The Iron Horse, R. M. Ballantyne [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

Having thus seen one criminal disposed of, Mr Sharp returned to his office to take measures for the arrest of a few more of the same class.

Since we last met with our superintendent, he had not led an idle life by any means. A brief reference to some of his recent doings will be an appropriate introduction to the little entertainment which he had provided for himself and his men on that particular evening.

One day he had been informed that wine and spirits had been disappearing unaccountably at a particular station. He visited the place with one of his men, spent the night under a tarpaulin in a goods-shed, and found that one of the plate-layers was in the habit of drawing off spirits with a syphon. The guilty man was handed over to justice, and honest men, who had felt uneasy lest they should be suspected, were relieved.

On another occasion he was sent to investigate a claim made by a man who was in the accident at Langrye Station. This man, who was an auctioneer, had not been hurt at all—only a little skin taken off his nose,—but our fop with the check trousers advised him to make a job of it, and said that he himself and his friend had intended to make a claim, only they had another and more important game in hand, which rendered it advisable for them to keep quiet. This was just before the attack made on Mr Lee in the train between Clatterby and London. The auctioneer had not thought of such a way of raising money, but jumped readily at the idea; went to Glasgow and Dundee, where he consulted doctors—showed them his broken nose, coughed harshly in their ears, complained of nervous affections, pains in the back, loins, and head, and, pricking his gums slightly, spit blood for their edification; spoke of internal injuries, and shook his head lugubriously. Doctors, unlike lawyers, are not constantly on the watch for impostors. The man’s peeled and swelled nose was an obvious fact; his other ailments might, or might not, be serious, so they prescribed, condoled with him, charged him nothing, and dismissed him with a hope of speedy cure. Thereafter the auctioneer went down the Clyde to recruit his injured health, and did a little in the way of business, just to keep up his spirits, poor fellow! After that he visited Aberdeen for similar purposes, and then sent in a claim of 150 pounds damages against the Grand National Trunk Railway.

Mr Sharp’s first proceeding was to visit the doctors to whom the auctioneer had applied, then he visited the various watering-places whither the man had gone to recruit and ascertained every particular regarding his proceedings. Finally, he went to the north of Scotland to see the interesting invalid himself. He saw and heard him, first, in an auction-room, where he went through a hard day’s work even for a healthy man; then he visited him in his hotel and found him, the picture of ruddy health, drinking whisky punch. On stating that he was an agent of the railway company, and had called to have some conversation regarding his claim, some of the auctioneer’s ruddy colour fled, but being a bold man, he assumed a candid air and willingly answered all questions; admitted that he was better, but said that he had lost much time; had for a long period been unable to attend to his professional duties, and still suffered much from internal injuries. Mr Sharp expressed sympathy with him; said that the case, as he put it, was indeed a hard one, and begged of him to put his statement of it down on paper. The auctioneer complied, and thought Mr Sharp a rather benignant railway official. When he had signed his name to the paper, his visitor took it up and said, “Now, Mr Blank, this is all lies from beginning to end. I have traced your history step by step, down to the present time, visited all the places you have been to, conversed with the waiters of the hotels where you put up, have heard you to-day go through as good a day’s work as any strong man could desire to do, and have seen you finish up with a stiff glass of whisky toddy, which I am very sorry to have interrupted. Now, sir, this is very like an effort to obtain money under false pretences, and, if you don’t know what that leads to, you are in a very fair way to find out. The Company which I have the honour to represent, however, is generous. We know that you were in the Langrye accident, for I saw you there, and in consideration of the injury to your nerves and the damage to your proboscis, we are willing to give you a five-pound note as a sort of sticking-plaster at once to your nose and your feelings. If you accept that, good; if not you shall take the consequences of this!” The superintendent here held up the written statement playfully, and placed it in his pocket-book. The auctioneer was a wise, if not an honest, man. He thankfully accepted the five pounds, and invited Mr Sharp to join him in a tumbler, which, however, the superintendent politely declined.

