(Why, I wonder, is this pleasant sort of compartment rarely or never seen nowadays?) More than once the Duke of Richmond was his companion. The time was the mid 'forties, when railway locomotives were far less powerfully built than they are now, and when, London Bridge Terminus being up a rather long incline, it was customary, on the departure of a train from the ticket-taking platform, to employ a second engine to aid the one in front by pushing from behind. The travellers were seated in an end _coupé_, and opposite their seats were, of course, only the usual glass windows. When, therefore, the Duke for the first time saw the auxiliary engine coming close up against the carriage, he did not know what it meant, turned pale, and showed considerable uneasiness. My father soon assured him that all was right, and then asked why he, a veteran campaigner, was unnerved by a mere railway engine. Whereupon the old soldier laughingly replied that he would far sooner face the foe on the battlefield than sit quietly right in face of the “iron horse.” [116] Lord Duncannon had been a member of the Commission of Post Office Inquiry of 1835-1838 (already mentioned) which examined Rowland Hill in February 1837. He was at first a strong opponent of the Reform, but during the examination became one of its heartiest supporters. The other two Commissioners were Lord Seymour—who, later, served on Mr Wallace's Select Committee, was afterwards Duke of Somerset, and gave to the world an unorthodox little volume—and Mr Labouchere, afterwards Lord Taunton, and uncle to the better-known proprietor of _Truth_.