Let Us Kick

Check out this humorous historical anecdote about the troubles in the sleeping car of a train in the late Victorian era.

By Sam Moore
Published on November 8, 2021
article image
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
A Currier and Ives print about a disturbance in a sleeping car.

When I was in the U.S. Army during the early 1950s, I had several opportunities to travel quite long distances on trains and we were always, in the U.S., treated to the luxury of a Pullman car, where at night a porter converted the seats used during the day into double-decker bunks, complete with sheets, pillows, blankets and privacy curtains. I found it soothing to drift off to sleep to the gentle swaying of the car and the clickity-clack of the wheels on the rail joints. It wasn’t always so comfortable however, as attested by the following story that was published in 1888 in the book, “A Man of Samples. Something about the men he met ‘On the Road,'” by William H. Maher (1846-1913), a travelling salesman.

“LET US KICK.”

[The following sketch by M. Quad in the Detroit Free Press, will be new to some of our readers, and will, we think, be appreciated by them all.]

I really and truly believe that the day will come when the kicker will be classed where he belongs and be entitled to the reverence due him. I look upon him as a philosopher and a philanthropist. He stands forth one man out of ten thousand. He is actuated by the most unselfish motives. He is the real reformer.

I am not a kicker. I am simply taking the preparatory lessons to enable me to blossom out. The other day when I bought a ticket to go east they told me at the ticket office:

“While the train does not leave until about eleven, the sleeper is open at nine, and you can go right to bed and wake up at Niagara Falls next morning.”

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