Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery; Instructions, Spoof

Subjects:

Railways, Public Health, Telegraphy, Engineering, Medical Practitioners, Commerce, Gender, Crime, Class

    Responding to news that the French government has published rules and regulations for French railways, suggests a similar publication for the British lines. The rules poke fun at the disagreeable aspects of second- and third-class railway travel, including the darkness, dampness, coldness, and overcrowding of carriages, the presence of cattle, the high risk of crimes against and injury to passengers, and the poor profits reaped by shareholders. For example, rule 'I' stipulates that 'Every Passenger in the second and third class is to be allowed to carry a dark lantern', while rule 'IV' states that 'Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible, as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not mix sociably together'.