d, Mr. Allport said, if
there was one part of his public life on which he looked back with more
satisfaction than another it was the time when this boon was conferred on
third-class passengers.

When we contemplate present conditions of third-class travel it is hard
to realise what they were before this change took place; slow speed,
delays and discomfort; bare boards; hard seats; shunting of third-class
trains into sidings and waiting there for other trains, sometimes even
goods trains, to pass. Mr. Allport might well be proud of the part he
played.

Another matter which concerned, not so much the public as the welfare of
the clerical staff of the railways, was the establishment of
Superannuation Funds; yet the public was interested too, for the
interests of the railway service and the general community are closely
interwoven. Up till now station masters and clerks had struggled on
without prospect of any provision for their old age. Their pay was
barely sufficient to enable them to maintain a respectable position in
life and afforded no margin for providing for the future.

At last, the principal railway companies, with the consent of their
shareholders, and with Parliamentary sanction, established Superannuation
Funds, which ever since have brought comfort and security to their
officers and clerical staff, and have proved of benefit to the companies
themselves. A pension encourages earlier retirement from work, quickens
promotion, and vitalises the whole service. On nearly all railways
retirement is optional at sixty and compulsory at sixty-five.

The London and North-Western was the first company to adopt the system of
superannuation, the London and South-Western second, the Great Western
came third, the Midland fourth, and other companies followed in their
wake.

In 1873 the Railway Clearing House obtained Parliamentary power to form a
fund for its staff, with permission to railway companies not large enough
to successfully run funds of their own, and also to the Irish Railway
Clearing House, to become partners in this fund. The Irish Clearing
House took advantage of this, as also have many railway companies, and
practically the whole of the clerical service throughout the United
Kingdom can to-day look forward to the benefits of superannuation.

CHAPTER VIII.
SCOTLAND, GLASGOW LIFE, AND THE CALEDONIAN LINE.

On the last day of December, in the year 1872, between seven and eight
o'clock in th