UP AND DOWN THE LINE.

I am in the employ of the Penzance and
Berwick- upon- Tweed Railway Company
(head offices, Moon Square, Land's End);
but, whether I am a director, superintendent,
clerk, or stoker, matters not. My
purpose is simply to put down a few remarks
respecting the machinery by which the P.
and B. line is worked, and thereby ease my
mind of a nightmare which has weighed upon
it for some time.

Having thus modestly introduced myself,
I will, with permission, abjure my
personality, and become shadowy and imposing
in the plural number.

To begin, then, at the top of the tree. The
august and all-powerful body of Directors, as
a matter of course, come first under our
notice; but of them we shall say little—our
present liability, so far as they are concerned,
being of a limited nature. They are of the
gods, and sit above the thunder; and it is
with mortals that we have now to deal. To
the vast body of officials on this our railway,
the board of Directors is a sort of mythical
assembly, which they hear frequently
mentioned, but which they seldom or never see.
They hear of them as having put off the salary
advances for another six months, or as requiring
some elaborate return, the making out of
which involves much extra labour; or,
perchance, they have news of some unfortunate
guard or station-master being summoned before
them, and summarily dismissed the service;
or they read of them in the half-yearly
reports—those puzzling compilations of facts
and figures which not one person in a thousand
can make head or tail of; or they see
"By order of the Board of Directors" printed
at the foot of sundry notices, orders, and
injunctions; but, further than this the
acquaintance does not extend. Sometimes,
indeed, as Mr. Finenib happens to be
traversing the platform, a friend will take him
by the button for a moment, and, with a
mysterious nod, will whisper, " o you see
that stout gentleman with the thick
walking-stick? Well, that is Mr. Zeus, our
chairman." Or, "Do you see that thin person,
walking with his hands behind him ? That
is Mr. Phoebus Apollo. He is one of our
Directors, and said to be worth half a million
of money." Mr. Finenib will gaze for a
moment with hushed reverence; and then,
hurrying to his office, tell his fellow-clerks
what he has seen—adding, that he should
like to have told old Zeus a bit of his mind
about the horrid low salaries and over-work
in our department.

The general manager, the secretary, the
engineer, the accountant, and a few other
heads of departments, are, with rare exceptions,
the only portions of the executive with
whom the board comes in contact. The
Penzance and Berwick line being one of the
longest in the kingdom, our board, in order
to facilitate the transaction of business,
divides itself into various committees—finance,
traffic, stores, and others each of which
committees sits at a different time: say once
a week or once a fortnight, with a general
board meeting once a month. He is a fortunate
man who knows how to manage his
various committees skilfully. A great point
is not to give them too much to do—not to
bore them with unnecessary details—but to
have your questions ready cut and dried, so
that a speedy decision may be come at.
They are not without their cares, these Directors,
their lofty position notwithstanding;
especially if the traffic for the half-year
does not show well, or any of their transactions
on  behalf of the company prove unfortunate;
for, in such case, shareholders are
liable to turn rusty, and put awkward questions
at the next general meeting, which
must be answered in a more or less
straight-forward manner.

Next to the Directors, in point of precedence,
comes the Chief of the executive, Mr.
Agamemnon, the general manager. Most
managers of large railways have some special
point about them for which they are noted
more than another. Some are known as
skilful diplomatists, dexterous in drawing up
agreements, far-seeing in their plans for the
future, not to be outwitted by the stratagems
of hostile lines. Others have a talent for
developing the home traffic of their lines, by
diverting it from canals and carriers, and
creating a trade where none existed before
—for swelling the weekly returns, and realising
a thumping dividend at the close of the
half-year: these are men to be held in honour
by the shareholders. Other managers there