Under the sanction of the Brighton Town Council, the Magnus Volk Co., Ltd., now work the Brighton Beach Electric Tram-railway, which at its opening was regarded as a great novelty and curiosity, constituting an additional attraction and amusement to “London by the sea,” and tens of thousands must have taken a ride in its little open cars since it came into existence twenty years ago. The gauge is but 2 feet 8½ inches, the “feeders” are underground, the propelling system is electric, with a third rail, and its speed is about 12 miles an hour. Starting from the west pier, opposite the Royal Aquarium, it sets out on its one mile and a half route of single line and dips beneath the level of the Marine Parade to a level a little above the beach, passing _en route_, though hidden from view, many landmarks of old Brighton, such as Park Place and Gardens, Royal Crescent, Marine Square, and Lewes Crescent, and terminating at a point near Black Rock. This was the eastern end of Old Brighton, noted for many an original character in the “twenties” and “thirties,” not the least interesting of whom were old Martha Gunn, queen of the bathing-machines, and Sak Deen Mahomed, a native of the East, who introduced the art of shampooing into the town, and lived to become a centenarian, his fame being enshrined in verse by James Smith, one of the authors of _Rejected Addresses_, who humorously predicted his longevity as follows:-- “Sprung doubtless from Abdullah’s son, Thy miracles thy sire’s outrun, Thy cures his deaths outnumber; His coffin soars ’twixt heav’n and earth, But thou, within that narrow berth, Immortal, ne’er shall slumber.” Many have been the changes in Brighton since those days. Arundel Terrace, Kemp Town, Ultima Thule in the east; Adelaide Crescent with Palmyra Square, its western boundary. From the fields to the north of that square could be seen, a mile or so off, the village of Hove, the intervening space being dotted with farms. No one could have dreamt that a great railway-station would be built there, with minor ones at Kemp Town, West Brighton, and Hove. Old residents could not have pictured a Grand Aquarium, a Western and Eastern Pier, nor the destruction of their familiar Chain Pier. They would be amazed at the spread of Brighton in every direction, the springing up of palatial hotels like the “Métropole” and “Grand,” and the increase of the population to some hundred and fifty thousand; while the coaching world, headed by the popular Sir St. Vincent Cotton, prince of amateur whips, and all the confraternity of coachmen and hackney-coach drivers, would have thought anyone a lunatic who had dared to prophesy that one day a conveyance drawn without horses or steam power would carry passengers along the Brighton beach! THE CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY