RAILWAY UNPUNCTUALITY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The travelling public are indebted to you for your article on the unpunctuality of trains on the London and South-Western Railway. Permit me to make one trifling correction. It was the late Mr. Dutton, Mr. Portal's prede- cessor in the chair, with whom I remonstrated on the frequency of race-trains to the detriment of regular customers. I bear a willing testimony to the courtesy and civility of the railway staff, but they have been saddled, by the unwisdom of the Board, for many years!. past with an impossible task. Waterloo Station, its approaches, and the lines which connect it with Clapham Junction have been a by-word for twenty years past, yet repeated representations have never induced the Board to look matters in the face and to be wise in time. It will be years before they will be able
now to remedy defects which ought long since to have been grappled with. If the powers of the Board of Trade be as email as Mr. Ritchie states them to be, pressure can only be brought to bear through the Press. The present state of affairs is nothing short of a public scandal. It is not a pleasant task to call in question the action of a Board with many members of which I am on terms of friendship, but public duty must take precedence of all such considerations.
—I am, Sir, &c., MIDLETON. Peper Harow, Godalming, August 23rd.
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