and hoped again for the success of the Oswestry
Ellesmere and Whitchurch scheme enthusiasm knew no bounds.

In Ellesmere a great and excited crowd awaited news from London at the
Bridgewater Hotel. They watched for the omnibus from Gobowen, which it
was expected might bear the fateful tidings. But either the omnibus
failed to arrive, or, if it did, it had no intelligence to impart.
Shortly afterwards, however, a special messenger came post haste along
the road from Oswestry, and in a moment the news flashed through the
little town. "Victory"! An attempt was made to ring the bells, but the
churchwarden could not be found, and no one else had authority to pull
the ropes. So that the concourse fell back on the time-honoured
procession, and led by a drum and fife band, and headed by the Bailiffs,
the cheering throng paraded the streets while cannon booming from the
market place startled the countryside for a mile or more around.
Oswestry, assembled in public meeting, put to flight its town clerk's
gloomy prognostications with hilarious speeches, and outside the more
dignified civic circles popular demonstration took still more picturesque
form.

The return of a number of witnesses who had gone up to London to give
evidence against the local scheme and in support of the Great Western was
awaited at the Oswestry station by a hostile crowd. Some delay in their
arrival home was occasioned by an untoward incident even before they
finally left London. Seating themselves in a first-class compartment in
the rear of the train at Paddington, they waited at first patiently and
then impatiently for it to start. At last, unable to understand the
delay, one of them put out his head and asked a passing official when the
train was going. "It _has_ gone" was the laconic reply. The coach which
they had chosen was not attached to the rest of the train, and they were
not so meticulously careful about examining tickets on the Great Western
system as they are to-day. When the belated passengers did eventually
reach Oswestry, the crowd was still there. What was more, they had had
time to organise what was deemed a suitable reception. Among the
witnesses was a gentleman who, it appeared, had at one time been very
short of pence, and, it was alleged, had left his abode without paying
the rent. Somehow or another this little fact had been raked up and a
number of wags had cut the shape of a latch-key out of a sheet of tin.
As he alig