of an amusing though of a rather serious nature occurred some
years ago on the London and South-Western Railway. A gentleman, whose
place of residence was Maple Derwell, near Basingstoke, got into a
first-class carriage at the Waterloo terminus, with the intention of
proceeding home by one of the main line down trains. His only
fellow-passengers in the compartment were a lady and an infant, and
another gentleman, and thus things remained until the arrival of the
train at Walton, where the other gentleman left the carriage, leaving the
first gentleman with the lady and child. Shortly after this the train
reached the Weybridge station, and on its stopping the lady, under the
pretence of looking for her servant or carriage, requested her male
fellow-passenger to hold the infant for a few minutes while she went to
search for what she wanted. The bell rang for the starting of the train
and the gentleman thus strangely left with the baby began to get rather
fidgety, and anxious to return his charge to the mother. The lady,
however, did not again put in any appearance, and the train went on
without her, the child remaining with the gentleman, who, on arriving at
his destination took the child home to his wife and explained the
circumstance under which it came into his possession. No application
has, at present, it is understood, been made for the "lost child," which
has for the nonce been adopted by the gentleman and his wife, who, it is
said, are without any family of their own.

GIGANTIC POWER OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES.

Sir Francis Head remarks:--"The gigantic power of the locomotive engines
hourly committed to the charge of these drivers was lately strangely
exemplified in the large engine stable at the Camden Station. A
passenger engine, whose furnace-fire had but shortly been lighted, was
standing in this huge building surrounded by a number of artificers, who,
in presence of the chief superintendent, were working in various
directions around it. While they were all busily occupied, the fire in
the furnace--by burning up faster than was expected--suddenly imparted to
the engine the breath of life; and no sooner had the minimum of steam
necessary to move it been thus created, than this infant Hercules not
only walked _off_, but without the smallest embarrassment walked
_through_ the 14-inch brick wall of the great building which contained
it, to the terror of the superintendent and workmen, who expected every