ible privation from the costliness
of these burial customs, which, happily, now are fast disappearing.

Beds, in those days, were warmed with copper warming pans, and nightcaps
adorned the slumbering heads of both sexes. Spittoons were part of
ordinary household furniture. To colour a meerschaum was the ambition of
smokers, swearing was considered neither low nor vulgar, and snuffing was
fashionable. Many most respectable men chewed tobacco, and to carry
one's liquor well was a gentlemanly accomplishment.

Garrotters pursued their calling, deterred only by the cat-o'-nine tails,
pickpockets abounded and burglaries were common.

The antimacassar and the family album; in what veneration they were held!
The antimacassar, as its name implies, was designed to protect chairs and
couches from the disfiguring stains of macassar oil, then liberally used
in the adornment of the hair which received much attention. A parting,
of geometrical precision, at the back of the head was often affected by
men of dressy habits, who sometimes also wore a carefully arranged curl
at the front; and manly locks, if luxuriant enough, were not infrequently
permitted to fall in careless profusion over the collar of the coat.

Of the family album I would rather not speak. It is scarcely yet
extinct. A respectable silence shall accompany its departing days.

Perhaps these things may to some appear mere trivialities; but to recall
them awakens many memories, brings back thoughts of bygone days--days
illumined with the sunshine of Youth and Hope on which it is pleasant to
linger. As someone has finely said: "We lose a proper sense of the
richness of life if we do not look back on the scenes of our youth with
imagination and warmth."

CHAPTER V.
EARLY OFFICE LIFE

In the year 1867, at the age of sixteen, I became a junior clerk in the
Midland Railway at Derby, at a salary of 15 pounds a year.

From pre-natal days I was destined for the railway service, as an oyster
to its shell. The possibility of any other vocation for his sons never
entered the mind of my father, nor the mind of many another father in the
town of Derby.

My railway life began on a drizzling dismal day in the early autumn. My
father took me to the office in which I was to make a start and presented
me to the chief clerk. I was a tall, thin, delicate, shy, sensitive
youth, with curly hair, worn rather long, and I am sure I did not look at
all a promising speci