the king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel on a railway than to walk, on foot. I know there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties that will have to be encountered; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as we live.'

The railway was opened on the 27th September, 1825. A great crowd had assembled to see the blowing up of the boasted travelling engine. A single engine drew a train of thirty-eight carriages, loaded with six hundred passengers and many tons of merchandise, at a rate varying from four to twelve miles an hour. The railway was completely successful. The traffic anticipated had been entirely in coal; but, by way of a trial, an old stage-coach was bought, placed on a wooden frame, and named the Experiment.' It was drawn by one horse, at the rate of ten miles an hour for it was not till the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had been opened that regular trains of passenger carriages were run, drawn by the locomotive. But the old 'Experiment' was daily overcrowded, and the railway became a favourite route for passengers.

C

But the question of railways and locomotives was soon to be set at rest for ever. The merchants of Liverpool and Manchester, who had long suffered much inconvenience from the insufficiency of the canal communication between these two great towns, had for years talked of a railway. The authorities of the Bridgewater Canal violently opposed the scheme; but a company was formed in the year 1824. The prospectus issued was a careful and temperate document. The chief advantage it proposed was the conveyance

of goods in five or six hours, instead of six-and-thirty, as by the canal. All the shares were speedily taken up. Several deputations were sent to inspect Stephenson's engines at Killingworth, and a survey of the country through which the line would pass was proceeded with. This survey was violently opposed by the landowners, Lord Derby and Lord Sefton being especially antagonistic. On the Bridgewater property Mr. Stephenson, who had been engaged to survey the line, was threatened with a ducking; and much of the survey had to be made either by force or by stealth. All possible means were employed to stir up popular prejudice against the railway. Pamphlets and newspapers were liberally used. Terrible stories were circulated as to the results which would follow the passage of the locomotives :

It was declared that the formation of the railway 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 by 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 unsaleable commodities. Travelling by road would be rendered highly dangerous, and country inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst and blow passengers to atoms. But then there was always this consolation to wind up with-that the weight of the locomotive would completely prevent it moving, and that railways, even if made, could never be worked by steampower. (pp. 219, 220.)

And even Mr. Nicholas Wood, a warm supporter

of the locomotive, in 1825 protested as follows against the extravagant ideas of Stephenson :---

It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiast speculator will be realised, and that we shall see engines travelling at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen miles an hour. Nothing could do more harm toward their general adoption and improvement than the promulgation of such nonsense.

Indeed, it is evident that at this period even the friends of Mr. Stephenson were of opinion that his statements as to the powers of the locomotive were likely to have a damaging effect upon the cause of railways. Mr. William Brougham, who conducted the case of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway before the Parliamentary Committee, told Stephenson frankly 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 case came before Parliament in due course, and Stephenson was the principal witness called to prove the practicability of the railway. He appeared in the witness-box on the 25th April, 1825; and he was subjected to an amount of badgering and bullying on the part of the opposing counsel which at the present day seems almost incredible. The late Baron Alderson, who was the chief of these, ought never to have looked at a railway till the end of his life without a blush. Stephenson found it very difficult to explain to the Committee matters which in his own mind were very clear, and in his strong Northumbrian accent he

struggled for utterance in the face of the sneers, interruptions, and ridicule of the opponents of the measure; and even of the Committee, some of whom shook their heads and whispered doubts of his sanity when he energetically avowed that he could make the locomotive go at twelve miles an hour.' A member of Committee, eager to put a question, said with dignity, Suppose, now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad at nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance?' 'Yes,' replied Stephenson, with a twinkle in his eye, very awkward, indeed, for the coo!' The clever member shut up, and was seen no more. A great point was made of the impracticability of carrying the Railway over Chat Moss. Mr. Francis Giles, an engineer, declared that no man in his senses would go through Chat Moss if he wanted to make a railway from Liverpool to Manchester.' But scandalous as were the assaults made on Stephenson in cross-examination, they were nothing compared to those made in the flippant and silly speeches in which Messrs. Harrison and Alderson summed up the case against the Bill. No severer punishment could possibly be inflicted at the present time upon the authors of these speeches than simply to read them, without note or comment, to any company of educated Englishmen. The actual fact is the best reply to Mr. Harrison's declaration, I will show that a locomotive engine cannot go six miles an hour, and that for all practical purposes I can keep up with him by the canal. Any

gale of wind that would affect the traffic on the Mersey would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine.' And the fame and fortune amid which George Stephenson died may be set off against Mr. Alderson's declaration,- My learned friends wished me to put in the plan; but I would rather have the exhibition of Mr. Stephenson in that box. I say he never had a plan-I believe he never had one-I do not believe he is capable of making one.'

The Bill was thrown out by a majority of one, and an application in the following session proved successful. The Bill passed, notwithstanding a speech from Sir Isaac Coffin against it. What,' exclaimed the intelligent member

What is to be done with those who may still wish to travel in their own or hired carriages, after the fashion of their forefathers? What is to become of coachmakers and harnessmakers, coachmasters and coachmen, innkeepers, horse-breeders, and horsedealers? Iron will be raised in price a hundred per cent.; or, more probably, exhausted altogether. It will be the greatest nuisance, the most complete disturbance of quiet and comfort in all parts of the kingdom that the ingenuity of man could invent.

The Act cost the Company £27,000; and in 1826 Stephenson was appointed principal engineer, with a salary of £1,000 a year.

No sooner was he appointed than he made arrangements to commence the works. He began with Chat Moss in June, 1826. The task of making a railway through this great morass appeared almost an impossible one. The line ran through it for four miles. Thousands and thousands of cubic yards of earth were