THE REDUCED SERVICE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11589, 21 May 1903, Page 5

THE REDUCED SERVICE.

how rr was commenced. THE SCENE ATFLIXDEES STREET. At 7 o'clock on Saturday morning there vias gloom upon tiie faces of people on the Flii.dr.rs street platforms when H became obvious t"i_t the emergency servioe had, for the time at any rate, broken down, -lie strikmv., who had come ready for duty as picki-ts and persuaders, were proportionally deli.-ht'd —one could pick theva out by their bjantini; facet). At the Caulfie'd departure platform ono waa at-tr-acted i-speohd'y to two of the striker:;, but only because, of the marked different*? in their methods. Neither of them w.-.-j apparently Australian. One si _,'jit'yliiilt, smart-looking man, with fair curly hair, in a well-cut sac suit, had a broad 1-urr in his speech that may have been Yoik or Lancashire. With four policemen manding abreast he quietly m-.-pped pawt them and on to the footplate of each enipr.e p.b it cam" to a s'-nn_rii'l. His voice was re.rely, if ever, heard, but his gesticulations were earnest. U a constable pulled hi in off the engine he promptly stepped back again. Even those hostile could not but admir-i hi" quiet pertinacity, which wa-; that of a terrier. A little further of? .-- f.-t. yf-Hr.-.v-t*aced nvi—, -with a sraall black, stubbly moustache, leaned forward a* each engire passed him, and opened up the very "rirks of his poul in coarse blasoheniv. Both the man and the laiiirua.g'ft was suggestive of WhiU-chapel, and it v.-.i« th.> otilv ouv\ in which the depth of fe?iin_ was 'expressed in language that v,-,-ru far beyond r.'-.e limits of the forcible. 'Ihe recruits stood it w'th silent fortitude. They miir'n have been deaf and dumb men for 'all that, their ephinx-like faces, lookin i» i-traiglit forward into vacancy, betravsd. "Against this port of thing they had' l>een forewarned, and drilled to _bsoluta silence. Finally, groups of passengers gathered abint. ■replying"occasionally to the taunts of the pickets with' cheeas "for the drivers.

The two hostile gangs glared at each other a good dea*, but hardly a word waa spoken. Every action of the emergency drivers ~va the subject for criticism. "That man cant ses? the ievcra that he's going to use," said one of ths strikers to the -tatiottmaster. "If there's an accident remember I warned you." Tho blind driver went out all tho same, and, it may have been by somo other sense than sight,"manngod to find tha levers all right. Again, every other driver, on tho same expert evidence,, had dropped his "lead plug," and the engine would inevit* ably blow up, but. didn't. Another driver, it was pointed out, had taken the Auburn bank with only HClb of steam, when everyone knew it wanted 1301b. The. unimportant point that, the train got to Cainbcrwell was not emphasised. It would be exiuigcration to call it a perfect service even within its reduced limits. The cab of one engine, as it stood at- th* Caulnekl platform, wa_ filled with dense black smoke, through which the face of tho driver or fireman was only occasionally seen. It was wither conventional nor comfortable. In another case, tiie firing -waa defective, and a jrotni deal of the small coal appeared to be going up the funnel, but this may have b?en especially intended it the bcrefit of critics on the "pßrnpct ol Prince's bridge. The feoli!u: amongst the passengers landed on the different platforms was pronounced against the strikers. In some cases collections wore made on the train, and the money handed to the driver and firemen. "A thanks-offering for being alive," tho strikers put it, though, for men to whom death or disaster had been imminent, thetravellers took it philosophically. Many of the passengers declared themselves quite sat i. s tied with tho ride—they had como in without a jar or a jolt, and there was nothing to find fault with except the time lost at"stations through the absence of the Westingliou*v brake. This was a grievance with most of the drivers —they wei-e accustomed to the air brake, and wished to use it, bub were otliciallv forbidden.