A curious longing fell upon an engine-cleaner on the Chard
and Taunton Railway last week to ride his own engine. The man, William Stevens, had never driven an engine, and was forbidden even to get up steam, but after cleaning the engine for a consider- able time he felt that he must drive her ; so he got up steam at midnight, and started the Busy Bee up and down the line, which was not yet in use. He could reverse the engine, but scarcely knew how to manage the steam, which blew off in all directions, greatly alarming a policeman, who saw a solitary engine with one man on it tearing up and down the line in a cloud of steam. Once the man approached the main line—the Bristol and Exeter—and was only deterred from entering it by the sound of an approaching train. At last he went back, stopped the engine, did not put out the fire, nor pour more water into the boiler, and lay down to sleep beside her. And just as the driver came in the morning the Busy Bee blew up, without hurting the sleeping adventurer. The man got a month's imprisonment--a light penalty for his broken toy ; but it is strange how completely this childish impulse to wind up watches and set off clock-work mice, either vanishes out of men, or is utterly subdued by fear. We sympathize heartily with William Stevens, though we think he should have had three months instead of one for an amusement so dangerous to others.
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