owledge will admit, but I hold, gentlemen, that the management of
railway companies is above the average management of many other
companies. We have much more work--more dangerous work--to do than
other companies, and we do it with much less proportional loss to life,
limb, and property."

"He-ar, he-ar!" burst from the toady in spite of his recent rebuke; but
as it was drowned in a round of hearty applause no one was the wiser or
the worse of his note of approval.

"When I think," continued the chairman, "of the condition this country
was in before the days of railways--which probably most of those present
remember--the ingratitude of the public seems to me utterly
unaccountable. I can only understand it on the supposition that they
have somehow obtained false notions as to the great value of railways
and the great blessing they are to the community.

"Why, our goods-manager informs me that there is a certain noble lord,
whom of course I may not name in public, who has a farm at a
considerable distance out of town. He has a fancy that the milk and
cream produced on his own farm is better than Metropolitan milk and
cream--(laughter). He therefore resolves to have fresh milk and cream
sent in from his farm every morning, and asks us to carry it for him.
We agree; but he further insists that the milk and cream shall be
delivered at his residence punctually at nine a.m. To this we also
agree, because the thing can be done; yet it is sharp practice, for it
is only by the train arriving at its time, punctually to a minute, and
by our horse and van being in readiness to start the instant it is
loaded, that the thing can be accomplished. Now, gentlemen, it is owing
to the extreme care and vigorous superintendence of our goods--I had
almost said our good-manager that that noble lord has never missed his
milk or cream one morning during the last six months. And the same
punctuality attends the milk-delivery of `Brown, Jones, and Robinson,'
for railways, as a rule, are no respecters of persons. Should not this,
I ask, infuse a little of the milk of human kindness into the public
heart in reference to railways?

"Then, consider other advantages. In days not long gone by a few
coaches carried a few hundreds of the more daring among our population
over the land at a high cost and at the truly awful rate of ten miles an
hour. In some cases the break-neck speed of twelve was attained. Most
people preferred to remain at