436 History of Inland Transport 



boys, porters, sergeants and policemen, telegraph messengers, 

 sleeping-car attendants and corridor attendants. Passenger 

 guards, for example, get a summer coat and vest every two 

 years, winter coat and vest every two years, summer trousers 

 every year, winter trousers every year, topcoat every three 

 years, mackintosh every four years (main line) or every three 

 years (local line), belt (main line) when required, cap every 

 year, and two neckties every year. The amount which a man 

 saves by the supply of this free clothing naturally adds pro- 

 portionately to the actual value of his position. 



On many of the lines the companies have provided for their 

 workers a considerable amount of cottage accommodation, 

 with gardens and allotments, charging rentals which yield 

 little more than a nominal return on the capital ex- 

 penditure. 



The Glasgow and South- Western Railway Company have 

 organised, at Cockerhill, a model village for the accommoda- 

 tion of the principal section of the locomotive staff employed 

 in the engine-sheds there. Purchase of land and construction 

 of buildings involved the company in an expenditure of 

 70,000. To-day the village has a total population of 700 

 persons. Each tenant gets three large rooms and a kitchen 

 for a rental of 13 a year, plus local rates, which amount to 

 about 173. a year. Attached to every house is a plot of 

 ground where the tenant can grow his own vegetables, or 

 cultivate his favourite flowers. The centre of social life in 

 the village is the Railway Institute, a commodious building 

 erected by the company, and still maintained to a certain 

 extent at their cost. Administration of the affairs of this 

 Institute is entrusted to a General Committee of thirty-two 

 of the tenants, elected annually, and having different sub- 

 committees, each of which takes charge of a particular phase 

 of the work. The Institute has a hall (reserved on Sundays 

 for religious meetings of a strictly non-sectarian character), 

 reading and recreation-rooms, library and baths. The village 

 also has a fire brigade, a children's savings bank, and a com- 

 mittee for the organisation of ambulance work. 



A rent club, the subscription to which is one penny a 

 week, ensures for its members the continued payment of their 

 rent in the event of their being absent from work on account 

 of sickness. Still another advantage offered to the tenants is 



