COMS REG4
12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY
COMPETITION
covAS R EGA t
12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY
Fifth class
Jaspistos
In Competition No. 1716 you were in- vited to provide a contemporary journal- ist's account of a journey on the GWR, assuming the company had implemented its 1839 plan `to convey the very lowest orders of passengers, once a day, at very low speed, in carriages of an inferior description, at a very low price'.
There was a continental fourth class long ago. I used it once to get to Athens — wooden seats, three days, /19. I took War and Peace and lots of sandwiches, dam- pened with water to make them last. Half way across Yugoslavia, my unpleasant supplies and my stoicism having given out, I left my peasant companions and, in my huge boots and scruffy corduroys, clumped into the first-class dining car. It was empty. Far from being ejected, I was welcomed by three idle waiters and ate my way, in silence and solitude, through three superb courses. During the first slivovitz I noticed that much of the surrounding country seemed to be waterlogged. By the second, it was clear that the train was only just managing, because of the raised track, to make its way through a disastrous flood — drowned farms, boats with little figures, dead cattle floating belly upwards. I called for a third slivovitz, and with a degener- ate's relish worthy of Nero or Des Esseintes gazed alternately through the window, at the tragic landscape, and into the ornamental mirrors, topped with impe- rial eagles, at my comic self.
Your turn now. Super-excellent entry. Especially honourable mentions for Noel Petty and Alyson Nikiteas. The prizewin- ners, printed below, get E20 each, and the bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whisky goes to Fergus Porter.
By what measure does a person account himself to be of an order low enough to qualify for this form of transport? Must he furnish evidence that the coin he proffers to the booking-office clerk is his last? Might not the clerk ponder whether a man content to travel in only one direction demonstrates a hankering for a fixed abode incompatable with the status of the lowest orders? Suffice that I was exposed to no such scrutiny, but permitted to enter a carriage which, lacking seats and several floorboards, obliged its passengers to stand at risk of falling to the rails below. We had small comfort from the Conductor, who observed that a man stand- ing offers fewer surfaces to a leaking roof than does a man sitting. Wherewith we were de- spatched, outpaced throughout by small boys and a dog with three legs and a set sneer at our condition. (Fergus Porter) No pains had been omitted to provide benefit for the greatest number, the excision of seats and compartment walls permitting positive hordes of the meaner sort, along with their ragamuffin children, to huddle together around the central floor area, on which was placed the gruel and coarse ship's biscuit purveyed (in an experiment of some social interest) by convicts on special parole. Quite rapid initial progress was followed by a stop of two hours at Reading, where women and children were provided with brushes, pails and cloths to cleanse the station and men set to porterage or cleaning boilers. This novel scheme, whereby the opening of new prospects for the lowest orders is accompanied by prudent economies in the maintenance of the railway system, has, like all truly ingenious ventures, the merit of limpid simplicity, and furnishes further example of our railway owners' tireless endeavours to promote the public good.
(Chris Tingley) The new Dunkery Beacon Railway (advertised as `For the Healthy Indigent') was successfully inaugurated today by a special train carrying upwards of 150 souls. The exuberant travellers, drawn from the menial classes, had assembled at Porlock well in advance, apprised that the fare of one halfpenny covered also the cost of medical examination prior to entrainment. All participants being pronounced sturdy and cap- able, the `Dunkery Donkey' then, to a chorus of huzzas, slowly hauled away its human cargo, comfortably installed in straw-lined open wagons. At the third steep gradient, however, the animal unexpectedly collapsed and expired, its medical inspection having unfortunately been neglected in the excitement. The prudent Com- pany had nevertheless anticipated such a con- tingency: at a blast from a whistle the passengers tumbled from the trucks, seized the ropes provided and gallantly dragged the train — including the Directors' first-class carriage and champagne tender — up the remaining ascent.
(Geoffrey Riley) How splendidly these carriages meet the needs of labouring people( Their rough-hewn benches are sturdy; the glass-free windows mitigate the unpleasantness of overcrowding; and each com- partment is surveyed by a large evangelical lady,
who distributes improving literature appropriate to the travellers' station in life. A favourite tract, The Intemperate Railway Apprentice, describes a melancholy downfall precipitated by over- indulgence in ginger-beer at a platform refreshment-room, but thankfully arrested when the hero encounters a religious wheel-tapper at Swindon.
The formidable morality (and remarkable angularity) of these ladies has an immediately quenching effect upon any contemplated im- morality, or enjoyment, or even conversation. Indeed, our two-day journey to Bristol would altogether have lacked the pleasures of dis- course, but for the pea-jacketed presence, in a corner of our carriage, of the famously thrifty Lord — , muttering into his muffler, I've paid 'em a ha'penny for my fare. Those railway rogues shan't have a farden more.'
(George Simmers)
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