Genre:

Ballad, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

T Hood

Subjects:

Engineers, Education, Railways, Government

    John Jones was a builder's clerk 'Before his head was engine-turn'd / To be an engineer!'. He discovered that 'iron roads / were quite the public tale', but his schemes all ended ill because he tried to make 'short cuts, / when cut [i.e. drunk] with something short [i.e. spirits]'. (165) The railway he plans careers from right to left, and no-one will take it up. It is ridiculed in the public press, but Jones persists in his plan until he ends in debt. Finally he hangs himself, leaving a message on the wall: 'I've got my line at last!' (168). The illustration 'Parliament Rejects my Line' (facing 167) depicts a drunken man clutching a bill marked 'Railroad'; a line marks his careering path from the door of a public house, and the signpost next to him points toward 'Rye'.