Stationery

“ In England the first stationers were probably themselves the engrossers of what they sold, when the learning and literature of the country demanded as the chief food A B C’s and Paternosters, Aves and Creeds, Graces and Amens. Such was the employment of our earliest stationers, as the names of their15 favourite haunts—Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave Maria Lane—bear ample witness; while the term stationer soon became synonymous with bookseller, and, in connection with the Stationers’ Company, of no little importance, as we shall soon see, in our own bookselling annals. ”

“ Everything else in the station was in a muddle—heads, things, buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass–wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory.
“I had to wait in the station for ten days—an eternity. I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant’s office. ”

“ The trade of a stationer then was more comprehensive than now, for he was a bookseller and a bookbinder, but even then his business cannot have been large and would hardly be sufficient to keep him. It is clear, however, from numerous contemporary references, that stationers often engaged in other business apart from their own. ”

“ The shop-walker or salesman is accustomed to move in relatively confined spaces, and so acquires a short, brisk step, and his dress tends to rather exuberant smartness; the station official patrols long platforms, often at a rapid pace, and so tends to take long strides, while his dress is dignified and neat rather than florid. The last-mentioned characteristics, you see, appear in the subject of our analysis; he agrees with the general description of a stationmaster. ”

“ On the way to the séance I took the skeptic into a stationer's shop and induced him to buy two new school slates, and to have them packed in one parcel with a tiny crumb of slate pencil enclosed between them. I advised him to assure himself that the parcel was securely tied, and to seal the knots with his own seal if he had one. Then I told him to carry the parcel, and on no account whatever to let it pass out of his personal custody either before or during the séance. If during the performance it was necessary to sit with joined hands, I advised him to sit upon his parcel. ”

“ Do you belong to the station?"
"No, sir, the station belongs to me. I'm one of the gen'l public, and if the gen'l public didn't favour it, where'd the Co. be as runs the line?"
"Are you here all day?" ”

“ Had my station been in a slight degree nearer the brink than it was, I should have fallen headlong into the abyss.
To meet a human creature, even on that side of the chasm which I occupied, would have been wholly adverse to my expectation: my station was accessible by no other road than that through which I had passed, and no motives were imaginable by which others could be prompted to explore this road: but he whom I now beheld, was seated where it seemed impossible for human efforts to have placed him. ”

“ Running stationer, a hawker of books, ballads, dying speeches, and newspapers. Persons of this class formerly used to run with newspapers, blowing a horn, when they were sometimes termed FLYING STATIONERS. Nowadays, in the event of any political or social disturbance, the miserable relics of these peripatetic newsmen bawl the heads of the telegram or information in quiet London thoroughfares, to the disturbance of the residents. The race is very nearly extinct, the evening-paper boys having run them to earth. ”

“ There are alcoves, rows on rows, shelves on shelves, with the exactest system everywhere prevailing, with the attendants moving about in list-bottomed shoes, fulfilling without the least hesitation or mistake the multitude of directions from the central desk. It is like an admirably drilled army, where there is the nice balance of freedom and discipline that gives mobility without confusion ”

“ In order to do so, I must know every step of the service, from roundhouse to train dispatcher's desk. I have started up the ladder. I can't afford to slip one rung. If I get jolted, I intend to hang on all the closer. ”

“ At every station there is an official who keeps a sharp eye on the porters who handle trunks, and at the slightest suspicion of overweight the official will order a trunk on the scales with which all stations are supplied. ”

“ "I believe she thought I had forgotten my station; and yours, sir."
"Station! station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.—Go." ”

“ The station-agent sat on a tilted-up box and discussed the new arrivals with one of his ever-present cronies.
"Whut they standin' ther' fer?" he said. "Some folks ain't got enough sense to go in outen the rain, seems so." ”

“ The sense of station has developed into the particular application of the word and its various derivatives “postal,” “postage,” &c., to the service connected with the delivery of letters (see Post and Postal Service) . From the earliest times as we see from the ἀγγαρεία of the Persian kings (Herod. viii. 98) , the speedy despatch of messages, letters, &c., was attained by relays of men and horses stationed at regular intervals. ”

“ For hours during the day the place slumbers, and a passenger gliding by in the express may well wonder why a station was built at all in the midst of trees and hedges without so much as a single visible house. ”

“ He was hungry, and the station agent, a weedy youth, was making a noisy closing up. Intentionally noisy, for when one is the agent of a small desert station, the occasional visitor is apt to whet one's curiosity to razor edge. ”

“ Railway porters were standing at intervals, with lanterns and all the attaches of the station, the clerks from the ticket-office, and the young waitresses from the refreshment-rooms, were looking on in evident expectation of some event, though no one seemed to speak, and everybody looked sad at heart There were not half-a-dozen other persons in the great station: I was only admitted on explaining that I wished to go by the mail train. ”

“ Here one of the loading gangs, each of which consists of a checker, a loader, a caller-off, and two porters, take it in hand, and deposit it in a waggon destined for the station to which it is addressed. When the goods are in the waggons, the consignment notes are taken to the shipping office, and the clerk in charge sorts them out to the different clerks whose duty it is to make out the invoices for the various destinations. ”

