"Oa! Noa, zur."

"You don't know what's in the pet.i.tion!-Why, ain't you the pet.i.tioner himself?"

"Noa, zur, I doan't nar that I be, zur."

["Snooks! Snooks! Snooks!" issued a voice from a stout and benevolent-looking elderly gentleman from behind, "how can you say so, Snooks? It's your pet.i.tion." The prompting, however, seemed to produce but little impression upon him for whom it was intended, whatever effect it may have had upon the minds of those whose ears it reached, but for whose service it was not intended].

"Really, Mr. Chairman," observed the Agent for the Bill, who appeared to have no idea of _Burking_ the inquiry, "this is growing interesting."

"The interest is all on your side," remarked the Agent for the pet.i.tion (against the Bill).

"Now, Snooks," continued the Agent for the Bill, "apply your mind to the questions I shall put to you, and let me caution you to reply to them truly and honestly. Now, tell me-who got you to sign this pet.i.tion?"

"I object to the question," interposed the Agent for the pet.i.tion. "The matter altogether is descending into mean, trivial, and unnecessary details, which I am surprised my friend opposite should attempt to trouble the Committee with."

"I can readily understand, sir," replied the other, "why my friend is so anxious to get rid of this inquiry-simple and short as it will be; but I trust, sir, that you will consider it of sufficient importance to allow it to proceed. I purpose to put only a few questions more on this extraordinary pet.i.tion against the Bill (the bare meaning of the name of which the pet.i.tioner does not seem to understand) for the purpose of eliciting some further information respecting it."

The Committee being thus appealed to by both parties, inclined their heads for a few moments in order to facilitate a communication in whispers, and then decided that the inquiry might proceed. It was evident that the matter had excited an interest in the minds and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the honourable members of the Committee; created as much perhaps by the extreme mean and poverty-stricken appearance of the witness-a miserable, dirty, and decrepit old man-as by the disclosures he had already made.

"Well, Snooks, I was about to ask you (when my friend interrupted me) who got you to sign the pet.i.tion, or that zummit as you call it?"

"Some genelmen, zur."

"Who were they-do you know their names?"

"Noa, zur, co'ant say I do nar 'em a', zur."

"But do you know any of them, was that gentleman behind you one?"

[The gentleman referred to was the fine benevolent-looking individual who had previously kindly endeavoured to a.s.sist the witness in his answers, and who stood the present scrutiny with marked composure and complaisance].

"Yees, zur, he war one on 'em."

"Do you know his name?"

"Noa, zur, I doant; but he be one of the railway genelmen."

"What did he say to you, when he requested you to sign the pet.i.tion?"

"He said I ware to zine (pointing to the pet.i.tion) that zummit."

"When and where, pray, did you sign it?"

"A lot o' railway genelmen k.u.m to me on Sunday night last; and they wo'

make me do it, zur."

"On Sunday night last, aye!"

"What, on Sunday night!" exclaimed one honourable member on the extreme right of the Chairman, with horror depicted on his countenance; "are you sure, witness, that it was done in the evening of a Sabbath?"

"The honourable member asks you, whether you are certain that you were called upon by the railway gentlemen to sign the pet.i.tion on a Sunday evening? I think you told me last Sunday evening."

"Oa, yees, zur; they k.u.m just as we war a garing to chapel."

"Disgraceful, and wrong in the extreme!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the honourable member.

"And did not that gentleman" (continued the Agent for the Bill), "nor any of the railway gentlemen, as you call them, when they requested you to sign, explain the nature and contents of the pet.i.tion?"

"Noa, zur."

"Then you don't know at this moment what it's for?"

"Noa, zur."

"Of course, therefore, it's not your pet.i.tion as set forth?"

"I doant nar, zur. I zined zummit."

"Now, answer me, do you object to this line of railway? Have you any dislike to it?"

"O, noa, zur. I shud loak to zee it k.u.m."

"Exactly, you should like to see it made. So you have been led to pet.i.tion against it, though you are favourable to it?"

The pet.i.tioner against the Bill did not appear to comprehend the precise drift of the remark, and his only reply to the wordy fix into which the learned agent had drawn him was made in the dumb-show of scratching with his one disengaged hand (the other being employed in holding his hat) his uncombed head-an operation that created much laughter, which was not damped by the Agent's putting, with a serious face, a concluding question or remark to him to the effect that he presumed he (the witness) had not paid, or engaged to pay, so many guineas a day to his friend on the other side for the prosecution of the opposition against the Bill-had he; yes, or no? The witness's appearance was the only and best answer.

The pet.i.tion, of course, upon this _expose_, was withdrawn.

This, the substance of what actually took place before one of the Sub-Committees on Standing orders will give some idea of the nature of many of the pet.i.tions against Railway Bills, especially on technical points. It will serve to show in some measure what heartless mockeries these pet.i.tions mostly are; the moral evils they give birth to-and that, even while complaining of errors, they are themselves made up of falsehood.

AN IDEA ON RAILWAYS.

A happy comment on the annihilation of time and s.p.a.ce by locomotive agency, is as follows:-A little child who rode fifty miles in a railway train, and then took a coach to her uncle's house, some five miles further, was asked on her arrival if she came by the cars. "We came a little way in the cars, and all the rest of the way in a carriage."

BURNING THE ROAD CLEAR.

It is related of Colonel Thomas A. Scott, that on one occasion, when making one of his swift trips over the American lines under his control, his train was stopped by the wreck of a goods train. There was a dozen heavily loaded covered trucks piled up on the road, and it would take a long time to get help from the nearest accessible point, and probably hours more to get the track cleared by mere force of labour. He surveyed the difficulty, made a rough calculation of the cost of a total destruction of the freight, and promptly made up his mind to burn the road clear. By the time the relief train came the flames had done their work and nothing remained but to patch up a few injuries done to the track so as to enable him to pursue his way.