e
calculated on a dividend of 80 per cent. Bitter indeed must have been
the disappointment of those railway shareholders who pinned their faith
to the estimates of traffic-takers, when instead of receiving large
dividends, little was received, and in some instances the lines paid no
dividend at all.

MONEY LOST AND FOUND.

On Friday night, a servant of the Birmingham Railway Company found in one
of the first-class carriages, after the passengers had left, a pocket
book containing a check on a London Bank for 2,000 and 2,500 pounds in
bank notes. He delivered the book and its contents to the principal
officer, and it was forwarded to the gentleman to whom it belonged, his
address being discovered from some letters in the pocket book. He had
gone to bed, and risen and dressed himself next morning without
discovering his loss, which was only made known by the restoration of the
property. He immediately tendered 20 pounds to the party who had found
his money, but this being contrary to the regulations of the directors,
the party, though a poor man, could not receive the reward. As the
temptation, however, was so great to apply the money to his own use, the
matter is to be brought before a meeting of the directors.

--_Aris's Gazette_, 1839.

ORIGIN OF COOK'S RAILWAY EXCURSIONS.

Mr. Thomas Cook, the celebrated excursionist, in an article in the
_Leisure Hour_ remarks:--"As a pioneer in a wide field of thought and
action, my course can never be repeated. It has been mine to battle
against inaugural difficulties, and to place the system on a basis of
consolidated strength. It was mine to lay the foundations of a system on
which others, both individuals and companies, have builded, and there is
not a phase of the tourist plans of Europe and America that was not
embodied in my plans or foreshadowed in my ideas. The whole thing seemed
to come to me as by intuition, and my spirit recoiled at the idea of
imitation.

"The beginning was very small, and was on this wise. I believe that the
Midland Railway from Derby to Rugby _via_ Leicester was opened in 1840.
At that time I knew but little of railways, having only travelled over
the Leicester and Swannington line from Leicester to Long Lane, a
terminus near to the Leicestershire collieries. The reports in the
papers of the opening of the new line created astonishment in
Leicestershire, and I had read o