i64 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



ment. The secretary to the company, shortly after the 

 line was opened, reported to the Board that, as there 

 were several level crossings chiefly of an occupation 

 nature, he had thought it necessary to have some 

 special padlocks made for the gates, in order to prevent 

 people from opening them, and leaving them open, to 

 the danger of the traffic on the line. He showed us 

 the keys, which were very elaborate with complicated 

 wards, to cost S^- ^<^- each, a charge which his Grace 

 thought excessive. He left the Board-room with a key 

 in his hand unknown to us, and sent one of the clerks 

 for a piece of soap. He then quietly pressed the soap 

 into the wards of the key and put it into the lock, and 

 on withdrawing the key showed it to us with the soap 

 intact in the wards, a proof that the whole apparent 

 intricacy was a Brummagem fraud, that there were no 

 obstructions whatever in the locks, and that any key, or 

 even an old bent nail, would open them. The value of 

 the locks was about lod. or is. each, but neither the 

 secretary nor an}^ of those present would ever have 

 thought of such a test. 



I have been told that the Duke constantly, when 

 Chairman of the London and North-Western Railway, 

 drove the engine from London for very long distances, 

 carefully noting every hundredweight of fuel consumed, 

 the quantity of oil for engines, and comparing it with 

 the speed at which the engine travelled, and that he 

 even noted the quantity of cotton-waste consumed on 

 the journey. He had a keen eye for every detail of any 

 business with which he was connected. But besides 

 being an able businessman, he was a just and a generous 