But this was a small matter compared with another case which Mr Sharp had just been engaged investigating. It was as follows:—

One afternoon a slight accident occurred on the line by which several passengers received trifling injuries. At the time only two people made claim for compensation, one for a few shillings, the other for a few pounds. These cases were at once investigated and settled, and it was thought that there the matter ended. Six months afterwards, however, the company received a letter from the solicitors of a gentleman whose hat it was said, had been driven down on the bridge of his nose, and had abraded the skin; the slight wound had turned into an ulcer, which ultimately assumed the form of permanent cancer. In consequence of this the gentleman had consulted one doctor in Paris and another in Rome, and had been obliged to undergo an operation—for all of which he claimed compensation to the extent of 5000 pounds. The company being quite unable to tell whether this gentleman was in the accident referred to or not, an investigation was set on foot, in which Mr Sharp bore his part. At great expense official persons were sent to Paris and to Rome to see the doctors said to have been consulted, and in the end—nearly two years after the accident—the Company was found liable for the 5000 pounds!

While we are on this subject of compensation, it may not be uninteresting to relate a few curious cases, which will give some idea of the manner in which railway companies are squeezed for damages—sometimes unjustly, and too often fraudulently. On one occasion, a man who said he had been in an accident on one of our large railways, claimed 1000 pounds. In this case the company was fortunately able to prove a conspiracy to defraud, and thus escaped; but in many instances the companies are defeated in fraudulent claims, and there is no redress. The feelings of the juries who try the cases are worked on; patients are brought into Court exhibiting every symptom of hopeless malady, but these same patients not unfrequently possess quite miraculous powers of swift recovery, from what had been styled “incurable damage.” One man received 6000 pounds on the supposition that he had been permanently disabled, and within a short period he was attending to his business as well as ever. A youth with a salary of 60 pounds a year claimed and got 1200 pounds on the ground of incurable injury—in other words he was pensioned for life to the extent of 60 pounds a year—and, a year afterwards, it was ascertained that he was “dancing at balls,” and had joined his father in business as if there was nothing the matter with him.

A barmaid who, it was said, received “injuries to the spine of a permanent character,” was paid a sum of 1000 pounds as—we were about to write—compensation, but consolation would be the more appropriate term, seeing that she had little or nothing to be compensated for, as she was found capable of “dancing at the Licensed Victuallers’ Ball” soon after the accident and eventually she married! To oblige railways to compensate for loss of time, or property, or health, to a limited extent, seems reasonable, but to compel them to pension off people who have suffered little or nothing, with snug little annuities of 50 pounds or 60 pounds, does really seem to be a little too hard; at least so it appears to be in the eyes of one who happens to have no interest whatever in railways, save that general interest in their immense value to the land, and their inestimable comforts in the matter of locomotion.

The whole subject of compensation stands at present on a false footing. For the comfort of those who wish well to railways, and love justice, we may add in conclusion, that proposals as to modifications have already been mooted and brought before Government, so that in all probability, ere long, impostors will receive a snubbing, and shareholders will receive increased dividends!

But let us return to Mr Sharp. Having, as we have said, gone to his office, he found his faithful servant Blunt there.

“Why, Blunt,” he said, sitting down at the table and tearing open a few letters that awaited him, “what a good-looking porter you make!”

“So my wife says, sir,” replied Blunt with a perfectly grave face, but with a twinkle in his eye.

“She must be a discriminating woman, Blunt. Well, what news have you to-night? You seemed to think you had found out the thieves at Gorton Station the last time we met.”

“So I have, sir, and there are more implicated than we had expected. The place is a perfect nest of them.”

“Not an uncommon state of things,” observed Mr Sharp, “for it is well-known that one black sheep spoils a flock. We must weed them all out, Blunt, and get our garden into as tidy a condition as possible; it is beginning to do us credit already, but that Gorton Station has remained too long in a bad state; we must harrow it up a little. Well, let’s hear what you have found out. They never suspected you, I suppose?”

“Never had the least suspicion,” replied Blunt with a slight approach to a smile. “I’ve lived with ’em, now, for a considerable time, and the general opinion of ’em about me is that I’m a decent enough fellow, but too slow and stupid to be trusted, so they have not, up to this time, thought me worthy of being made a confidant. However, that didn’t matter much, ’cause I managed to get round one o’ their wives at last, and she let out the whole affair—in strict confidence, of course, and as a dead secret!

“In fact I have just come from a long and interesting conversation with her. She told me that all the men at the station, with one or two exceptions, were engaged in it, and showed me two of the missing bales of cloth—the cloth, you remember, sir, of which there was such a large quantity stolen