Having been assured by a Phrenologist that my bump of locality is very
highly developed, I attempted the other day--although a perfect stranger
to London--to walk from Charing Cross to the Temple without inquiring
the route. I had absolutely no assistance but a small map of Surbiton
and the neighbourhood, from which I had calculated the general lie of
the country, and a plain, ordinary compass, which I had bought cheap
because it had lost its pointer. I am not sure that the route I took was
the most direct. But when, after several hours' walk, I found myself at
Willesden Junction, I was assured by a boy in the district, whom I
asked, that I could not possibly have gone straighter. He advised me to
take a ticket at once for Chalk Farm, as I still had some way to go, and
said that he thought I might have to change at Battersea. He was a nice,
bright little boy, and laughed quite merrily.
I have now been at Willesden Junction for eighteen hours, and I have not
yet secured a train for Chalk Farm. There have been several, but they
have always gone from the platform which I had just left. So I have
camped out on the 101th platform, and I intend to stop there till a
train for Chalk Farm comes in. Of course the porters have remonstrated,
and tried to explain where and when the train really does start. But I
would sooner trust my natural instincts than any porter. That bright
little boy has been twice to see how I am getting on. He brought two
other boys last time. They all told me to stick to it, and seemed much
amused--probably at the stupidity of those porters. But really, _Mr.
Punch_, Willesden Junction ought to be simplified. It may be all very
well for me, with a phrenological aptitude for this sort of thing; but
these different levels, platforms, and stairs must be very puzzling to
less gifted people, such as the green young man from the country.
But the last suggestion which I have to make is the most important.
There ought to be a great many more doors _into_ the refreshment-room,
and only one door out of it. I lost the thirteenth train for Chalk Farm
by going out of the wrong door. One door out would be ample, and it
should certainly be made--by an easy arrangement of pivots and pneumatic
pressure--to open straight into the train for anywhere where you wanted
to go. If this simple alteration cannot be made, Willesden Junction must
be destroyed at once, route and branch; or removed to Hampton Court, to
take the place of the present absurdly easy Maze. I am, _Mr. Punch_,
Your humble and obedient Servant, PHRENITIC.
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