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"I'll carry it all right," said he. He drew a long forked stick from the faggot heap, and fashioned it into a crook as he walked; on this he slung the kettle, carrying it over his shoulder and swinging the basket in his other hand.

The afternoon sun was scorching in its heat, and he set his hat a little sideways on his head to ward off the glare. He whistled as he walked, but Tamsine, following him, was conscious of a sudden sinking of the heart; there was something wild and rakish in his aspect which filled her with dim forebodings. Tamsine came of a line of peaceable, law-abiding, thoroughly "respectable" folk, and she had no inclination that was not in accordance with the traditions of her race. The thought struck her as she paced just one step behind the careless, almost fantastic, figure, that if she were to meet one of her kinsfolk now she would feel ashamed; but immediately her faithful heart reproached her; she crimsoned with shame, not on her husband's account, but for her own momentary want of loyalty. Quickening her pace she passed her arm through his, and he, smiling down at her, exchanged his whistling for song.

"The sailor's wife the sailor's star shall be.

Yo ho! we go across the sea."

He almost danced as he walked, and by-and-by Tamsine, infected by his light-heartedness, and also as a kind of atonement for her own passing inclination to criticize his doings, fell into step with him, and they skipped along the road like children escaping from school, the crockery rattling inside the basket in time to their movements, and the kettle hammering on the stick.

The Times.

As they rounded a sudden corner they came upon two figures standing by a gate. Tamsine at once slowed down, but David, still singing, jerked her elbow so that she only identified them as man and woman.

""The sailor's wife the sailor's star shall be," carolled David lustily, as he waltzed round with Tamsine.

"Well," cried a loud voice, which Tamsine instantly recognized as Sam's, "well, I'm just about disgusted! That my sister should make such a mountebank of herself!"

"Not mountebanks," said his companion--and as Tamsine was hurried past she had a vision of Martha's pale face and glowing eyes-"they're gipsies, that's what they are! Look at the man! 'Tis a gipsy from head to foot."

"Well, a gipsy's is a merry life," retorted David carelessly over his shoulder. "Come on, love."

He dragged Tamsine along with good-humored force, and she was glad to find herself out of sight of Sam's angry, contemptuous face and those furious eyes of Martha's.

"Oh," she panted, obliging him to pause at length, "I do wish we hadn't a-met them! That woman do fair hate me, David-an' I do feel hurt to think she's turned Sam again me as she've a-done."

"Now, don't you let them spoil our outing," said David. "Put the thought o' them out o' your mind-that's what I do do I do never think of anything what hurts. Come, cheer up! Here's you an' me same as we were before, an' the blue sky an' the lark a-singin'."

But Tamsine, though she endeavored to obey, could not efface the memory of Martha's scornful look and the gibe which she had flung at them. "Gipsies! Look at the man!"

(To be continued.)

THE SEAMY SIDE OF TRAVEL.

In the man or woman of middle age at the present day there are usually two personalities at war within the same brain when it is a question of leaving one's home surroundings to see the world beyond it. One half may be still enthusiastic in its appreciation of scenery, of architecture, of strange or new peoples, of historical scenes, world wonders, or great achievements in art and industry. The other half charges the mere bother of déplacement to a debit account to begin with, and generally is disposed to resent with increasing emphasis the unnecessary discomforts and risks of travel. We are the more captious, perhaps, because in the age in which we live the numerous persons who do travel with camera and notebook, and who make cinematograph and phonograph records to illustrate their lectures, and collections to enrich our museums, public and private, enable many of us to travel with our minds, without the expense and the discomfort of leaving our own firesides or shaded gardens.

Yet, except to those who are incapacitated by bodily ailments, mental or monetary limitations, travel is even more interesting and more profitable than it has ever been, and in some respects safer and more comfortable. But inasmuch as it might be made (especially where British agencies are concerned) so much more comfortable less risky, and less expensive than it is, this article has been conceived and written, not without some thought of private revenge in addition to its altruistic humanitarianism.

There is scarcely a railway station above or below ground in the United Kingdom without a poster which spreads before us the Magic Carpet of the Arabian Nights. On this, happy looking men and women have stationed

themselves whilst a hideous jinn supplies the motive power underneath the carpet, and is seen carrying them from one European capital to another-an intelligent anticipation, perhaps, of the perfected airship.

In

So much for romance; but those who stop to think and who "have been there before," know that there is no magic carpet as yet provided by any tourist agency which enables any but an alert and watchful, pushful tourist to travel in safety, or without discomfort, from London to Paris, or Paris to London: to say nothing of longer journeys. deed, in some ways these tourist agencies have either become too specialized in the matter of yacht cruises and winter sports, or too old, prosperous and unenterprising to attack any longer the hydra-headed tyrants of railway directorates, Customs control, steamshipmanagement, hackney-carriage or hotel

owners.

