengers are
rude to each other.”
A BRAVE GIRL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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