carry for himself. But this arrangement led to increasing confusion and difficulty, and could not continue in the face of a large and rapidly increasing traffic. The goods trains got so long, that the carriers found it necessary to call in the aid of the locomotive engine to help them on their way. Then mixed trains began to be seen of passengers and merchandise,—the final result being the assumption of the entire charge of the traffic by the railway In course of time new passenger carriages were specially built for the better accommodation of the public, until at length regular passenger trains were run, drawn by the locomotive engine, though this was not until after the Liverpool and Manchester Company had established passenger trains as a distinct branch of their traffic.

company.

Three of Stephenson's locomotives were from the first regularly employed to work the coal trains; and their proved efficiency for this purpose led to the gradual increase of the locomotive power. The speed of the engines-slow though it was in those days-was regarded as something marvellous; and a race actually came off between No. 1. engine, the "Active," and one of the stage-coaches travelling from Darlington to Stockton by the ordinary road; and it was regarded as a great triumph of mechanical skill that the locomotive reached Stockton first, beating the stage-coach by about a hundred yards! *

For some years, however, the principal haulage of the line was performed by horses. The inclination of the gradients being towards the sea, this was perhaps the cheapest mode of traction, so long as the traffic was not very large. The horse drew the train along the level road until, on reaching a descending gradient, down which the train ran by its own weight, the horse was unharnessed, and, when loose, he wheeled round to the other end of the wagons, to which a "dandy-cart" was attached, its bottom being only a few inches from the rail. Bringing his step into unison with the speed of the train, the horse leapt

*The same engine continued in good working order in the year 1846, when it headed the railway procession on the opening of the Middlesborough and Redcar Railway, travelling at the rate of about fourteen miles an hour. This engine, the first that travelled upon the first public railway, has quite recently been placed upon a pedestal in front of the railway station at Darlington.

nimbly into his place in this wagon, which was usually fitted with a well-filled hay-rack. Mr. Clephan relates the story of a sagacious grey horse, which was fertile in expedients when emergencies arose :-"On one occasion, perceiving that a train, which had run amain, must rush into his dandy-cart, he took a leap for life over the side, and escaped. In a similar peril, a leap over the side being impracticable, he sprung on to the coalwagon in front, and stood like an equestrian statue on a pedestal. But the time came, at last, when there was no escape; and the poor old grey was destroyed."

The details of the working were gradually perfected by experience, the projectors of the line being at first scarcely conscious of the importance and significance of the work which they had taken in hand, and little thinking that they were laying the foundation of a system which was yet to revolutionize the internal communications of the world, and confer the greatest blessings on mankind. It is important to note that the commercial results of the enterprise were considered satisfactory from the opening of the railway. Besides conferring a great public benefit upon the inhabitants of the district, and throwing open entirely new markets for the almost boundless stores of coal found in the Bishop Auckland district, the profits derived from the traffic created by the railway, enabled increasing dividends to be paid to those who had risked their capital in the undertaking, and thus held forth an encouragement to the projectors of railways generally, which was not without an important effect in stimulating the projection of similar enterprises in other districts.*

* From the minute books of the Stockton and Darlington Company, it appears that a dividend of 2 per cent. was paid to the shareholders for the first nine months after the line was opened, during which period the traffic arrangements must necessarily have been in a very incomplete state. The Company had all their experience to gather, having none to fall back upon. Everything was to organize from the very beginning. Under these circumstances, it was matter of congratulation to the proprietors that any profit should have been made during those first nine months. But in the next year ending June, 1827, a dividend of 5 per cent. was paid; and the same rate was maintained until 1831, when it was increased to 6 per cent., and in 1832 to 8 per cent. It was matter of notoriety that 10 per cent. was afterwards paid during many years, which arose in some measure from the circumstance that the Company were enabled to borrow

