people, whose greatest delight in life is "having
a fling," and who do Paris, and rush through
France, and through Switzerland to Chamounix,
compare every place they are taken to with the
views which formed part of the exhibition at
the Egyptian Hall, carry London everywhere
about with them in dress, habits, and conversation,
and rush back, convinced that they are
great travellers. From these roysterers the
July and September excursionists differ greatly:
ushers and governesses, practical people from
the provinces, and representatives of the better
style of the London mercantile community
who form their component parts, all travel
as if impressed with the notion that they are
engaged in fulfilling the wishes of a lifetime,
in a pleasant duty never to be repeated. They
stop at all the principal towns, visiting all the
curiosities to be seen in them, and are full of
discussion among themselves, proving that they
are nearly all thoroughly well-up in the subject.
Many of them carry books of reference with
them, and nearly all take notes.

I inquired whether my agent always accompanied
his flock, or whether he occasionally
permitted them to wander alone. He told me that,
on the Swiss trips, he made a point of being with
them from the starting-place to the destination,
and that he never considered himself free from
responsibility (though, of course, there could be
no kind of claim on him) until they were all
landed in England. He should pursue this
course on the Italian and all Continental excursions;
but, in England, he frequently did not meet
his tourists until their arrival at the first large
provincial town on their route, when he "turned
up promiscuously as it were." I asked him
what was gained by remaining with the large
body, and not rambling away by oneself? When,
in reply, my agent hinted that his society and
guidance were the advantages in question, he
looked at me so sternly that I determined to
press him with no further questions of that
nature.

In the Exhibition years of '51 and '62, my
agent, for the first time since 1846, had no
Scotch tourist-trips, being engaged by the
Midland Railway Company as manager of their
Exhibition excursion-trains, in which capacity
he supervised the conveyance to London of
above a hundred and fifty thousand persons; and,
in those years, my agent commenced business
in another line. The excursionists, once lauded
in London, wanted somewhere to live in, and,
with the usual caution of country people,
distrusted the touters and advertisements greeting
them on every side. Remarking this feature
in the first batch which he brought up, my
agent immediately engaged six private family-
houses, "furnished for the season," as boarding-
houses for the richer members of his flock, who,
for six shillings and sixpence a day each, were
provided with bed, breakfast, and a meat-tea.
For the working people, he took a block of new
houses, two hundred model-cottages of two or
three rooms each, in the neighbourhood of
Fulham, furnished them at a cost of about a
thousand pounds, and charged their occupants half-
a-crown a day each for bed, breakfast, and tea;
dinners were not provided. About twelve
thousand persons were lodged here during the season;
among them three delegations of skilled
workmen from Paris, fifty in number, one
delegation of fifty from Turin, and two of forty each
from Germany. Mr. Foster, the member for
Bradford, also brought up five hundred and
forty of his workpeople for a three-days' treat,
and lodged them with my agent. Several of the
railway companies recommended my agent's
lodgings on their excursion-bills, a concession
never before made.

Although my agent is perfectly amiable on
all other subjects, I find one topic on which he
is absolutely ferocious, and that is the supposed
danger of excursion-trains. Obviously he has
expected me to touch upon this point, for I no
sooner utter the words "How about the danger?"
when he stops me by holding up one hand,
while with the other he produces a written
paper which he delivers to me, and begs me to
"cast an eye over." Casting two eyes over it,
I find it to be a tabular statement, showing that
in the thirteen years between 1851 and 1863,
both inclusive, the Midland Railway Company
conveyed two millions six hundred and seventy-
six thousand six hundred and eighty-eight
passengers by excursion trains, being an average
of two hundred and five thousand nine hundred
a year. My agent further informed me
that the only serious accident which ever
happened to an excursion train on the Midland
Railway was in 1862 at Market Harborough,
when one life was lost and several passengers
seriously injured. This accident cost the
company eighteen thousand pounds in
compensations, law expenses, loss of property, &c.
To ensure the safety of these excursion trains
special arrangements are made, the best guards
are appointed to conduct them, and in every case
an experienced inspecting-guard accompanies
the train to see that all the others do their duty.
A programme of excursion trains all over the
line is published weekly, a copy being supplied
to every station-master, guard, or other
responsible officer; besides which, special notices
are supplied to all pointsmen and other stationary
servants, in anticipation of the coming of the
trains, In defence of his system, my agent
also urged that all great public demonstrations
were encouraged and aided by excursion trains,
and that societies for the promotion of religious,
social, and philanthropic objects were often
indebted to the railway companies for the
crowds brought together to attend them, and
in many cases for pecuniary aid, in the shape of
per-centage on the earnings; that excursion
and tourist arrangements constituted the chief
support of many watering-places, whilst the
benefits derived by the humbler classes is
entirely dependent on such arrangements; and
that the visits paid by large numbers of
excursionists to Chatsworth, and other great
houses thrown open to them by their rich
owners, did an immense amount of social good,