Perhaps the most glaring instance of their indifference, or their powerlessness, one of the most startling anachronisms of the twentieth century, lies in the management of the South Eastern Railway. If I may seem to approach this and other grave subjects with a certain naïveté, it should be premised that it is only of late years that I have had the opportunity to consider things nearer home than Africa, that my departures to and arrivals from Africa were usually connected with Liverpool or Plymouth, and that if I came or went by way of Paris, it was invariably by the no-longer-independent Chatham and Dover Railway Company, or by the Brighton and South Coast. In fact, fate so willed it that it was not till the opening of the present year of grace that I had the unforgettable experience of arriving at Charing Cross Station from the Conti

nent with luggage to be passed through the Customs. In this recent experience (preceded by a departure from Charing Cross for Germany in which I fulfilled all that was required of me, but my luggage nevertheless was incorrectly labelled and went wildly astray) I have realized more fully than before what it means to land at Dover late on a wintry afternoon, with the temperature below freezing point, fresh from all the luxuries now to be found in Continental railway travel, including carefully warmed railway car riages, and to travel for two hours up to London in an unwarmed first-class compartment. And then, to realize for the first time that although Charing Cross has been the principal terminus of our Continental traffic for something like forty years, it is actually without any special accommodation for the work of Customs examination (unless, of course, such buildings were destroyed at the time the roof fell in, and have not been replaced). On the occasion of my recent personal experience, the luggage from all parts of the Continent, possibly even from India as well, was shot out on to one of the platforms, and left there, higgledypiggledy. Here the mob of passengers, to which had been added a mob of porters armed with iron-mounted barrows which they drove into one's legs, had to pick out from memory its various items of luggage, get them somehow or other clawed together, and then in its utter despair plead with H.M. Customs to take for granted that its declaration of no dutiable goods was a true one. For what would have happened on this last occasion (January 31, 1911) if the Customs had insisted on any opening of the luggage, I tremble to think. An icy wind was blowing in through the great open funnel of the station, two defeated football teams Lad arrived from France, and

wanted their luggage straight away to catch trains for the north, several fellow-passengers with broken limbs (the result of Alpine sports) were surrounded by bevies of pitying relations and hospital nurses; engines were screaming to drown the human clamor, or letting off steam, which temporarily eclipsed all clear vision: in short, it was an indescribable babel of noise and misery, and the Customs officials being. as they always are, true gentlemen, simply scrabbled a passport on all pieces of luggage they could see and left the passengers and their porters to help themselves. I selected my own quite honestly, of course, but there seemed to be no question of my registered receipt, though I did my best to force it on the porter that helped me.

Now, surely, this is unworthy of the principal railway route to and from the Continent, at the principal continental-traffic station of the capital of the British Empire, in the year 1911? At Victoria Station, both of the Brighton Railway and of what was once the Chatham and Dover, there is a spacious enclosed room of very large size in which all the luggage is ranged on benches, and, if I remember rightly, is placed either according to its label number or the first initial of the owners' name on the label. You enter these places without rush or scrimmage, you identify and claim your luggage without difficulty, and if it has got to be opened it is opened under comfortable conditions.

Then, if you are so satisfied with the two Victorias, why travel to and from the Continent in connection with any other station?"

But the Brighton Victoria involves the Dieppe route, of which more anon; and as regards the South Eastern, the continental trains connected with Victoria are either too expensive with their supplementary charges, for the tourist who is not actually a rich per

son; or they depart or arrive at inconvenient hours. The plain fact remains that Charing Cross is connected with the most-commonly-used section of the direct traffic with the Continent; and Charing Cross remains to this day as utterly unequipped for dealing with the luggage on arriving, as it was apparently forty-five years ago.

There is no doubt that the absence of any proper shelter and refreshment rooms at Dover Pier is a disgrace to the British nation. Why cannot Dover be as well equipped as Calais? What is the use of putting forward the fact (which may not be a fact) that you are never detained at the quay, and that somewhere up in the town of Dover there is a railway station which has got decent waiting-rooms and a refreshment department? Seeing that the boat trains never stop at such a station, the existence of its alleged comforts has no bearing on the question.

Folkstone is a little, but not much, better. But some mystery, some slur, which I have never been able to understand, seems to lie on the Folkestone-Boulogne route; by which I have once or twice travelled (with, if I remember rightly, great unpunctuality). Far and away the main bulk of passengers travelling between London and the Continent go by way of Dover and Calais.

