THE ELECTRIC TELE8RAPH. 



and light blouse. Both in the third compartment of the first 

 second-class carriage." 



" Slough, 11.16 A.M. l Special train arrived. Officers have 

 taken the two thieves into custody, a lady having lost her 

 bag, containing a purse with two sovereigns and some silver 

 in it; one of the sovereigns was sworn to by the lady as 

 having been her property. It was found in Fiddler Dick's 

 watch-fob.' 



" It appears that, on the arrival of the train, a policeman opened 

 the door of the * third compartment of the first second-class 

 carriage,' and asked the passengers if they had missed anything ? 

 A search in pockets and bags accordingly ensued, until one lady 

 called out that her purse was gone. ' Fiddler Dick, you are 

 wanted,' was the immediate demand of the police-officer beckoning 

 to the culprit, who came out of the carriage thunderstruck at 

 the discovery, and gave himself up, together with the booty, 

 with the air of a completely beaten man. The effect of the 

 capture so cleverly brought about is thus spoken of in the telegraph 

 book : 



"Slough, 11.51 A.M. 'Several of the suspected persons who 

 came by the various down- trains are lurking about Slough, 

 uttering bitter invectives against the telegraph. Not one of those 

 cautioned has ventured to proceed to the Montem.' 



" Ever after this the light-fingered gentry avoided the 

 railway and the too intelligent companion that ran beside it, 

 and betook themselves again to the road a retrograde step, 

 to which on all great public occasions they continue to 

 adhere." * 



251. One of the consequences of the high price of transmission 

 is that personal and domestic messages are most generally confined 

 to cases of urgency, and often of distress, painful or ludicrous, as 

 the case may be. Persons in easy circumstances, it is true, often 

 resort to the telegraph to gratify a caprice or to obtain some 

 object of gratification for which they are impatient. The mixture 

 of subjects which the agents in rapid succession read from the 

 needles, is most curious. " We have," says Mr. Walker, "ordered 

 a turbot, and also a coffin ; a dinner, and a physician ; a monthly 

 nurse, and a shooting-jacket ; a special engine, and a chain-cable ; 

 an officer's uniform, and some Wenham-lake ice ; a clergyman, 

 and a counsellor's wig ; a royal standard, and a hamper of wine ; 

 and so on. Passing over the black leather bag which some one 

 every day appears to leave in some train, passengers have recovered 

 luggage of most miscellaneous character by means of the telegraph. 



* Quarterly Review, No. CLXXXIX., p. 129. 



