The directors and principal officers of the company, always mindful of the best interests of its staff, and ever keeping a paternal, but not obtrusive eye upon it, have recently erected a model lodging-house, solely for the convenience of single young men. Fifty of them are now accommodated in it; each has a separate bed-room, and the whole establishment is superintended by a very carefully selected manager, who is responsible, not only for the good conduct of the lodgers whilst under its roof, but also for their comfort. The system works well, and it will be extended. In 1840, and for some few years afterwards, passengers ran a risk at Wolverton to which, happily, or, as we venture to think, very unhappily, they are no longer exposed—that is passengers who travelled chiefly in first-class carriages, and in the express trains of that period were accustomed to alight for ten railway minutes (_anglice_ five) at the celebrated refreshment rooms, the fame of which was world-wide. It was not only that the soup was hot, and the coffee “super-heated,” but it was admitted by those who, by the process of blowing the former, and pouring the latter into saucers, were able to get a mouthful or two, it was admitted we say, that each of these beverages was excellent. But there was an attraction at these refreshment rooms that rose superior to all the hot soup, the hot coffee, the hot tea, the buns, the Banbury cakes, the pork pies, the brandy, whiskey, gin, and “rich compounds,” the ample statistics of which will be found in our foot-note.[79] Need we say that we refer to the charming young ladies, in whom were concentrated all the beauty and grace that should be corporated in modern Hebes. Our excellent friends, Messrs. Spiers & Pond, of well-earned and well-deserved “Buffet” celebrity, have worthily followed in the footsteps of the great inventress of the railway refreshment room, as it should be; and happy we are to record the fact, that go where we may, we are sure to see, under the magic words announcing that they are the caterers, sweet faces, worthy types of English beauty, all the more worthy because with them is combined the modest demeanour, emblem of purity, without which all is absent that adorns woman and renders her enchanting. Messrs. Spiers & Pond have—as the late Mrs. Hibbert had—but one rule for “tainted angels”—their expulsion.