CONCERNING LUGGAGE
BY W. PETT RIDGE.
(1857-1930)
THERE ARE PEOPLE NOW BACK FROM HOLIDAYS
and returned from continental travel who, being safely
and peaceably at home, are terrified by midnight dreams in
which they are looking out of the Brenner Express as it starts
and seeing all their luggage in a neatly arranged pile left behind
on the platform; waiting at stations for an hotel omnibus
which never arrives; boarding a steamer and perceiving their
trunks stuck on the sloping gangway and refusing to budge.
This is the retrospective penalty that anxiety exacts. On the
responsible mind of the party fears of the kind have been bearing
heavily, and when the owner of this responsible mind has been
credited with reverence at St. Mark's, or thoughtfulness at the
Munich picture gallery, or pensiveness at the mountains behind
Trafoi, the responsible mind has only been saying to itself,
"Whatever in the world would happen if the luggage went
astray! In every railway carriage there is some passenger
hot to relate some blood-curdling story of a bonnet-box that
disappeared into space in the year '97, of a trunk that ran amok
for a full fortnight.
Assistance is often given to erratic tendencies of a piece of luggage
by its proprietors. A man who has travelled abroad regards it as a
point of honour that every label collected on the journey, whether
contributed by hotels or by railways, should remain on his bag
for all time, and this gives to a guard a wide field for selection
when he is called upon to decide its current destination; officials
confronted with puzzle of this nature sometimes avoid the
persistence of worry by putting the bag out at the first convenient
stopping place. A prejudice exists on the part of some voyagers
against attaching address labels; the reserve of the Englishman
induces him to preserve the strictest secrecy, and as trunk-makers
are not inventive, there exists the circumstance that many articles
of luggage are identical in shape and general appearance, so that
it is a wise traveller who knows his own portmanteau; ere now a
man has reached a country house, distant from railway station,
and found that the bag he has claimed contains an outfit unsuitable
for his own wear or for that of any other man; the knowledge
that a lady somewhere is enduring a like grievance is no help to
one who has to decide whether to ask permission to go down to
dinner in a tweed suit or affect a sudden indisposition and go
to rest. But for the restraining influence of railway porters
these incidents would become custom. At a busy station there
is wild frenzy in the eye of every passenger; it is the duty of railway
men to say soothing words, encouraging phrases, mollifying
remarks, and thus bridge over time until sanity returns.
If tips be given to any one they should certainly be given to railway
men. A habit of presenting coppers has lately come in; I
have reason to believe that there is no prejudice on the part
of the recipients against small silver. If we paid for every service
in this world at its real value we should sometimes leave to
railway porters lump sums in our wills.
In theory it is easy to go journeys with little or nothing in the
shape of alternative clothes; in practice the easiest method is
to take everything you want. It you exceed one article of baggage
then the difference between two and three is so small as to be of
no account. All the same, the traveller who can go through a
holiday with but one is the traveller who comes back with an
uncreased forehead; the saving in sums of addition is a
considerable thing for those to whom exercise in mathematics brings
no gratification. On him the Customs officer looks with an eye
of casual interest; hotel touts do not assail him with the ferocity
which they exhibit on sighting uncountable packages; for him
there is no necessity to abase himself before the drivers of public
carriages. He is not a dressy man, and his knickerbocker suit
gives annoyance to those more slavish than he in following the
fashion, but providing his manner be not so loud as the pattern of
his tweeds, he is a harmless, self-contained person, paying his
way with a proper regard for economy (never making an hotel
servant's heart miss a beat by an extravagant ransom) and coming
back from the holiday brown of features, and with the knowledge
that he has done himself extremely well. It must be admitted
that this course is only possible to the bachelor or to the spinster.
Larger parties have ere now tried to adopt the salient feature
of the plan by placing all their travelling properties packed tightly
into one enormous trunk, a trunk at which the most willing
carriers have jibbed, one that required for management a small
army, one disinclined to permit itself to be excepting
under the persuasion of a steam crane. Indeed, I often wonder
how in the world porters contrive to move some of the luggage
that is thrown upon their hands; there must be something in the
poise, in a dexterous twist, in taking the ponderous thing
unawares. Cabmen seem to have less of self-confidence in their
character. I saw the other evening tears come to the eyes of
the driver of a four-wheeler at Paddington as he watched
an enormous article of luggage which a porter was hoisting with
help of knee and hands to the top of his cab.
The elusive thing about luggage is that few people ever
manage to take everything that is wanted. Men, well balanced
in other matters and with sound ideas on the fiscal question,
and with their own opinion of the behaviour of Turkey,
are unable pack all the garments necessary to a complete
dress suit; they wrap up odd boots; their apparatus for shaving
is complete with the exception of razors. A kit bag is a good
roomy companion for travel, able to swallow all that is put into
its mouth; its drawback is that it always shakes down to the
foundation the articles that are wanted immediately, and owners,
with no time to waste, prefer in trying to get anything out
to empty the whole of the contents on the floor. As as
crumpler of shirt fronts the kit bag has no equal. As a hider
of brushes it i s hard to beat. As a bender of stiffly-starched collars
it can challenge the world. Yet it is a good-humoured thing.
having no special vanity aimed its figure, and when it is full it
seems to yearn and pray for more. It never creaks or complains,
it rarely bursts. Passengers searching for their properly on
arriving at destinations, play football with it when they find
it does not belong to them; guards use it for a game of catch. If
one were not so much used to the diversions played when luggage
is turned out of the break-van, they would look like comic scenes
in a pantomime. You point a finger at an article, the porter
without hesitation and without demanding any further proof
of ownership, hoists it to his shoulder and conveys it to your
cab. The system seems to be a flattering recognition by railway
companies of the pure, white honesty of their patrons, but it
is one that does not always justify this gratifying assumption.
Passengers sometimes exhibit surprise that their luggage should
be lost; in truth, they proclaim amazement when their
luggage is found.
