East, the lands of Firdousi and Zoroaster,
of Haroun al Raschid and Zobeyde, the
brilliant imagery of Job, the long-forgotten
legends of the hapless Ottawa Indians, and the
discoveries of a Frenchman in the valley of the
Somme !

SOME RAILWAY POINTS.

WE have had occasion to see and hear a good
deal along the line of this railway and that, as
doing our part towards making up the six
hundred and forty million of journeys
performed by rail every year in the United Kingdom.
We were not among the victims of that
paternal wrath whereof we have read in one of
the reports of Captain Galton, government
railway inspector. "A girl who was in love
with the engine-driver of a train, had engaged
to run away from her father's house in order to
be married. She arranged to leave by a train
this man was driving. Her father and brother
got intelligence of her intended escape; and
having missed catching her as she got into the
train, they contrived, whether with or without
the assistance of a porter is not very clear, to
turn the train through facing points, as it left
the station, into a bog." The report omits to
state the result of this daring scheme for stopping
a runaway couple.

We know something about stations, and the
state of things behind the pigeon-holes at which
you pay your fare. When the traveller by rail
having reached his journey's end gives up his
ticket, he has done with it, but the pasteboard
has a great deal more to go through. The
company having got it back again, has a watchful
eye to its future career. All tickets, anywhere
collected, are made up daily into bundles; duly
scheduled as to their number, class, and station.
These bundles are despatched to the audit office.
There they are checked by the returns sent in
from all stations at which tickets were issued. If
any are missing, notice is sent to the station where
they should have been collected, and the reason
of their absence is required. In the case of
through tickets—that is, of tickets issued
between two stations on different lines, as between
London and Scarbro'—both tickets and returns
are forwarded to the railway clearing house,
to be there checked, and for the mileage
division due to each company on such traffic to be
declared.

The young gentleman of pleasing manners,
who hands you your ticket through a pigeon-
hole, and flings about sovereigns and silver as if
coin came as natural to him as mud comes to
a hippopotamus, has a few duties to keep him
awake while you are travelling. After issuing
a couple of hundred tickets to fifty or sixty
different stations, each paid for at a different
rate, he has to make up his train book, and
balance his cash to a farthing. When he opens
his ticket case, and throws up his little window
to begin booking a train, his tickets are all
smoothly arranged in their cases; while, on a slip
of slate above each set of tickets, is marked the
commencing number for that set's particular
station— that is to say, the number printed on
the next ticket that will be issued to the public.
When he takes a ticket out of one of these
compartments, and, after pushing it into a press to
date it, hands it to the passenger, by a quick
movement of the finger he at the same time
half draws out the next ticket, and so on with
each case till he has booked the whole of his
train. The half-drawn tickets left when he
comes to make up his account, show him at a
glance not only to what stations there have been
issues, and so save him the necessity of going
through his entire case of tickets, but their
numbers compared with the commencing
numbers on the slips of slate, at once give the
number of each sort of intermediate ticket issued.
These are what he has got to account for, and
to balance with the cash he has received. That
duty done, he is at liberty to turn his attention
to some of the interminable returns required
either by audit, clearing house, or parliament ;
from one or another of which he is seldom free,
till the time comes for him to book the next
batch of passengers. We are glad to know that
one northern railway company has for some time
past employed at some of its stations women as
booking clerks.

The different systems of check and audit
employed by large companies against the fraud and
dishonesty, not only of the public, but of their own
servants, are very complicated. In the old days
of great dividends paid out of little profit,
everything was taken for granted more than it is now;
the honesty of men who stood well with the
world was held to be unimpeachable; and figures
were believed in. One after another, great
exposures shook this confidence, and by the slow
growth of years, a complicated system of check
and counter-check, extending from the highest
official to the lowest, working in and out from
one return to another, from this department to
that department, has come into use. Whether
in all cases its end is answered, there is some
reason to doubt.

There is one well-known weak point. No
railway company can set up a complete check
against dishonesty in dealing with the excess
fares, which at a principal station amount to a
large sum in the course of a month. Mr. Twiddle
takes a second-class ticket, but for some reason
chooses to perform part of his journey in a first-
class carriage; or, he takes a third-class return
ticket, and chooses to make the return journey
by second-class. At his journey's end, the
ticket-collector demands of him payment for
the difference between the two fares. The
differences thus collected are known as "excess
fares," and are supposed to be paid in with due
particulars by the man who collects them. But
what if he pays in only three-fourths, or even
one-half, of what he thus receives, who is the
wiser? There is no regular check upon him,
and that large gains have been made in this way
by collectors in different parts of the country,
is a well-ascertained fact in railway history.
Still, the game is a dangerous oue to play; the