THE SIGNALMAN ON THE MIDLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 1906, 21 August 1890, Page 31

THE SIGNALMAN ON THE MIDLAND.

There are probably about a million men employed in various capacities on the railways of Great Britain— a number large enough, if they were soldiers, to orerrun Europe. Upon the intelligence, fidelity, and physical condition of this vast army depend the lives of the multitudes who are constantly travelling by rail, Any nndden and serious disability happening to one of them may result in a disaster which would put hundreds of families in mourning. Accustomed as it is to safe and swift conveyance from point to point, the public scarcely realises this fact. The following brief narrative, which is strictly true, will therefore be read with interest : — On the Midland railway, 23 miles south of Carlisle, there is a little station called Culgaith. Here there is a signal box in which Signalman Andrew Agge is to be found on duty daily. As is the case with all other signal boxes, this one contains the levers and the usual complicated electric and mechanical contrivances for making and receiving signals. Mr Agge is on duty nearly every day, and takes his luncheons without leaving bis post. He is a sturdy man of 35, in good health, and no complaint has ever been made against him by the company or by the public ; yet an incident occurred a few years ago that came near depriving him of his position ant 1 his life. For some time he had not felt well, the worst and most dangerous phase of his indisposition being a kind of giddiness tbat would seize him unexpectedly and, as he described it, " set everything to moving and twisting round and round." The doctor told him frankly that it was a symptom of a still more radical complaint brought on by too much confinement, and by his irregular habits of eating and sleeping, aud that ho had better abandon his work for a while, and try a change of sceue. But this was easier said than done. He had a family to support, and couldn't afford the luxury of a vacation. He knew no other business, and could not risk the loss of his place. His work was always done, however, no matter how he felt. But it ia only fair to say he had many anxious hours over it. His ailment, whioh he had discovered to be indigestion and dyspepsia, now set up more alarming symptoms. A physician at Appleby assured Agge that there was serious trouble with his kidneys and bladder. " It is," said the doctor to the signalman, " the result of the condition of your digestion. Your blood w poisoned by your stomach, and every organ of the body is crippled by it." This was a miserable outlook for Agge, who went back to Culgaith with small courage for his work. He took hold, though, as well as he could, and kept it up until one morning several weeks afterwards. He was in his box as usual when of sudden a sharp pain shot through him as though he had been stabbed with a knife. He tumbled down on the locker in the signal-box, and lay there all the forenoon in acute distress and agony. For the time his work was a secondary condideration. UDable to remain in that position any longer, he laid down and rolled on the floor. The pain in his hips and back was so intense that he compared it to being cut with dull knives, and pierced with hot irons. Agge was alone when tbe attack came, and as nobody except railway officials are allowed in tbe signal boxes, it was some time before his plight was discovered. Finally, however, tbe stationmaster came in, tbe neighbours were summoned, and the suffering man was put into a trap and taken to his house, half a mile away. There he was ill for weeks, part of the time unconscious. When the physicians had avowedly got to the end of their resources it was agreed that tbe signalman's end was only a matter of a very little time This was the situation when a singular thing happened. Two or three years before, while Agge was feeling the earlier symptoms of his disorder, he had taken a medicine that helped him ; getting better, he put the bottle aside, still half-full, and forgot it altogether. Now, as he was almost in a dying condition, his memory flashed up one day, and he distinctly recalled where he had put it. A search was made and then it was found. The prostrate signalman began using it and, to tbe astonishment of neighbours and doctors, in a few days was able to get out of doors. We may mention that the medicine was the well-known preparation, Mother Seigel's Curativo Syrup, although to advertise the article is not the chief motive for this little narrative. As a matter of fact, Signalman Agge kept on doctoring himself with it, and it cured him, be its nature wbat it may. He went back to his box long ago, and this incident is printed in order that the reader may know more of the character and experience of a large aud faithful body of public servants. 1