in the sunshine at Dullington-on-Sea, acquired the colouring of an Italian urchin in a chromo-lithograph. Mrs. Penddleton discovered a place where you can get blouses-dressy ones, with two pleats down the backs-for sevenpence-halfpenny less than you can get them even in High Street, Kensington. And as for Penddleton himself, he reclined on the beach and filled his lungs with the invigorating ozone, he forget all the useless facts which he had committed to memory, he ceased to worry himself about examinations, and the consequence was that he passed with flying colours-almost as well, indeed, as BlagdenBiggs. He became in due course an ornament of the Staff, and he would probably be a Military Member of the Army Council now were it not for his being disqualified owing to his having commanded his regiment.

CHAS. E. CALLWELL.

MY EXPERIENCES OF THE RAILWAY STRIKE.

BY A RAILWAY CLERK.

ALTHOUGH Several officials on our railway had laughed at the idea of a strike, and had looked upon the manifesto of the men's societies as mere bluff, I was not much surprised to see by the morning paper on Friday the 18th of August that the men were in earnest and had really come out.'

Generally, about this time, numbers of clerks are going in, but to-day the place seemed almost deserted. On reaching my room, I met a few of my fellow clerks, who told me that most of our men at the passenger station, porters, shunters, firemen, and others, had come out about midnight. After a little delay, I was offered Stanyforth Junction, a large signal-box at the north end of the goods yard. On approaching the signalbox I noticed about seven or eight men sitting on some railings on the far side of the line. They all had either white rosettes in their buttonholes or white bands round their arms, and as I began to go up the signal-box steps they shouted to me to stop, calling me a 'blackleg' (with various choice prefixes), and threatening all sorts of impossible things if I dared to go into the box.

After signing on' in the Train Register Book, I took up a newspaper and settled down to read. I was not alone in the box, for there was a man there named Stokes, whose duty it was to attend to the electrical fittings. He said to me, They haven't recognised me yet, but when they do there'll be fireworks, as I'm the only one in the gang that hasn't gone out.'

Stanyforth Junction box is situated near an over-bridge carrying a road over the railway, close to a rather rough part of the town, largely occupied by railwaymen, and at about eleven o'clock numbers of men, most of them wearing white bands round the left arm, began to collect on this bridge. In a short time there was a dense crowd of them, and many also collected on a wall or parapet which bounded the line at the side on which the signal-box was. They all shouted to us to come out and called us blacklegs,' with other less endear

ing names. At first they contented themselves with using winged words,' but when they recognised my companion Stokes there was such an uproar that I could not help thinking of the descriptions of the mob in the French Revolution. There could not at this time have been less than two or three hundred strikers on the bridge and on both sides of the railway. Some of them soon began to get bolder and jumped down on to the line. For the first time Stokes showed signs of nerves,' for the men were shouting at him by name. 'You always was the biggest blackleg in the gang!' yelled one of them. I got up and shut and locked the signal-box door, and secured all the windows on the inside. I felt that so long as the men did not begin to break things, Stokes and I were fairly safe. About a dozen or more strikers now climbed up the steps and ranged themselves on the balcony outside the windows, threatening us with fearful penalties if we didn't come out of the box that instant. I remained sitting on a chair, reading a paper, as I knew it was worse than useless to answer any of their threats. After about five minutes of this, Stokes got up and said to me, 'It's no use, I must go out. They'll wreck the place if I don't.' I said, 'Well, do as you like; but I must stop.' I unlocked the door and let him out, shutting it immediately and locking it after him. As he went out of the box the crowd raised a loud cheer, and the men on the steps used more persuasion to get me to come out too. 'What has a young chap like you got to do with it?' said one. (I may mention that though I am twenty-four, I look younger.) You haven't got a wife and family!' shouted another man. I admitted the truth of this accusation, but didn't quite see what that had to do with it.

