Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/224

 alongside the stages being gradually filled during the day with rows of empty waggons, ready to receive the goods as they come in during the afternoon and evening. This is effected by transferring to the "down" arches the waggons which have come in with "up" goods and have been emptied during the morning. As the loaded vans come in at the gates they are stopped at an office placed at the entrance, called the "weigh-bridge office," and the consignment notes are impressed with an official stamp, which alone renders them authentic. The consignment note plays an important part in the manipulation of the outwards goods, and it may be explained, for the benefit of the uninitiated, that it is a document which the sender of goods hands to the carman or other agent of the Company, to whom he delivers the goods, and in which is described their nature, their marks, and addresses, and sometimes their weight. Business firms who are in the habit of forwarding goods use for this purpose printed forms supplied by the Company, or provided by themselves, but where ordinary members of the general public forward isolated packages without a consignment note, the Company manufacture one from the address, or the entry in the carman's book, the principle acted upon being that there must be a separate consignment note provided for every distinct package or parcel of goods for the same destination. The object of stamping the consignment notes at the entrance gates is to checkmate a very ingenious system of fraud which was found to be in operation some time ago, when some dishonest servants of the Company hit upon the plan of obtaining possession of valuable goods, by simply destroying the original consignment notes and addresses, and substituting false