THE CORNER SEAT.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 30, 12 April 1907, Page 2

THE CORNER SEAT.

For the obaoure and mediocre members of the human family a hundred minor compensations are always to be found. It may not be given us to command the applause of senates, or sway with emotion serried masses of our admirers from the boards of a playhouse. The governance of peoples may be still further beyond our reach ; even the chairmanship of an Urban District Council may be outside the limits of realizable possibilities. But there is one position of power, privilege, and mastery occasionally open to all of ns, and it is found in the corner seat of a railway carriage. Here, to those denied access to the greater places of eminence and authority, is compensation ! And it is in truth no inconsiderable compensation, provided the corner, seat selected is the one facing the engine and furthest from the platform door. To occupy a similar coign of vantage on the opposite side of the carriage is to secure comlort, perhaps, but not authority. To appropriate the right-hand seat nearest the door may give authority, but it denies comfort, for one’s feet and legs are liable to suffer from the clumsiness of incoming and outgoing passengers. The throne of comfort j combined with power is unquestioni ably the seat first indicated. There 1 one runs no risk of being incommoded through the exits ami entrances of fellow-travellers; there one is vested with plenary powers for car- ( ryiug into force that code of rail- | way etiquette which is none the less | powerful and effective because it is : unwritten, j In that corner seat a man, if he so choose, may become an autocrat. The precise amount of ventilation . that shall enter that end of the com- | partment depends upon his gracious I pleasure. For the nonce he is a king and the window-strap is his sceptre. If he feels the cold unduly himself, he may keep the window closed during the mildest of weather. If ho happens to be an enthusiastic, adj vocate of open air at all times and seasons, ho may keep it open while i the train creeps cautiously through ' the wintery mist that enswathes the dank marshland. The maimer in 1 which he exercises this right depends j upon the nature of the man, and at ■ the same time quietly reveals his capacity or incapacity for discharg- | ing the functions of kingship. If he is a beneficient ruler, lie will assuredly lend attentive audience to anyrepresontations that may Ixi made to him regarding the ’ unseasonabloness of his actions or the harshness of edicts. If, on the contrary, he is a headstrong monarch who refuses to lower the window-strap even a notch for the relief of his semi-asphyxiated subjects, we may rest assured that in a larger sphere of authority, lie would spread insurrection through his realm. But most of us aspire to the corner seat for its comfort rather than its power. The most consoling thing about it is that the privilege is often within the roach of the weakest as of the strongest. This is certainly true of the leisurely-filling long-distance train. The harsh laws ■ of evolution are hero toned down to a point of extreme refinement. In- | deed they make us forget that man- | kind was ever engaged in that crude and barbarous struggle for existence so graphically described by scien- | tific writers. The “fittest” is simply j the man who gets there first, HavI ing by the priority of his arrival asserted his right of conquest, ho ! need have no fear that his dominion I will be usurped, or even contested. I Until the time comes for the train to start he can wander at his will, providing he places on the prize which he has captured some trivial emblem of his sovereignty. Whatever the emblem may be—his hat, his umbrella, his gloves, his overcoat, a rug or handbag, a sensational novel or a half-penny newspaper—ho can rest perfectly content that it will be respected. It is otherwise, of course, with the trains that ply between our cities and their thickly-populated suburbs. To secure the corner seat in such circumstances argues not punctuality only, but alertness, tact, and vigour —all the qualities, indeed, that go to make the footballer. The “season tickets” desperate efforts to board the train miniature for us those Titanic, conflicts between rival species which took place in the remote geological epochs. But there is great difference. The battle waged upon the platform of the surburban station is never a battle of extermination. It concludes immediately the fortunate combatant has sealed himself in the hardly contested corner. No attempt is made to renew hostilities, and stratagems to oust the victorious holder are never resorted to. Courtesy returns as soon as the brief conflict is over, for its laws are not .less observed by suburban travellers than by long-distance passengers. The tenure of the corner seat is equally secure whether won through priority of arrival or by the exerciso of superior muscular powers. When they are travelling by rail, even Englishmen are wise enough to know when they arc beaten. I We flunk it will be granted that there is far more interest in studying the occupants of the corner seat ;in the long-distance train, for the reason that the type is more varied, i The man who captures the cover ted I position in the “local - ' generally, as we have seen, manages the trick by soundness of wind and stoutness of i muscle—qualities which are displayed to much bettor advantage between the goals than in a platform scrimmage. Consequently he tends to monotony of type. But all sorts and conditions may be found “in the corner” on a fast express. Sometime;! it is a puny stripling who wins the game against a man of Sandow-like fortune to arrive late : at other times it a mere child, who has been deposited there by a fond parent so that it may the better* look out of the window ; at others it is a haunty spectacled dame who, from her superior and coverted position, frowns t. ilheringly upon the first male pas;eager who starts to smoke, and remarks with unreasoning bitterness, that “if she had known this was a smoking carriage she would have gone into another” ! If', her hands the autocracy of the corner seat becomes a real and tend bio thing, 4 ‘ RUPERT 111.