The new roads became the topic of conversation in all circles; they were felt to give a new value to time; their vast capabilities for "business" peculiarly recommended them to the trading classes; whilst the friends of "progress" dilated on the great benefits they would eventually confer upon mankind at large. It began to be seen that Mr. Edward Pease had not been exaggerating when he said, "Let the country but make the railroads, and the railroads will make the country! They also came to be regarded as inviting objects of investment to the thrifty, and a safe outlet for the accumulations of inert men of capital. Thus new avenues of iron road were soon in course of construction in all directions, branching north, south, east, and west, so that the country promised in a wonderfully short space of time to become wrapped in one vast network of iron.

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Mr. Stephenson's principal attention was directed to the development of the system in the Northern Counties, leaving the south to the energy of his son. Besides the Grand Junction, he was, shortly after the completion of the Liverpool line, engaged in surveying and laying out a railway from Manchester to Leeds, with the object of forming a connexion between the principal towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. An attempt had been made to obtain an act for this purpose as early as the year 1831; but having been met by the powerful opposition of the landowners, aided by the canal companies, it was defeated, and was not revived until several years later. Mr. Stephenson, however, having carefully examined the entire district, had already determined in his own mind the route of the Manchester and Leeds line, and decided that no other was practicable, without the objectionable expedient of a tunnel three and a half miles in length under Blackstone Edge, and the additional disadvantage of heavy gradients. This line, as projected by him and afterwards considerably improved, was somewhat circuitous, and the works were heavy; but on the whole the gradients were favourable, and it had the advantage of passing through a district full

of manufacturing towns and villages, teeming hives of population, industry, and enterprise. The act authorising the construction of the railway was finally obtained in the session of 1836: it was greatly amended in the succeeding year; and the first ground was broken on the 18th of August, 1837.

An incident occurred while the second Manchester and Leeds Bill was before the Committee of the Lords, which is worthy of passing notice in this place, as illustrative of Mr. Stephenson's character. The line which was authorised by Parliament in 1836 had been hastily surveyed within a period of less than six weeks; and before it received the royal assent, Mr. Stephenson became convinced that many important improvements might be made in it, and communicated his views to the directors. They determined, however, to obtain the act, although conscious at the time that they would have to go for a second and improved line in the following year. The second bill passed the Commons in 1837 without difficulty, and promised in like manner to receive the sanction of the Lords' Committee. Quite unexpectedly, however, Lord Wharncliffe, who was interested in the Manchester and Sheffield line, which passed through his colliery property in the south of Yorkshire, and conceived that the new Manchester and Leeds line might have some damaging effect, appeared as a strenuous opponent of the bill. He was himself a member of the Committee, and adopted the unusual course of rising to his feet, and making a set speech against the bill while Mr. Stephenson was under examination. After pointing out that the bill applied for and obtained in the preceding session was one that the promoters had no intention of carrying out, that they had secured it only for the purpose of obtaining possession of the ground and reducing the number of the opponents to their present application, and that in fact they had been practising a deception upon the House, his lordship turned full upon the witness, and, addressing him, said, “I ask you, sir, do you call that conduct honest? Mr. Stephenson, his voice trembling

with emotion, replied,-" Yes, my lord, I do call it honest. And I will ask your lordship, whom I served for many years as your enginewright at the Killingworth collieries, when did you ever know me to do anything that was not honest and honourable? You know what the collieries were when I went there, and you know what they were when I left them. Did you ever hear that I was found wanting when honest services were wanted, or when duty called me? Let your lordship but fairly consider the circumstances of the case, and I feel persuaded you will admit that my conduct has been equally honest throughout in this matter." He then briefly but clearly stated the history of the application to Parliament for the act, which was so satisfactory to the Committee that they passed the preamble of the bill without further objection. Lord Wharncliffe requested that the Committee would permit his observations, together with Mr. Stephenson's reply, to be erased from the record of the evidence, which, as an acknowledgment of his error, was permitted: Lord Kenyon and several other members of the Committee afterwards came up to Mr. Stephenson, shook him by the hand, and congratulated him on the manly way in which he had vindicated himself in the course of the inquiry.

In conducting this project to a successful issue, Mr. Stephenson had much opposition and many strong prejudices. to encounter. Predictions were confidently made in many quarters, that the line could never succeed. It was declared, that the utmost engineering skill could not construct a railway through such a country of hills and hard rocks; and it was maintained that, even if the railway were practicable, it could only be formed at so enormous a cost as to prevent it from ever remunerating the proprietors.

During the progress of the works, as the Summit Tunnel, near Littleborough, was approaching completion, the alarming rumour was spread abroad in Manchester that the tunnel had fallen in and buried a number of workmen in the ruins. The last arch had been keyed in, and the work was all but finished, when the accident occurred which was

thus exaggerated by the lying tongue of rumour. An invert had given way through the irregular pressure of the surrounding earth and rock at a part of the tunnel

where 66 a fault" had occurred in the strata. A party of the directors accompanied the engineer to inspect the scene of the accident. They entered the tunnel's mouth preceded by upwards of fifty navvies, each bearing a torch. This extraordinary subterranean viaduct had occupied the labours of above a thousand men during nearly four years. Besides excavating the arch out of the solid rock, they had used 23,000,000 of bricks, and 8000 tons of Roman cement. Thirteen stationary engines, and about 100 horses, had also been employed in drawing the earth and stone out of the shafts. The entire length of the tunnel was 2869 yards, or nearly a mile and three quarters,-exceeding the famous Kilsby Tunnel by 471 yards.