barred by the conductors before the trains are dismissed, and will not be
opened by the conductors of the next station, until the train stands
still. The tickets, besides containing the ordinary matter on tickets in
this country, have also the price printed upon them.

Some of the stations of the Old World, are buildings of extraordinary
beauty and magnificence.

The grandest structure of this kind, is, probably, the station (Ger.
_Station_ or _Bahnhof_, Italian _Stazione_) of Stuttgart. Among many
others, might also be mentioned the stations of Paris, of Turin, of Milan,
and of Rome; but the Great Western Station of London, lakes the palm of
those all, for magnificence, beauty and convenience combined. What the
station at Clapham (seven miles above London) looks like, I do not know,
but it is said, that from 1,000 to 1,200 trains run through it every
twenty-four hours! What multitudes of people must be streaming over the
platforms and past the windows of the ticket-offices of such a station,
every day! At Birmingham and at Crewe, where 300 and 500 trains pass
daily, the swarming thousands remind one of _floods_ and _inundations_,
but how must it look at Clapham?

July 7th, 3:40 p.m. Leave Birmingham for Stratford on the Avon (pron.
[=a]'von).




Chapter IV.

Stratford-upon-Avon.