of communication between Liverpool and Manchester becoming more urgent from year to year. Arrangements were therefore made for proceeding with the bill in the parlia mentary session of 1825. On this becoming known, the canal companies prepared to resist the measure tooth and nail. The public were appealed to on the subject; pamph lets were written and newspapers were hired to revile the railway. It was declared that its formation would prevent cows grazing and hens laying. The poisoned air from the locomotives would kill birds as they flew over them, and render the preservation of pheasants and foxes no longer possible. Householders adjoining the projected line were told that their houses would be burnt up by the fire thrown from the engine-chimneys; while the air around would be polluted by clouds of smoke. There would no longer be any use for horses; and if railways extended, the species would become extinguished, and oats and hay be rendered unsaleable commodities. Travelling by road would be made highly dangerous, and country inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst and blow passengers to atoms. But there was always this consolation to wind up with-that the weight of the locomotive would completely prevent its moving, and that railways, even if made, could never be worked by steam-power!

Nevertheless, the canal companies of Leeds, Liverpool, and Birmingham, called upon every navigation company in the kingdom to oppose railways wherever they were projected, but more especially the projected Liverpool and Manchester line, the battle with which they evidently regarded as their Armageddon. A Birmingham newspaper invited opposition to the measure, and a public subscription was entered into for the purpose of making it effectual. The newspapers generally spoke of the project as a mere speculation; some wishing it success, although greatly doubting; others ridiculing it as a delusion, similar to the many other absurd projects of that madly-speculative period. It was a time when balloon companies proposed to work passenger traffic through the air at forty miles an hour, and

when road companies projected carriages to run on turnpikes at twelve miles an hour, with relays of bottled gas instead of horses. There were companies for the working of American gold and silver mines,-companies for cutting. ship canals through Panama and Nicaragua,-milk companies, burying companies, fish companies, and steam companies of all sorts; and many, less speculatively disposed than their neighbours, were ready to set down the projected railways of 1825 as mere bubbles of a similarly delusive character.

Among the most remarkable newspaper articles of the day calling attention to the application of the locomotive engine to the purposes of rapid steam-travelling on railroads, was a series which appeared in 1824, in the Scotsman newspaper, then edited by Mr. Charles Maclaren. In those publications the wonderful powers of the locomotive were logically demonstrated, and the writer, arguing from the experiments on friction made more than half a century before by Vince and Coulomb, which scientific men seemed to have altogether lost sight of, clearly showed that, by the use of steam-power on railroads, the more rapid, as well as cheaper transit of persons and merchandise might be confidently anticipated.

Not many years passed before the anticipations of the writer, sanguine and speculative though they were regarded at the time, were amply realised. Even Mr. Nicholas Wood, in 1825, speaking of the powers of the locomotive, and referring doubtless to the speculations of the Scotsman as well as of his equally sanguine friend Stephenson, observed:" It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic speculator will be realised, and that we shall see engines travelling at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty miles an hour. Nothing could do more. harm towards their general adoption and improvement than the promulgation of such nonsense."

Indeed, when Mr. Stephenson, at the consultations of counsel previous to the Liverpool and Manchester bill going

into Committee of the House of Commons, confidently stated his expectation of being able to impel his locomotive at the rate of twenty miles an hour, Mr. William Brougham, who was retained by the promoters to conduct their case, frankly told him, that if he did not moderate his views, and bring his engine within a reasonable speed, he would "inevitably damn the whole thing, and be himself regarded as a maniac fit for Bedlam."

The idea of travelling at a rate of speed double that of the fastest mail coach appeared at that time so preposterous that Mr. Stephenson was unable to find any engineer who would risk his reputation in supporting his "absurd views." Speaking of his isolation at this time, he subsequently observed, at a public meeting of railway men in Manchester: "He remembered the time when he had very few supporters in bringing out the railway system-when he sought England over for an engineer to support him in his evidence before Parliament, and could find only one man, James Walker, but was afraid to call that gentleman, because he knew nothing about railways. He had then no one to tell his tale to but Mr. Sandars of Liverpool, who did listen to him, and kept his spirits up; and his schemes had at length been carried out only by dint of sheer perseverance."

George Stephenson's idea was indeed at that time regarded as but the dream of a chimerical projector. It stood before the public friendless, struggling hard to gain a footing, but scarcely daring to lift itself into notice for fear of ridicule. The civil engineers generally rejected the notion of a Locomotive Railway; and when no leading man of the day could be found to stand forward in support of the Killingworth mechanic, its chances of success must have been pronounced small. But, like all great truths, the time was surely to come when it was to prevail.

When such was the hostility of the civil engineers, no wonder the reviewers were puzzled. The Quarterly, in an able article in support of the projected Liverpool and Manchester Railway,-while admitting its absolute necessity,

and insisting that there was no choice left but a railroad, on which the journey between Liverpool and Manchester, whether performed by horses or engines, would always be accomplished" within the day,"-nevertheless scouted the idea of travelling at a greater speed than eight or nine miles an hour. Adverting to a project for forming a railway to Woolwich, by which passengers were to be drawn by locomotive engines, moving with twice the velocity of ordinary coaches, the reviewer observed::“What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stage coaches! We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich Railway for any sum. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured on with safety."

The article was, however, in other respects so favourable to the proposed railway, that allegations were even made by the opponents of the bill, when in committee, that the writer had been bought by the Liverpool and Manchester party; which was, of course, a mere licence of counsel. As for the objections urged by the reviewer against the high speed attainable on railways, then a mere matter of speculation, they were also entertained by nearly all the practical and scientific men of the kingdom, and by the public generally.

CHAPTER X.

PARLIAMENTARY CONTEST ON THE LIVERPOOL AND
MANCHESTER BILL.

THE Liverpool and Manchester Bill went into Committee of the House of Commons on the 21st of March, 1825. There was an extraordinary array of legal talent on the occasion, but especially on the side of the opponents to the measure. Their wealth and influence enabled them to retain the ablest counsel at the bar; Mr. (since Baron) Alderson, Mr. Stephenson, Mr. (afterwards Baron) Parke, Mr. Rose, Mr. Macdonnell, Mr. Harrison, Mr. Erle, and Mr. Cullen, made common cause with each other in their opposition to the bill; the case for which was conducted by Mr. Adam, Mr. Serjeant Spankie, Mr. William Brougham, and Mr. Joy.

Evidence was taken at great length as to the difficulties and delays in forwarding raw goods of all kinds from Liverpool to Manchester, as also in the conveyance of manufactured articles from Manchester to Liverpool. The evidence adduced in support of the bill on these grounds was overwhelming. The utter inadequacy of the existing modes of conveyance to carry on satisfactorily the large and rapidly-growing trade between the two towns was fully proved. But then came the gist of the promoters' case—the evidence to prove the practicability of a railroad to be worked by locomotive power. Mr. Adam, in his opening speech, referred to the cases of the Hetton and the Killingworth railroads, where heavy goods were safely and economically transported by means of locomotive engines. "None of the tremendous consequences," he observed, have ensued from the use of steam in land carriage that have been stated. The horses have not started, nor the

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