It is rather a hard result of the scarcity of
fuel, if it be true, as stated in a letter to Tuesday's Tinteq, that in consequence of the high price of coat the Directors of the Great Western Railway have cut off the fires in their waiting-rooms, and still worse, the fires for the boxes of the isolated signalmen, where, through all those last bitter February nights, they have been stationed to guard against accidents to the trains. We hope the poor fellows' wages were at least raised by the coat of the fuel which, in ordinary times, they would have burnt, or else it was a most cruel lowering of their pay. There is no real distinction between depriving them of their fire at home by lowering their wages, and depriving them of their fire when at work without raising their wages. Anyhow it is hardly safe. Benumbed signalmen are not likely to be very accurate in their signals.
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