momentarily effected. In the metropolis a large number of persons are thus employed, and at each of the country stations they have one, two, and even as many as ten, signal clerks, besides messengers who are skilled in manipulating and interpreting the telegraph.

The agency which has thus been developed is worthy of the age of railroads, and though of less practical value, yet it is even more extraordinary. "Give me," said a profound electrician, "but an unlimited length of wire, with a small battery, and I will girdle the world with a sentence in a few minutes." Its ultimate results all may ponder. In a few years, when the advantages of the system shall be more generally diffused, the electric telegraph will bring, as it were, the whole family of England-perhaps of man-under one roof, and into one room. The metropolis will receive intelligence from, and transmit it to, all parts of the island. For every great need the farthest extremity will state its wants, and the railway will bear the desired assistance within twenty-four hours. The island will become possessed of a nervous system, the rapidity and precision of which will be comparable only to that of the human frame; while London will be the sensorium of the acutely sensible and intelligent whole. The most northern or western district will communicate its sensations as the finger or the eye transmits its noiseless tidings to the brain. Termini a thousand miles apart, with a hundred intermediate stations, will receive, if necessary, the same announcement at the same moment. "On a few dials will appear the continual reflex of a nation's history."

APPENDIX.

A.

ABSTRACT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILROAD BILL. SESSION 1825.

THE first parliamentary battle for a railway was fought in 1825, when the proposal to construct a line between Liverpool and Manchester was considered by a Committee of the House of Commons. It is true that the sanction of Parliament had been previously given to other lines, but they were chiefly unimportant in extent, and did not encounter much opposition. But in 1825, the great struggle was between the railway and the canal, and the interest at stake was the continued progress of the great towns of Liverpool and Manchester. In the text of the present work, reference has been made to the proceedings of the Committee on the Bill; but it is considered that the peculiar interest attaching to these proceedings requires that in a work like this an abstract of them should be given, which could not conveniently be inserted in the text. The Report of the proceedings of that Committee will soon, if it has not already, become an important document in the history of civilization; and by the contrast, which every year is making broader and more striking, between the anticipations of the men of 1825, and the actual results, will show how great is our ignorance at any time of the power of natural forces, and how little we know of our own ability to direct these forces for the accomplishment of certain ends.

The Committee of the House of Commons to whom the Bill was referred met for the first time on Monday, March 21, 1825. The chair was occupied by General Gascoigne, who was then member for Liverpool. In our time, no member for the locality interested in or affected by a Railway Bill is allowed to be a member of the Com

mittee by whom it is to be considered. He may attend and give such advice and assistance as his local knowledge and position may render useful, but nothing more. The other extremity of the line, the great town of Manchester, was neither represented on the Committee, nor in the House; for Manchester was then neither a borough nor a city: it had not what it has since acquired,-a Mayor, and representatives in Parliament, and a Bishop.

The Company appeared by counsel, the chief of whom were Serjeant Spankie and Mr. Adam; while arrayed against the Bill was a formidable phalanx of canal-owners, road-trustees, and landed proprietors; among whom were the trustees of the Duke of Bridgewater, the proprietors of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, the proprietors of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, the trustees of Barton Road, near Manchester, Sir William Gerrard, Charles Orrell, Esq., and other landed proprietors through whose property the line was intended to pass. The legal talent engaged on their side appeared overwhelming, Mr. Alderson and Mr. Parke (both of whom have since that time been raised to the bench), Mr. Harrison, Mr. Rose, Mr. Earle, and Mr. Cullen.

The first day was entirely occupied by the opening statement of Mr. Adam on behalf of the promoters of the line.

"He began by saying that he proposed to discuss the subject in two points of view, first, with reference to the state of commercial interests; and, secondly, as connected with a more expeditious mode of conveyance. Railways are a more convenient, a more safe, a more economical, and a more certain mode of conveyance than any modes which now exist. Unless something be done to increase the facility of communication between Liverpool and Manchester, the advances now making in commercial prosperity must cease. Economy is one of the principal things on which to found the success of our commercial interests. If the Committee find, that, by the mode suggested, parties will be able to convey goods from the place of manufacture to the place of exportation at a very reduced rate, and in much less time than at present, the present measure ought to receive the sanction of the Legislature.

"The promoters of the Bill ask permission to make a railroad, for the purpose of procuring a more expeditious mode of conveyance between the towns of Liverpool and Manchester. They allege, that 'the making and maintaining of a railway or tramroad, with proper works and conveniences adjoining thereto, or connected therewith, for the passage of wagons and other carriages from or near the town of Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, in and through the several parishes or places hereinafter mentioned, to the town of

Manchester, in the same county, will be of great advantage to the inhabitants of the said county, towns, and places, by opening an easy and expeditious communication between the two large trading towns of Liverpool and Manchester, and by affording an additional mode of transit for merchandise and other articles and matters between those places; and also to and from the neighbouring county, and will in various other respects be of public utility.'

"He would undertake to show, that the present means of transit are not sufficient in themselves. They are uncertain, attended with great risk, and with great expense. The promoters of the Bill do not desire to supersede any of the existing establishments; on the contrary, they are desirous to go hand-in-hand with them. He was bound to show, he admitted, that the proposed mode of conveyance shall be as speedy, as cheap, as safe and certain, as the other in all respects. If that is done, he should make out a case sufficient to call upon Parliament for its aid; but he would do more, he would show that they shall exceed in all those particulars.

"Manchester, and the country of which it is the centre, includes a manufacturing population of above half a million. The population of Manchester alone amounts to one hundred and sixty-five thousand. Within the last three years it has increased thirty thousand, and that, perhaps, is carrying it further back than the great commercial increase of the country requires.* Manchester is the channel of communication through which the clothiers of Yorkshire export their commodities, and the manufacturers of Sheffield send much of their hardwares, as well as a variety of other commodities. They all make use of Manchester as the centre, and require the same means of transit, as the goods manufactured in the immediate vicinity of that large and populous town. There are a great quantity of manufactured articles, the transit of which is to be provided for at Manchester to Liverpool. They require extensive means of transit, and if that be so with the articles exported, it must be exceeded by the imported articles, for the greater part of the articles manufactured in Yorkshire, and in the neighbourhood of Manchester, are far more bulky, and require much more space in their raw state, than when manufactured. With respect to the necessity of an increased facility of transit, it is observable, that if this railroad should receive the sanction of Parliament, there will be another most important article of

*The population of the boroughs alone of Manchester and Salford, according to the Census of 1851, was 401,321; and Manchester, and the great district of which it is the centre, certainly contains now a population double what it was when Mr. Adam made this speech.