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increased value! All sorts of payments were demanded on the most frivolous pretexts. The landowners discovered that they could demand accommodation bridges, which they did in large numbers. One originally demanded five, but afterwards came down to four, with an equivalent in the price of the bridge given up. Then he found he could do with three bridges, provided the Company would pay him a further sum in hard cash, which they were ready to do; and, in like manner, he gave up the remaining bridges, on being paid a further round sm: in fact, the bridges were wholly unnecessary, and had only been insisted on as a means of extorting money from the Company. To these causes of increased expense must be added the rise in the prices of labour and materials which took place shortly after the letting of the works, by which many of the contractors were ruined, no fewer than seven of the contracts having thus been thrown upon the Company's hands. The directors had then to purchase all kinds of implements and materials at great expense, in order to carry on the works and avoid heavier loss. But the energy of the engineers, cordially supported by the directory and proprietors, enabled them at length, after many years' anxiety, to bring the stupendous undertaking to a successful completion, though at a cost far beyond that which had been originally estimated.

The estimates laid by Mr. Robert Stephenson before Parliament amounted to 2,750,000l.; and it was then confidently expected that the works would have been completed within this sum. The most eminent engineers of the day were brought forward to give evidence on the subject, and those of the greatest experience stated their opinion to be that the estimates were altogether too high. Mr. Walker said the prices allowed were 30 per cent. higher than any he could remember. Mr. Locke considered them too high; and Mr. Rastrick objected to support the estimates for the same reason. Yet the result proved them to have been

much too low. The works were, it is true, let to the contractors under the sum estimated, but in consequence of the adverse circumstances which occurred in the course of their execution, the expenditure had reached the immense amount of 5,000,000l., or about double the original estimate, before the line was opened for public traffic.

Strong animadversions were made at the time upon this excessive expenditure; but the circumstances which we have stated, the obstacles encountered in the Kilsby and other tunnels, the rapid rise in the price of labour and materials, the extortions of the landowners (which it was impossible accurately to estimate), were sufficient in a considerable degree to account for the excess: in addition to which, it was a matter of the greatest difficulty for men of the very highest talent and experience then to form accurate estimates of the labour attending works of so stupendous a character, in the absence of the data since furnished by experience. Mr. Robert Stephenson, in his evidence before a committee of the House of Commons in 1839, gave this further explanation: "The principal excess, or at least a very large item of the excess, arose from the stations on the line. The public required much larger accommodation at the stations than was originally contemplated. In fact, at the time the estimate of the London and Birmingham Railway was made, it was apprehended that something like 25,000l. or 30,000l. for a station at each end of the line was ample; but they have exceeded 100,000l. I have no hesitation in saying that the expense of stations has been eight or ten-fold beyond the parliamentary estimate. The plans were on much too small. a scale in the stations originally contemplated." "But,” he remarked on another occasion *, "let individuals who make

* Speech of Mr. Robert Stephenson at the dinner given to him by the contractors for the London and Birmingham Railway, on the occasion of presenting him with a testimonial. November 16th, 1839.

observations as to the excessive cost of the works as compared with the estimates, look not at the commencement but at their close. Let them recollect that those great works now spreading irresistibly like network all over the country, are exciting commercial enterprise, augmenting the national wealth, increasing our social comforts, and raising the nation in the scale of civilisation. It is the end, therefore, that ought to be looked at, and not the beginning; and you, contractors, have all contributed your mite, as well as myself, to produce those glorious results."

It is probable, indeed, that had the projectors of the undertaking foreseen that it would cost as much as five millions sterling, they would have been deterred from entering upon it. As it was, however, the expenditure, though immense, was justified by the result; for the excess in the traffic beyond the estimates was even greater in proportion than the excess in the capital expenditure. The line of 112 miles in length was opened on the 17th of September, 1838, and in the following year the receipts from passenger traffic alone amounted to 608,5647. The company was enabled to pay its proprietors a large dividend; and the results of the working were cited as sufficient grounds for pushing railways in all directions.

The magnitude of the works, which were unprecedented in England, was one of the most remarkable features in the undertaking. The following striking comparison has been made between this railway and one of the greatest works of ancient times. The great Pyramid of Egypt was, according to Diodorus Siculus, constructed by three hundred thousand -according to Herodotus, by one hundred thousand-men. It required for its execution twenty years, and the labour expended upon it has been estimated as equivalent to lifting 15,733,000,000 of cubic feet of stone one foot high. Whereas, if in the same manner the labour expended in constructing

the London and Birmingham Railway be reduced to one common denomination, the result is 25,000,000,000 of cubic feet more than was lifted for the Great Pyramid; and yet the English work was performed by about 20,000 men in less than five years. And whilst the Egyptian work was executed by a powerful monarch concentrating upon it the labour and capital of a great nation, the English railway was constructed, in the face of every conceivable obstruction and difficulty, by a company of private individuals out of their own resources, without the aid of Government or the contribution of one farthing of the public money.

CHAP. XXVI.

ADVANCE OF PUBLIC OPINION IN FAVOUR OF RAILWAYS.

NOTWITHSTANDING the decisive success of the Liverpool and Manchester project, the prejudices against railways and railway travelling continued very strong. Their advantages were already fully known to the inhabitants of those districts through which they passed, for they had experienced their practical benefits in substantial reductions in the price of coal, in the carriage of merchandise of all kinds, and in the cheap and rapid transit of their persons from place to place. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was regarded as a national wonder from the first; and strangers resorted to Lancashire from all quarters, to witness the trains and to travel in the wake of the locomotive. To witness a railway train some five-and-twenty years ago was an event in one's life.

But people at a distance did not see railways and railway travelling in the same light. The farther off, and the greater the ignorance which prevailed as to their modes of working, the greater, of course, was the popular alarm. The towns of the South only followed the example of Northampton when they howled down the railways. It was proposed to carry a line through Kent, by the populous county town of Maidstone, on which a public meeting was held to oppose the project; and the railway had not a single supporter amongst the townspeople. When at length formed through Kent, it passed Maidstone at a distance; but in a few years the

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