Before leaving the subject of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, we cannot avoid alluding to one of its most remarkable and direct results-the creation of the town of Middlesboroughon-Tees. When the railway was opened in 1825, the site of this future metropolis of Cleveland was occupied by one solitary farmhouse and its outbuildings. All round was pasture land or mud banks; scarcely another house was within sight. But when the coal export trade, fostered by the halfpenny maximum rate imposed by the legislature, seemed likely to attain a gigantic growth, and it was found that the accommodation furnished at Stockton was insufficent, Mr. Edward Pease, joined by a few of his Quaker friends, bought about 500 or 600 acres of land, five miles lower down the river-the site of the modern Middlesborough-for the purpose of there forming a new seaport for the shipment of coals brought to the Tees by the railway. The line was accordingly shortly extended thither; docks were excavated; a town sprang up; churches, chapels, and schools were built, with a custom-house, mechanics' institute, banks, shipbuilding yards, and iron factories; and in a few years the port of Middlesborough became one of the most important on the northeast coast of England. In the year 1845, 505,486 tons of coals were shipped in the nine-acre dock, by means of the ten coal-drops abutting thereupon. In about ten years a busy population of about 6,000 persons (since swelled into 15,000) occupied the site of the original farmhouse. More recently, the discovery of vast stores of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills, close adjoining Middlesborough, has tended still more rapidly to augment the population and increase the commercial importance of the place. Iron furnaces are now blazing along the vale of

a large proportion of their capital at a low rate of interest, whilst the share capital upon which dividend was paid, remained comparatively small. These arrangements, however, prove the shrewd business qualities of the men who originally conducted the undertaking. The results, as displayed in the annual dividends, must have been eminently encouraging to the astute commercial men of Liverpool and Manchester, who were then engaged in the prosecution of their railway. Indeed, the commercial success of the Stockton and Darlington Company may be justly characterized as the turning-point of the railway system. With that practical illustration daily in sight of the public, it was no longer possible for Parliament to have prevented its eventual extension.

Cleveland and new smelting works are rising up in all directions, fed by the railway, which brings to them their supplies of fuel from the Durham coal-fields.

It is pleasing to relate, in connection with this great work— the Stockton and Darlington Railway, projected by Edward Pease and executed by George Stephenson, that afterwards, when Mr. Stephenson became a prosperous and a celebrated man, he did not forget the friend who had taken him by the hand, and helped him on in his early days. He always remembered Mr. Pease with gratitude and affection; and that gentleman is still proud to exhibit a handsome gold watch, received as a gift from his celebrated protégé, bearing these words:" Esteem and gratitude: from George Stephenson to Edward Pease."

CHAPTER. XVIII.

MR. STEPHENSON APPOINTED TO SURVEY A RAILWAY
FROM LIVERPOOL TO MANCHESTER.

THE project of a line of railway from Liverpool to Manchester was revived in the speculative year 1824. It had not, indeed, been lost sight of by its advocates, who had merely waited for a time in the hope of mitigating the opposition of the powerful canal companies and land-owners. But the interruptions to the conveyance of goods between the two towns had at length become intolerable; and it was a matter of absolute necessity that some mode should be adopted for remedying the evil.

Mr. Sandars continued to hold by his project of a railway; and his first idea, of a solidly constructed tramway, to be worked by horse power, gradually assumed a more comprehensive form. He continued to propagate his ideas upon 'Change, and gradually succeeded in enlisting on his side an increasing number of influential merchants and manufacturers both at Liverpool and Manchester. In 1824 he published a pamphlet, in which he strongly urged the great losses and interruptions to the trade of the district by the delays in the transport of goods; and in the same year a Public Declaration was drawn up, and signed by upwards of 150 of the principal merchants of Liverpool, setting forth that they considered "the present establishments for the transport of goods quite inadequate, and that a new line of conveyance has become absolutely necessary to conduct the increasing trade of the country with speed, certainty, and economy."

The formation of a third line of water conveyance, in addition to the Mersey and Irwell Canals, was also considered; but it was almost immediately dismissed as impracticable, as the two exist