train, otherwise the pilot will detach at the top of the incline at Camden; if it should be a night train, with the pilot in front, it is an experience never to be forgotten by a young stoker. (I was not far in my teens when I had this experience, but an old man now). And at last the signal is given us to start; we blow the whistle and off we go, two engines panting, puffing, sending up showers of sparks, and soon we leave Camden behind, and by the time we reach Watford we are travelling about fifty miles an hour; this is the speed to test the stoker who has to light his lamps the while, travel round the foot-plate and keep his balance, and replenish his fire and climb the tender frequently; but the passenger trains are a luxury in comparison to the luggage trains. The luggage engines being bigger and stronger than the passenger engine requires more steam and water, because she has more than double the load to run with, and at the stations wagons have to be shunted frequently and often re-shunted; some are left and others taken to far-off places; the guard's van has to be detached always in order to have it at the end of the train; the stoker is hard at work with the brake putting it on and off, jumping down to hold the points, or coupling wagons—this is not his business, but he does it to facilitate the work. When the luggage train had to get into a siding to let a passenger train go by, there was no pit (except at a station) for the engine to stand over, and both men would have to crawl under the engine to do anything necessary, through wet, or snow, or mud; and when starting the engine out of the siding or from a station, and the driving wheels slipping round, the stoker had to jump down with his shovel and scrape up a bit of gravel, or sand, or clay, and pop it on the rail in front of the driving wheel, and if that should stop the slipping, the engine gave a bound forward and the stoker had to run to keep up with the engine, throw his shovel on to the foot-plate, and scramble up the best way he could, or be left behind. In bad weather, if it rained, hailed, or snowed, both driver and stoker had to keep a look-out by holding their hands up before their eyes and looking between their fingers; when it rained, and one side of each man was wet through, they would change places till the other side got wet through also. These were the good old times. Drivers and firemen in the present time may thank their stars that the way was well paved for them before they started. So there is hardly any similarity between a stationary boiler stoker and a locomotive stoker, except keeping the steam up perhaps; the loco. stoker is the king of all stokers.

33. Question.—How is the stoking done on a big steam ship?

Answer.—In a Royal West Indian Mail Steam Packet, in which I was stoker, there were forty-five stokers and coal trimmers, forty-five sailors, besides a number of stewards, stewardesses, six engineers, six ship's officers, several mail officials, butchers, bakers, and a brass band of eighteen musicians. There were two stoke-holds, one fore and one abaft the funnel, and four boilers in each, and four furnaces in each boiler, and three stokers in each stoke-hold, also three trimmers in each stoke-hold. There was the same method of working in both stoke-holds, and a constant and continual round of firing kept up day and night. When going down on watch I have a piece of waste in each hand to protect them from the hot handrails; I commence work by cleaning the small tubes of four furnaces, then clean out the four furnaces, rake out the ashes from the pit and fill them and the clinkers into iron buckets, which the sailors haul up and empty over the ship's side. And while I am engaged in this work my two mates are doing my firing for me—which is in this way: one man fires every other fire of the sixteen fires, then goes round again and fires those he missed the first round, then his mate takes the shovel from his hands and fires every other fire, then fires those he missed the first round; the third man does likewise, and so it is constant firing all through. And having towering hot boilers both sides of us and roaring furnaces behind and in front, the sweat pours from us continually, and we are glad to pop into the engine room after firing to get a draught of somewhat cooler air. I happened to have the middle watch—12 midnight to 4 a.m.—which is the worst of the watches, for when I came off at four the hands on deck were always doing something to make a noise, and there is little chance of getting a sleep, and hammocks must be stowed away before eight; then breakfast, and the brass band strikes up for half an hour; but if there had been dog-watches all of us would share in the middle watch—as follows:—