[Illustration: "_The feeling of a Newport cabman when his horse runs
away._"]
I have the greatest admiration for engine drivers, particularly those
on the Great Western Railway, on which line I travel most. I have
often wondered at the admirable manner in which they stop and start
their trains. Mr. Gladstone once said that he could understand the
mind of a great historian like Gibbon, or of a great poet, like
Milton, Byron, or Wordsworth, but that he could not understand the
formation of the mind of a man who wrote poems and plays like
Shakespeare. Personally, I cannot understand the mind of an engine
driver on an express train. I have been myself, in some very
disagreeable positions, and have had some very nasty half minutes. Not
very long ago I found myself underneath my horse in a muddy ditch and
the half minutes I spent in waiting for a friendly hand to drag me
out, and in wondering whether assistance would come before I was
suffocated, were very unpleasant ones. Only a fortnight ago, too, a
gentleman was driving me in a light vehicle down a narrow roadway when
we saw a runaway horse attached to a lorry galloping towards us. It
seemed as if there was nothing for it but for us to be knocked into
the proverbial cocked-hat. However, our vehicle was drawn very close
to the side and the runaway just cleared us. I can understand, too,
the feeling of a man driving four horses when they run away with him,
because that has happened to myself; or the feeling of a Newport
cabman when his horse runs away. But I cannot understand the feeling
of sustained courage on the part of a driver of an express engine with
his train going at 60 miles an hour through the darkness of the night,
perhaps in a storm of snow or sleet. To use a pretty strong
expression, it must be like "hell with the lid off." Those who travel
on railways ought to think more of the responsibilities which rest on
railway employees.
_Railwaymen's Dinner,
April 21st, 1908._