“ But persons of an exalted station, are like a public pageant, upon which all eyes are fixed; they are those houses built upon a summit, the sole situation of which renders them visible from afar; those flaming torches, the splendour of which at once betrays and exposes them to view. ”

“ It was a little wayside place without even a village that I could see to justify its claim to a station at all. Nobody else got out; and as soon as the train had gone, I was left to explain my presence to what appeared to be the entire population of the district, to wit, a station-master, a porter, and a constable who carried a carbine. ”

“ On the contrary, the work is absolutely continuous. The men always want all sorts of things that the Supply Column does not provide, and it is up to me to get those things, and what is more, in most cases, to transport them also. I am in charge of a number of wagons, limbers, etc., to carry out this latter job, and I am responsible for the care and transport of the ordinary supplies for our Brigade Headquarters after they leave the Supply Column. ”

“ If we wish to express that a train is on a certain point of the line at a certain hour, we shall point out its position on the table, opposite the station or any point of the line which it occupies, and on the properly chosen division of time. ”

“ As I shall show you to-morrow, the station buildings are above the average in point of completeness, the run is well sheltered and grassed, the supply of water is abundant, and, as you are aware, we are on the direct cattle route to the south. ”

“ Now, the man who has been dreaming on a station platform and is obviously going by the train would wake up to look at the clock, or glance round to see how many are travelling, and generally take an interest in the bustle of the station. ”

“ The seat on which he sprawls is a broken piece of some toy whose nature I have long forgotten, the station clock is a similar fragment, and so is the metallic pillar which bears the name of the station. So many toys, we find, only become serviceable with a little smashing. ”

“ A station resembles a little village. Besides the main building, which is the residence of the squatter or his superintendent, there are a number of shanties for the workmen, a butcher’s shop, a storehouse for wool, and a shop where most of the necessaries of life may be bought. ”

“ Only sometimes, in the morning on the hilltops, a courier comes from the season that tarries. With feet that trip on the nodding weeds, and a voice singing in the fluttering trees, and a smile that speaks in a bluer sky, the unseen courier of autumn comes and goes. ”

“ At way-stations the courier comes to your compartment to see if you want a glass of water, or a newspaper, or anything; at eating-stations he sends luncheon out to you, while the other people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms. If anything breaks about the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you and your agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to him confidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and the official comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice car to be added to the train for you. ”

“ As we went along from station to station, men and women, young and old, passed out and in; all well-behaved and of pleasant address, the evidence of intelligence and cheerful contentment on every face. ”

“ Anxious to get away from the sight of human beings and the glaring, printed account of his stupid play, Lefty hurried off, around the side of the station, near the freight depot, now completely deserted. ”

“ We have a preventive station at our watering-place, and much the same thing may be observed—in a lesser degree, because of their official character—of the coast blockade; a steady, trusty, well-conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about looking you full in the face, and with a quiet thorough-going way of passing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou’-wester clothing in reserve, that is fraught with all good prepossession. ”

“ However, there are slight changes, and the general rules of correct correspondence remain unchanged from year to year. A good stationer is the best authority in regard to the minor modifications that come each new season. ”

“ But when that desk is shut up, you'll find him at the roundhouse, over in the freight yard, round the switch shanties, or up at Biggs's—anywhere he can get half a dozen of the men together. I haven't found a man yet that I could trust to keep tab on him, and I don't know what he's doing ”

“ At every station we notice tall odd-looking buildings which form no part of an English station. These are grain-elevators. When the farmer has threshed his corn [Pg 384] he can bring it here and receive a receipt for it, and have it stored; then it is run up to the top of one of these places by endless ropes, and thence can be easily poured down out of a funnel-like shaft into the waiting trucks for shipment. ”

“ It will be very difficult to describe everything to you. To begin with, the depot or station presented a curious appearance, such crowds of men loafing about with apparently no other object but to watch the new arrivals ”

“ Organization of Collection Force The organization of the force depends upon the kind of equipment, system of collection, districting of city, location of receptacles, frequency of removal and time of collection. The common system abroad where the can is placed at the curb, is to have one or two workmen accompany the wagon, one acting as driver, while the other empties the cans. ”

“ Many of the wayside stations consisted of a single hut, which served duty as stationmaster's office, weighing machine room, passengers' waiting room, and licensed house, the stationmaster having the further duty of innkeeper. ”

“ Then the station-master, the porters, and the ticket-clerks of stations A and B hurry along the line, the staff of station A going towards station B, the staff of station B going towards station A. They hurry along, in the full light of day, in the middle of a perfectly flat plain, a plain without a river, without ridge, and without hollow. ”

“ As the heavy work of the department is principally executed in this shop, in which iron is first enlisted and then rather roughly drilled into the service of the company, it might be conceived that the music of the forty anvils at work would altogether be rather noisy in concert. ”

“ The stationmaster notes his station as fixed in the earth. A being in the sun conceives the station as exhibiting a track in space round the sun, and the railway carriage as marking out yet another track. Thus if space be nothing but relations between material bodies, points as simple entities disappear. ”

“ In your case, the receiving set seems fairly efficient as you have purchased it in a complete unit. Just let me give you a bit of general advice concerning your operating table. You work your station right handed. ”

“ A little further on, nearly all the people got out at a small station; and the young woman I had admired gathered up most of the household goods and got down also, lifting heavy boxes with the power of a man. ”