unique. It
seems that there is a Bradshaw cult; there may even be a Bradshaw
club, where they meet at intervals for Bradshaw dinners, after which
a paper is read on "Changes I have made, with some Observations on
Salisbury." I suppose some of them have first editions, and talk about
them very proudly; and they have hot academic discussions on the best
way to get from Barnham Junction to Cardiff without going through
Bristol. Then they drink the toast of "The Master" and go home in
omnibuses. My friend was a schoolmaster and took a small class of boys
in Bradshaw; he said they knew as much about it as he did. I call that
corrupting the young.

But apart from this little band of admirers I am afraid that the book
does suffer from neglect. Who is there, for example, who has read
the "Directions" on page 1, where we are actually shown the method
of reading tentatively suggested by the author himself? The ordinary
reader, coming across a certain kind of thin line, lightly dismisses
it as a misprint or a restaurant car on Fridays. If he had read the
Preface he would know that it meant a SHUNT. He would know that a
SHUNT means that passengers are enabled to continue their journey by
changing into the next train. Whether he would know what that means I
do not know. The best authorities suppose it to be a poetical way of
saying that you have to change--what is called an euphemism.

No, you must not neglect the Preface; and you must not neglect the
Appendix on Hotels. As sometimes happens in works of a philanthropic
character, Mr. BRADSHAW'S Appendix has a human charm that is lacking
in his treatment of his principal theme, the arrival and departure
of trains. To the careful student it reveals also a high degree
of organisation among his collaborators, the hotel-managers. It is
obvious, for example, that at Bournemouth there must be at least one
hotel which has the finest situation on the South coast. Indeed
one would expect to find that there was more than one. But no;
Bournemouth, exceptionally fortunate in having at once the most select
hotel on the South coast, the largest and best-appointed hotel on the
South coast and the largest and most up-to-date hotel on the South
coast, has positively only one which has the finest position on
the South coast. Indeed, there is only one of these in the whole of
England, though there are two which have the finest position on the
East coast.

How is it, we wonder, that with so much var