98 RAILWAYS. 



like to go in at one door and out at the other a thing you can never do 

 in prison. I like to have my luggage and baggage taken from me where 

 it is taken care of, and hate to have it wetted on the top of a coach, or 

 stolen at a coach office while the book-keeper is looking at some lady at 

 a crossing, who does not wish to wet the flounces of her gown. I like to 

 have to do with porters who charge nothing for being civil, and cannot 

 put their hands in their breeches-pockets, which is a vulgar and idle habit. 

 I hate to wait for any thing. Men must wait, and horses must; and 

 pretty women must wait, when agreeable young men, whom they admire, 

 are engaged to charming young women (precisely my case); but steam- 

 coaches know no dependence and are never in love. I like the ample 

 room of a steam-coach, where there is no necessity for your neighbour, 

 should she be old and ugly, to lay her soft head upon your soft shoulder. 

 I like to travel fast. I dread vicious horses; I feel for distressed ones. 

 I hate going down hill drag-chain breaking, coach upsetting, coachman 

 dying, leaving a wife and 12 children; myself with a broken leg going to 

 married next week." 



That prince of punsters, Hood, has a funny story of a cockney lady, 

 who, anxious to secure her oron place in the Railway-train, from Liege to 

 Bruges, travels three or four times over the same ground ; and one of 

 whose sage precautions is, to get farthest from the engine, because, as 

 she gravely says, '* it must bust fust" 



INFLUENCE OF RAILWAY TRAVELLING UPON HEALTH. 



An impression is current that this method of travelling is injurious to 

 health. We cannot suppose that our readers are influenced by such 

 prejudices; and we believe that it is a work of supererogation, to apply 

 other than the language of ridicule to such an absurd notion; but should 

 any timid person hesitate in such matter, we quote the opinion of Dr. 

 James Johnson, a physician of first rate talent and deserved eminence, to 

 cure any apprehensions which he may entertain. Contrasting Railway 

 travelling with that by Coach, the Doctor says, " The former 

 equalises the circulation, promotes digestion, tranquillises the nerves, and 

 often causes sound sleep during the succeeding night; the exercise of 

 this kind of travelling being unaccompanied by that lassitude, aching and 

 fatigue, which, in weakly constitutions, is the invariable accompaniment 



