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Dear Alastair Many thanks. The issue is clearly still open. Let's wait to see if any Old India Hands surface with thoughts on the matter. Kipling did, after all, say: How runs the old indictment? “Dear and slow,” So much and twice so much. We gird, but go. For all the soul of our sad East is there, Beneath the house-flag of the P. & O. He muxt have assumed that this would strike a chord with Anglo-Indian readers . whether or not he invented ther expression. And as John McG has pointed out in his notes, the fares were very expensive. The case rests for the time being ! AGW John R On 30 August 2011 22:29, Alastair Wilson <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > *Dear Johns* > I must say, I've never heard "Dear and Slow" used for P&O. It doesn't > really make sense. In that P&O carried the mails, their boats ran to a > schedule determined by the GPO, and they got penalised if they didn't keep > to it. I dare say it was dear, when you were hoarding every rupee to spend > when you got home, but I doubt if it was exorbitant - I don't think P&O had > a monopoly to India, though undoubtedly they predominated in the trade. > But if Kipling had invented a nickname for P&O, I think he'd have > invented something cleverer. I mean, in the Victorian era, many of the > railways in the UK had nicknames which were a play on their initials, and > characteristics - e.g., the GWR (Great Western Railway) was known as the > Great Way Round (because, until 1906, its main line to Cornwall went round > via Bristol). The London, Chatham and Dover Railway was known as the > London, Smashem and Turnover (rather unfairly, because its safety record was > pretty good). The Somerset and Dorset was known as the Slow and Dirty (both > of which it was). And the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln, an impecunious > concern which was always behind with its dividends was known as the Money > Sunk and Lost. Later on, it had delusions of grandeur, built a superb main > line to London in 1899, renamed itself the Great Central Railway - which was > promptly (and truly) said to stand for Gone Completely. > All those are apposite, and even, by Victorian standards, witty. I > feel sure that KIpling would have done better with P&O. > Not terribly helpful, I fear. > Yours, > *Alastair* > > >