"Where the space is dotted the trains call; where a blank, thus ----, they do not." (Here is an example of this new arrangement, which, it must be confessed, is a little revolutionary of the accepted method.) "Infants in arms, _unable to walk_, free of charge. "A passenger may claim the seat corresponding to the number on his ticket, and when not numbered he may take any seat not previously occupied. "Preserve your ticket until called for by the company's servant." (Fancy the passengers of 1904 requiring to be curbed in their propensity for throwing their tickets out of the window!) "Do not lean upon the door of the carriage." [Illustration: "WHERE THE SPACE IS DOTTED THE TRAINS CALL: WHERE A BLANK, THUS ----, THEY DO NOT."] But by far the most surprising injunction to us nowadays, when the tips of railway porters show a tendency to expand instead of diminish, is this: "No gratuity, under any circumstances, is allowed to be taken by any servant of the company." How incomprehensible to us nowadays, when not even Mr. Beit, Mr. Astor, or Mr. Carnegie owns his own railway vehicle: "Gentlemen riding in their own carriages are charged second-class fares." How "Bradshaw" has grown from that day! It began with thirty odd pages; it is now some twelve hundred. The weight of the first little "Guide" was a couple of ounces--it now tips the scale at a pound and a half. And think of the immense labour involved in the production of each monthly issue. It taxes all the resources of a large staff of editors and printers--for are not "perpetual and minute changes taking place in the hours and places," which "have to be introduced often at the last moment"? Every single page has literally to be packed to bursting with type, not merely with words and numerals, but with characters and spaces--altogether three thousand to the page, or equivalent to a dozen ordinary octavo volumes. Every change, however trifling, inaugurated by the traffic superintendent of the smallest railway has here to instantly set down. New trains must be crowded in somehow into an already overcrowded page for there must be no "over-running." No wonder, then, that if "Bradshaw's Guide" is difficult to compile it is often equally difficult to understand. It has been called "a recondite treatise on the subject of railway times." From the earliest day its method has elicited the severest criticism from the wits. George Cruikshank and other wits called it an "Aid to Bedlam." Mark Lemon wrote innumerable skits in _Punch_, which his friend Leech illustrated. In one of these (May 24th, 1856) we have nearly two pages devoted to "Bradshaw--a Mystery," in which two lovers, parted by distance, seek to unite by means of the "Guide." They are utterly unable to discover when Orlando's train should depart and arrive. Both are plunged into the madness of despair. At last blind chance favours the lovers, and the fair one confesses:-- "Bradshaw" has nearly maddened me. ORLANDO: And me.