with great satisfaction I learn that the same good taste has prevailed to this day.  Not long after it was opened a great grocery and provision firm, the knightly head of which is still a well-known name, offered to the company a large annual sum for the use of the space under the platform clock, which could be seen from all parts of the station, which the directors, on the representation of their general manager, declined; and I am proud to remember that my own views on the subject, pretty forcibly expressed, when my chief discussed the subject with me, strengthened his convictions and helped to carry the day in the board room.  The indiscriminate and inartistic way in which throughout the land advertisements of all sorts crowd our station walls and platforms is an outrage on good taste.  If advertisements must appear there, some hand and eye endowed with the rudiments of art ought to control them.  In no country in the world does the same ugly display mar the appearance of railway stations; and considering what myriad eyes daily rest on station premises it is well worth while on aesthetic grounds to make their appearance as pleasant and as little vulgar as possible.  The question of revenue to the companies need not be ignored for proper and efficient control would produce order, moderation, neatness, artistic effect—­and profit.

With the principal clerks of the office staff my relations were very pleasant.  The consideration with which I was treated by my chief, and the footing upon which I stood with him, gave me a certain influence which otherwise I should not have possessed.  Till then there had been absent from the company’s staff any gathering together for purposes of common interest or mutual enjoyment.  The Railway Benevolent Institution provided a rallying point.  I had been appointed its representative on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway and we held meetings and arranged concerts in its aid.  Then, after a time, we established for the principal clerks and goods agents and certain grades of station masters, an annual day excursion into the country, with a dinner and songs and speeches.  “Tatlow is good at the speak,” said publicly one of my colleagues, in his broad Scotch way, and so far as it was true this I daresay helped me.  I was made permanent president of these excursions and feasts, and often had to “hold forth,” which I must confess I rather enjoyed.  We christened ourselves The Railway Ramblers.  The fact that I became the Scotch correspondent of the Railway Official Gazette, a regular contributor to the Railway News, and had access to the columns of several newspapers, enabled reports of our doings to appear in print, and diffused some pleasure and pride throughout the service.  Also I became a weekly contributor of Scotch Notes to the Montreal Herald.  In the Railway Official Gazette was a column devoted to short reviews of new books which were sent