Now: as to the crossing of the Channel at its narrowest part-Dover to Calais. This is constantly advertised as being achieved in a few minutes over the hour. On the smoothest day in my own experiences, it never takes less than an hour and a half, and it would be interesting to learn how often the trains connected with it at Dover leave for London at the advertised time. The railway that controls this route advertises with a flourish of trumpets the splendid steamers which meet the trains, though even their ad

vertised speed-nineteen to twenty-two
miles an hour-does not come up to the
speed of the steamers plying between
Denmark and Germany, Denmark and
Sweden, or similar short-journey steam-
ers between Hamburg and the Dutch
coast. But the principal trains be-
tween Charing Cross and the Conti-
nent are not (in my experience) often
served by any one of these advertised
steamers, but by the Pas-de-Calais, a
French boat, which I should think
scarcely did more than seventeen knots
an hour, and which is certainly not the
last word in comfort and conveniences,
but about dated in that respect "1880."
I never remember to have crossed the
Channel in any boat connected with
the South Eastern trains which seemed
to me in comfort and speed worthy of
the position in the world of the United
Kingdom. I am aware that added
comforts can be had for extra pay-
ments ranging from 11. to 121. (for a
journey which ought to take no longer
than an hour), but this is only part and
parcel of the general policy of the con-
tinental traffic of this line, which
makes it more and more difficult for
people of modest means (as are most
travellers) to avail themselves com-
fortably of the shortest sea route. The
one thing, however, rich people cannot
buy on these Channel steamers, is the
right to leave them comfortably; no
matter how great, rich or distinguished
you are, you must take part with per-
haps 100 fellow-passengers in strug-
gling to leave the ship by a steep gang-
way which admits one person at a
time. As most of the persons who
leave carry two or three articles of
luggage, the scrimmage inflicts many
bruises and scratches. The reason
why this shoving and excitement takes
place is in order to secure comfortable
seats in the waiting train.

On most of the big expresses abroad, at any rate during the seasons when there is much traffic, every seat in the

first and second class is numbered, and passengers wishing to make sure of a seat in the train must apply beforehand with their tickets for a number. In many ways this in an excellent system and might be (perhaps is) adopted by the Brighton line in connection with its continental traffic from Dieppe. But I think it unfair that the railway companies and the tourist agencies should make the charge they do for booking these seats. The mere taking of a ticket for a specified date should entitle one to a specified seat in a particular train. However, if the system of numbered seats could be adopted right through between London and the Continent, if on landing at Dover or Newhaven you knew your seat was inevitably allotted to you, there would be no need for this pushing and elbowing along a narrow passage to get first to the train.

It is some years since I made use of the Brighton line for reaching Paris. I used at one time to travel frequently by this way, and liked it. But I changed my mind a few years ago, as in certain ways I did not find the Channel steamers comfortable,' and, above all, after landing at Dieppe it was difficult to keep one's seat in the train except by sitting in it, and as this precluded the whiling away of an hour's waiting by taking refreshments or walking about, it made the journey tedious. Again: the St. Lazare terminus at Paris of the State Western Railways is, or was, badly supplied with cabs. I have several times arrived there and had to wait half an hour whilst a cab was being specially fetched from outside the station. Then

1 I am since assured by a great Tourist Agency that the points I complained of have been completely remedied. If the Etat-Ouest would wake up a little. the Dieppe route to Paris should become the favorite one, but the State mismanagement of the Western Railway is becoming a serious concern to the friends and lovers of France. I am told by one who ought to know that the cause of the numerous accidents and the great unpunctuality is an unwise economy in upkeep.

again, the accommodation and the arrangements at the St. Lazare for the Customs examinations are far less pleasant and convenient than they are at the Northern station.

Why cannot all railway companies throughout the civilized world follow the example of Germany, and arrange that passengers on arrival shall be handed a metal ticket with the number of a cab or motor, which is unchangeably assigned to them and must wait for them till their luggage is ready to leave the station? Such a convenience in Germany greatly assists nervous and fidgety people At most of the London railway termini at the present day it is almost due to a personal favor on the part of the porter that one succeeds in getting a motor-cab at all.

Marseilles is a most ill-equipped port in this respect. There are plenty of motor-cabs in the town, but they are, I am told, "afraid" to approach the quays where the steamers disembark their passengers, and such passengers landing at Marseilles from various parts of the world, though they may by telegraphing beforehand get an omnibus from the station (but this is an appeal not infrequently ignored), can only get away from the waterside to the inconveniently-placed railway station in the most tumble-down, miserable little victorias to be found anywhere, with dirty, shabby cushions, and no capacity for carrying luggage carriages that are wrenched from side to side in the tramlines, and which impose a cruel strain on their poor little horses in climbing up five hundred feet to the station. Why was the great terminus at Marseilles apparently placed without any regard to the fact that Marseilles is one of the greatest seaports in the world-a seaport as important to the United Kingdom as much as to France, for it has become really the outpost of Great Britain on the Mediterranean? There is this preten

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