For more than twenty-three years my agent
has been at this work, arranging excursions
between England and Scotland, during which time
more than a million passengers have been under
his charge. He has arrangements with every
railway company that can be made available for
Scotch trips, and sometimes begins to gather
the nucleus of his company far away in the
extreme west of England, then sweeping up the
West Cornwall, the Cornwall and South Devon,
the Bristol and Exeter, the Midland, the North
Eastern, and the North British railways, he
reaches Edinburgh, into which city he will pour
more than a couple of thousand people by special
trains within a period of twenty-four hours. My
agent does not profess to make hotel arrangements
for his flock, but he takes care to advise
hotel-keepers of a coming influx, and he thinks
that hotel-keepers in the Highlands and
elsewhere are kept in order by a list of their prices
being published in his programme. At some
places far away, such as Bannavie, in the West
Highlands by Fort William, and Braemar, at the
period of the Highland gathering and games,
there has been a pressure, but something has
always been arranged, for the hotel-keepers,
who at first were disposed to snub my agent as
importing the wrong kind of article for them,
now eagerly look for his countenance and
recommendation. At Oban he had established a
set of lodgings, which he found operated as a
wholesome check on the hotels. To carry people,
not to feed them, is my agent's business, and, as a
rule, he declines to enter into any agreement for
boarding and lodging his troop, but, if they wish
it, he will settle all their hotel bills on the road,
and present them for discharge at the end of
the trip; and it speaks highly for the honesty of
excursionists, when he declares that during his
whole experience he has never made a bad debt
amongst them, or lost a farthing by them. Had
he ever been asked to lend any of them money?
Frequently, and had never refused! He had
lent as much as twenty pounds to one of his
excursionists, an entire stranger to him, and had
always been repaid. Had he taken any security?
Not he! Sometimes a gentleman would offer
his watch, but what did he want with a gentleman's
watch? He told him to put it in his
pocket again!

At Edinburgh the thousands disperse, and
start off on different routes, according to the
length of their holiday and the depth of their
purses. Those who know the country, young
men, and spirited people, start off alone. Ladies
and inexperienced persons remain in the flock,
and go the tour, supervised by my agent, in a
party, numbering sometimes as many as two
hundred and fifty, half of whom are ladies. The
ordinary tickets are useful only as far as Edinburgh,
but there are offices in all the large towns
in Scotland at which fresh tickets for further
extended trips can be obtained. And here, my
agent, chuckling audibly, informs me that his
tickets for coaches always have precedence,
where, as is frequently the case, the vehicular
supply is not equal to the tourist demand; and,
the coach-proprietors being, in most cases, also
hotel-proprietors, it is not to be wondered at
that there is loud and frequent grumbling
from the outside public at the best places in
inns and on the coaches being given to the
excursionists. Of these extended trips, the most
favourite is that including Glasgow and Inverness,
Staffa and lona—the reason, perhaps, being
that it is one of the cheapest as well as the
loveliest, and with it there is connected a
circumstance of great interest. For, with a
certain amount of proper pride, my agent tells me
that a series of improvements which, during the
last few years, has been made in the condition of
the poor fishing population of Staffa and lona,
is principally due to his excursionists. When
they are inspecting the old cathedral at lona,
my agent takes the opportunity of introducing
the subject of the natives' poverty and their hard
lives, and appeals to the generosity of his flock;
the excursionists, holiday-making and happy,
are in proper cue for the reception of such an
appeal, and respond liberally—so liberally, that
by their subscriptions twenty-four fishing-boats
have been built for the poor fishermen of the
place. Many poor boys from these desolate
regions have also been provided with comfortable
situations in large towns. My agent also
informs me that, during his whole experience,
he has never had an accident with any of his
people, that no one has ever been taken ill—
nothing beyond a little over-fatigue—no serious
illness, and that he has had constant cases of
love-matches made up on the trip, and has taken
the happy couple their honeymoon excursion in
the following year.

Asked as to the character of the company
usually availing itself of his tickets, my agent
responded shortly, "First-rate;" but, on its being
explained to him that the social status rather
than the moral character of his excursionists is
what is inquired after, he became more
communicative. The destination of the excursion, he
explained, greatly determined its numbers and
the social classes from which it was made up.
The trips to Edinburgh, and the shorter
excursions in England, attract tradesmen and their
wives, merchants' clerks away for a week's
holiday, roughing it with a knapsack, and getting
over an immense number of miles before they
return; swart mechanics, who seem never to be
able entirely to free themselves from traces of
their life-long labour, but who, my agent tells
me, are by no means the worst informed, and
are generally the most interested about the
places they visit. In the return trips from
Scotland to England come many students of
the schools and universities—raw-boned hard-
worked youths, who, in defiance of the
popular belief, actually do return to their native
country for a time, probably to make a future
raid into and settlement in the land whose
nakedness they had spied into in early youth.
As to Swiss excursions, the company is of a
very different order; the Whisuntide trip
has a good deal of the Cockney element in
it, and is mostly composed of very high-spirited