For about an hour all was peaceful, but then the strike picket, who had stayed all the time near the box, were again attacked by ennui' and came close up to talk to me. One youth tried to argue the rights and wrongs of the strike with. me, but he was more used to working with his hands than with his head, and I don't think he would have made a very good witness before the Royal Commission. He said, 'It's the likes of you that's the enemies of working men.' 'Why,' I answered, 'I'm a working man myself!' He cogitated over this for some moments, and then said, 'You oughtn't to be in there.' I said, 'Why not? The power's cut off; there are no trains passing. What difference does it make to you my being

here?' He made a tremendous effort of the intellect, and thus delivered himself: Well, you oughtn't to be 'ere!' After this interesting debate upon the vital question of blacklegging,' the picket adjourned and left me alone; I assumed it was the tea interval,' or something of that sort, as the afternoon was getting on. A lot of little boys now began to congregate on the bridge and shout at me. Their conversation consisted simply of Come out, blackleg! Blackleg, come out!' which was very flat and uninteresting after the splendid cataract of metaphors I had heard in the morning. About four o'clock I was rung up on the telephone by the Chief Foreman, who told me that he had decided to close the box, but would I wait there for a little longer, till a man came to guard it? I agreed, and again sat down to wait. A few minutes later I saw a man, with the regulation white band which marked him as a strike picket, walking along the parapet near the box. He stopped and asked how long I had been in there. I said, 'Oh, since ten this morning.' After looking round to see whether anyone was within hearing, he said, 'Well, it's all a bad job; you mayn't believe it, but my 'eart's with you!' He then took himself off, but the incident was instructive, as it showed me that this man was one of the many who had been drawn into the strike against their will. Immediately afterwards, another picket, consisting of three men, arrived and sat down on the wall. One was a venerable person with a white beard, and another was a youngish man who had evidently been celebrating his holiday from work to some purpose, as he could hardly walk straight. This gentleman came half-way up the signal-box steps, and began asking me searching questions about what screw' I was getting from the Company. I was sitting on the sill of an open window at the time, and politely declined to give him this interesting information. He kept edging up the steps towards me, talking somewhat thickly about his screw' as compared with mine, and then suggested that we might continue this financial discussion inside the box if I would unlock the door. I told him to get off the steps, and he then made a sudden dash for the open window. I gave him a strong push on the chest and slammed the window shut (it was a sliding one), nearly taking his fingers off in the process.

When he found himself locked out he was not pretty to look at. He screamed with rage, tearing at the window with

his fingers. Then the venerable gentleman with the white beard intervened, and persuaded the other to come down from the signal-box door, at the same time apologising to me for the state the younger man was in. 'Ad too much,' said the old fellow, which was very evident, and I agreed with him. The men then went a short distance away and sat on the wall, smoking. I realised that the strikers would be more likely to be drunk in the evening; indeed, I had just had an instance, and when in that state they would probably damage the box, to say nothing of myself! So I rang up the foreman's office, and he replied that I might lock the box up and lock all the windows, and then come down to his office and hand over the key. The strike pickets looked at me curiously, and the old white-bearded man gave me a respectful 'Good-night.' I saw no signs of any strikers on the line, but a good many were hanging over walls at various points, and greeted me with cries of Blackleg!' I simply acknowledged the compliment by a friendly wave of the hand, which the strikers did not seem to appreciate much.

My first action on leaving the station was to go into the town and buy a revolver and cartridges. I hoped I shouldn't have to use it, but at the same time I thought that if I had it on me it would give me a warm, comfortable feeling inside.

Next morning I was up at 4.30 A.M., armed myself with some cold cutlets and a bottle of barley-water, put my revolver in one pocket and ten cartridges in the other, and set off on my bicycle for Pondwood Junction, the signal-box to which I was now to be posted. I must explain that Pondwood is one of the most important junctions on our system, and might be called one of the keys to the situation. It is about two miles south of the town and station, and all trains entering the station from the south have to pass it. As I live some way out of the town, I did not have to go through it to get to Pondwood, but simply had to cycle about two miles along country lanes. At that hour of the morning these lanes are quite deserted, and I kept a sharp look-out for strike pickets. However, there were no pickets on the road, and I reached the signal-box safely; the only ones I saw were about half-a-dozen on a bridge which spans the line about a hundred yards from the box.

I expected to find one of the ordinary signalmen in charge, but, to my surprise, I found Roberts, of my office, with two