RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31211, 8 November 1966, Page 32

RANDOM REMINDER

CASE AGAINST JONES

It is not wise nor customary to comment on the findings of the courts, but there must have been just a little sneaking sympathy for the two seamen who were fined at Westport for unlawfully interfering with an engine. They had been found shovelling coal into the firebox of a locomotive whale singing “Casey Jones,” with great gusto. The attraction of the railway engine is immense, and perhaps the seamen were drawn into the cab by th# sad realisation that the

day of the steam locomotive is almost done. Many share that sorrow. Men are said to be boys at heart: and what boy could resist such an opportunity? Did one of them lean out the side and see, in the Stygian gloom of the engine shed, the curving rails ahead, shining in the moonlignt of the Canadian Rockies? Did he stop singing “Casey Jones” now and then to make the appropriate engine noises? Did he leap for the brakes as he spotted the beautiful girl trussed to the line just

ahead? Or did they simply shovel coal and sing “Casey Jones”? It would be disappointing if they did, for of the fireman of our acquaintance, few are habitual singers, and those that are have a modest level of accomplishment. Mind you, the court did the right thing, without doubt. It would not do for this sort of thing to be widespread. Otherwise we might find a couple of firemen pottering about the engine-room of the in-ter-island steamer, singing “Steamboat BilL”