Dear John
I don't think that this can be entirely Kipling except in the appropriateness of the tag in this poem. Searching in Google Books for "dear and slow" I found quite a few uses that pre-date "The Exiles' Line", one in particular from The Museum of Art and Science and Art, vol.3, p.4 of 1854, edited by Dionysius Lardner .D.C.L. in an essay on "Locomotion and Transport" where it appears as:
"8. In countries where transport is dear and slow, there consequently arises great disadvantage, not only to the rural, but also to the urban population. While the class of articles just referred to are at a ruinously low price in the rural districts, they are at a ruinously high price in the cities and larger class of towns. In the country, where they exist in superfluity, they fetch comparatively nothing : in the towns, where the supply is immeasurably below the demand, they can only be enjoyed by the affluent."
Yours, David
From: John Radcliffe <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 17:39
Subject: The Exiles'
Line
The first line of the final v erse of "The Exile's Line", which have just annotated, runs:
How runs the old indictment? “Dear and slow,”
Was Kipling quoting a well-known epithet for P & O, or did he invent it ?
Any thoughts will be most welcome.
All good wishes,
John R and John McG
