our own, but between ours and neighbouring schools. Regular pitched
battles were fought with sticks and staves and stones. I shrunk from
fighting but could not escape it. Twice in our own playground I was
forced to fight. Every new boy had to do it, sooner or later.
Fortunately on the second occasion I came off victor, much to my
surprise. How I managed to beat my opponent I never could understand.
Anyhow the victory gave me a better standing in the school, though it did
not lessen in the least my hatred of the battles that raged periodically
with other schools. I never had to fight again except as an unwilling
participant in our foreign warfare.




CHAPTER III.
THE MIDLAND RAILWAY AND "KING HUDSON"


In the year 1851 the Midland Railway was 521 miles long; it is now 2,063.
Then its capital was 15,800,000, against 130,000,000 pounds to-day. Then
the gross revenue was 1,186,000 and now it has reached 15,960,000 pounds.
When I say _now_, I refer to 1913, the year prior to the war, as since
then, owing to Government control, non-division of through traffic and
curtailment of accounts, the actual receipts earned by individual
companies are not published, and, indeed, are not known.

Eighteen hundred and fifty-one was a period of anxiety to the Midland and
to railway companies generally. Financial depression had succeeded a
time of wild excitement, and the Midland dividend had fallen from seven
to two per cent.! It was the year of the great Exhibition, which Lord