tional
"incident." In 1887 the down morning mail train ran off the line at
Ellesmere and it was held that this was due to delay on the part of the
porter in not being at the points in time to work them properly. For at
this time the interlocking system, made compulsory under the Act of 1889,
had not been installed, and the safety of trains depended on due
attention to the pointsman's functions. When, in 1891, a Committee of
the House of Commons, of which Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was chairman, sat
to inquire into the length of railway hours, the Ellesmere mishap was
brought up as an example of what occurred when railway servants were
expected to work for long stretches, though Mr. John Conacher (who had
joined the Company's staff in 1865, become secretary on the retirement of
Mr. George Lewis in 1882, and later had succeeded to the managership) was
able to produce evidence that it was not so much weariness of the flesh
as the fact that the porter was playing cards with a postman waiting with
the mails and a stranded passenger waiting for the train which led to his
late arrival at the points.

The porter was consequently dismissed, whereupon a memorial praying for
his re-instatement was signed, amongst others, by the then Ellesmere
stationmaster, the late Mr. John Hood. This appeared to the management
so undesirable an attitude for a stationmaster to take in the matter of
service discipline that he was temporarily suspended and removed from
Ellesmere,--a step which, it was publicly explained, had been
contemplated some years before the accident, but not carried out,--to
Montgomery. Mr. Hood himself gave evidence before the Parliamentary
Committee, alleging that the mishap was due to the rotten condition of
the permanent way, and though this created a good deal of sensation and
alarm, public assurance was promptly restored when it was pointed out
that such a conclusion was entirely rebutted by the report issued by the
Board of Trade Inspector as a result of his personal examination of the
line immediately after the accident.

Probably little, if anything, more might have been heard of the affair,
for the Select Committee had risen for the Parliamentary recess, were it
not that the directors, carrying out a detailed examination of their own
into the circumstances brought to light again by the inquiry, had laid
before them a recommendation by their chief officials on which, rightly
or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, they d