Among other pieces of information gleaned on
this occasion, we learned that "for a cove as didn't mine a jolly lot of
readin and writin, Readin was prime in winter; plenty of good vittles, and
the cells warmed."
It must be remarked that the character of the Parliamentary varies very much
according to the station from which it starts. The London trains being the
worst, having a large proportion of what are vulgarly called "swells out of
luck." In a rural district the gathering of smock-frocks and rosy-faced
lasses, the rumbling of carts, and the size, number, and shape of the trunks
and parcels, afford a very agreeable and comical scene on a frosty,
moonlight, winter's morning, about Christmas time, when visiting commences,
or at Whitsuntide. No man who has a taste for studying the phases of life
and character should fail to travel at least once by the Parliamentary.
The large cheap load having rumbled off from the south side of the station,
about nine o'clock preparations are commenced for the aristocratic Express,
which, on this line, is composed of first-class carriages alone, in which, at
half the price of the old mail coach fares, the principal stations on the
line are reached at railway speed.
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