Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/29

 i2 s. in. JAX. is, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

short Visit and set off at 12 parted good Friends with the Fille de Chambre. The Road to Chester was excessive heavy and a little hilly within 3 Miles it is roughly paved passed over the Race Ground a few Miles f. Xorthwich avoided a high Hill and sandy Road by taking a small Tract to the left. I thought we were to go thro' a Forest but alas it was a Common, Rabbit Warren where we saw them running about. It was past 4 when we got to Chester, called for our Dinner directly by the time we had done it was dark, walked out saw a female Elephant-^-saw it lay down took a game at Billiards it being too dark to see the Town. It was now the Fair Time, and abounded with Plenty of....* Walked soberly and righteously to Supper, wrote Journal du Tenisf and retired to Rest.

PENKY LEWIS.

(To be continued.)

THE NAMING OF LOCOMOTIVES.

DURING the regimes of William Stroudley and R. J. Billinton, the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway maintained an excellent system of locomotive nomencla- ture, one of the virtues of which, in my opinion, was that it served to emphasize the inherent beauty of some of the Surrey and Sussex place-names : such names, for instance, as " Dorking," " Broadwater," and " Aldingbourne " ; " Ditchling," " Chid- dingfold," and " Imberhorne." Times are changed with the Brighton Company ; but the practice of naming engines still nourishes on the London and North- Western and Great Western Railways, and a notable example of its popularity at the present da\ is afforded by the case of London and North-Western engines Nos. 372 and 956. Before the War, these engines were named " Germanic " and " Dachshund " respec- tively : they are now " Belgic " and " Bull- dog," the old name being struck through with a red line, and the new name sur- mounting the old one on a separate name- plate.

Literature is well represented on the London and North - Western. " Shake- speare," " Milton," " Wordsworth," " Ten- nyson," " Scott," " Thomas Carlyle," " Charles Dickens," are all on the register of past and present names; and in 1913-14 a batch of thirty appeared, ranging from the author of ' The Decline and Fall ' to the author of ' Alice in Wonderland.' It is, perhaps, reasonable that " Charles Wolfe," " Thomas Campbell," " Felicia Hemans," and the like, should find snug places in this series, to the exclusion of such distinctive classics as De Quincey, Hazlitt, Borrow,

Omitted.

t Sir.

Browning, Meredith, and others that might be mentioned. But it is not clear why "Thomas B. Macaulay " should be pre- ferred to " Lord Macaulay " ; and " Robert L. Stevenson " might have been generously expanded into " Robert Louis Stevenson." As for " G. P. Neele," author of a volume of London and North- Western "Railway Reminiscences,' his admission to such good society is evidently by way of a graceful compliment on the part of the Company.

The Waverley Novels also have contri- buted their quota to the London and North Western and Great Western lists, particu- larly the latter ; and it is interesting to note- that on both railways ' Redgauntlet ' ap- peared as two words, "Red Gauntlet." I wrote to Crewe and Swindon on the subject, and am curious to know whether my re- commendation has had effect.

To appreciate an engine-name, one need not always have regard to its original sig- nification. Long years ago, a town in Wilt- shire gave its name to a dukedom ; with the result that nowadays the name " Marl- borough " probably suggests dukes rather more readily. than it suggests Wiltshire. Wiltshire must hide her diminished head : the name " Marlborough " has, so to speak, enlarged its area of significance. In tum^ this dukedom gives its name to Great Western engine No. 4111 ; and forthwith the name " Marlborough," by its very be- stowal, becomes a personal possession of the locomotive, and an expression of its identity. To the engine- lover, the magic name of " Marlborough " will conjure up visions, not of duke-i merely, but also of Great Western No. 4111. The dukes must hide their diminished heads : once again the name " Marlborough " has enlarged its area of significance.

There is, however, a variety of nomen- clature much in vogue on the Great Western ^which tends to gainsay this com- fortable theorizing. Such names as " County of Monmouth," " City of Bristol," are hardly names at all in any true sense. By no legitimate stretch of imagination can a loco- motive be called a county or a city : it can. be called after a county or a city, which' is a different matter altogether. " Here- fordshire " or " Hereford " may be a fit and proper name for an engine ; but " County of Hereford," "City of Hereford," involve a hopeless incongruitj-. The eldest son of " the Dukes of Beaufort takes his title (pre- umably) from a cathedral city in the West ; yet we are not advised that he ever sub-- scribes himself " City of Worcester."