INCONVENIENCES AND NUISANCES, THROUGH THE WANT OF ACCOMMODATION AT THE SPETCHLEY OR WORCESTER RAILWAY STATION.

ALIGHTED at the Spetchley or so called Worcester station of the Bristol and Birmingham Railway, about half-past eight on a blowy rainy night, and detained more than an hour for want of a conveyance to the town, a distance of four miles over a hilly and unusually uneasy road. At length, we started, in a low and badly constructed omnibus, which, included in the railway charge, is provided by the company; but, being contracted for at a poor remunerating price, is badly conducted; and it was nearly eleven o'clock before we reached the city.

In addition to want of conveyances, there is a deficiency of assistance at this station for the traffic and they who are anxious to secure anything like a comfortable seat are compelled to act as their own porters-ladies not excepted. Having several carpet bags and a portmanteau to look after, and to load myself, in the rain, I was exhausted and annoyed; and I do not remember ever to have suffered more severely, or ever to have had, for a short time, my patience and temper more worn out, my body

more crushed, or my toes more trodden upon. A conveyance or two had previously left, overladen within and without, and we were in consequence compelled to jam and pack in those who otherwise must have been left behind, and who were equally entitled to ride, till the lumbering vehicle was filled to suffocation. The rain fell copiously, too, and humanity prompted us to endeavour to accommodate all, till the last comers, from want of room, being unable to settle or shake themselves down into a seat, were compelled to stand, seizing the shoulders of the seated to maintain their position amid double rows of knees. The drainings from wet umbrellas trickled coolly down our legs; and the jostling and shaking of the "buss" brought their bulky bodies and saturated garments upon our laps, while punishment was every instant inflicted upon our feet and corns; till, infuriated with pain, fatigue, and a sense of suffocation, it could be no longer borne, and they were unceremoniously jostled or thrown upon the patience of their opposite neighbours, to be subjected, in double quick time, to a similar ejectment! At last, utterly unable to maintain their equilibrium, and left in total darkness, self-preservation being in an omnibus as well as elsewhere the first law of nature, punishment of any sort to relieve self

was inflicted, without the possibility of retaliation or recognition. We were more than an hour and a half performing the distance; and to me, and probably to my companions in suffering, never did time or distance seem so long, or was the misery of riding so complete, Rather than subject myself to a similar infliction again, I would, were no conveyance to be procured, walk barefoot. I will endeavour to prevent, in future, so imprudent and glaring an evil, by exposing the wretched parsimony of a protected, grasping, monopolizing railway proprietary, at the expense of popular feeling and justice; assuring the parties concerned, that public accommodation and comfort must and will be had to a much greater extent, or the public, despite the monopoly, will withdraw their support.

MR. CICERO RATTLEAWAY-AN ECCENTRIC.

January 30, 1845.

Reached the Cross

Hotel, Oxford, about 11 A.M., and found there Mr. Commissioner Cicero Rattleaway, whose equipage, or coach, as I must call it, perfectly astonished me. It is a complete commercial vade mecum, which contains, admirably arranged -having "a place for everything, and everything in its place"-samples from no fewer than five or six-and-twenty houses for whom he transacts business, generally speaking with printers, stationers, or bookbinders. His carriage, or coach, or whatever he may call it, is in size and shape precisely mail-coach-like, weighing, when laden, very little less than two tons. In this, with a pair of post-horses, and in heavy weather sometimes four, he makes or pays an annual visit to every town in England, and I believe Scotland.

His conveyance is provided with no fewer than five lamps (so that, when lighted up, it appears a perfect Argus) having a seat behind, guard-like, surrounded by a leopard-skin, where sits enthroned his tiger, who, accompanied by a long tin horn which has been well tuned to produce the note of Her Majesty's

servant in scarlet livery, never fails to produce for him a clear course. He frequently carries with him a secretary also, united more closely than ordinary dependents of that class, and although not a better man than the master, evidently a much larger better half.

To return, however, to his machine. In its front, on each side, are suspended, in addition to the rifle or fowling-piece in the custody of his Man Friday, holsters for a brace of horse pistols; and horizontally, beneath the dashboard, lies comfortably ensconced a sword, so massive and so large as to be certainly of more ornament than use, from being too unwieldy to be handled in self-defence even by the united efforts of our muscular but nevertheless diminutive friend and his more slender coadjutor. On the top of his drag he carries a ladder, well turned and finished, of about twelve staves, with which he is enabled speedily to arrive at anything upon the roof. In a box hung on behind is a wheelbarrow of iron, light and well constructed, after his own approved style. In this his numerous samples are conveyed from client to client, by his own "boots." His order-book, encased in tin, of nearly a yard length, is in perfect keeping with the chaise; for in that each party has allotted a certain space, so arranged as to be immediately