Maidstone burgesses, like those of Northampton, became clamorous for a railway; and a branch was formed for their accommodation. Again, in a few years, they complained that the route was circuitous, as they had compelled it to be; consequently another and shorter line was formed, to bring Maidstone into more direct communication with the metropolis. In like manner the London and Bristol (afterwards the Great Western) Railway was vehemently opposed by the people of the towns through which the line was projected to pass; and when the bill was thrown out by the Lords,-after 30,0007. had been expended by the promoters,— the inhabitants of Eton assembled, under the presidency of the Marquis of Chandos, to rejoice and congratulate themselves. and the country on the defeat of the measure.

When Colonel Sibthorpe openly declared his hatred of "those infernal railroads," he only expressed in a strong manner the feeling which then pervaded the country gentry and many of the middle classes in the southern districts. That respectable nobleman, the late Earl of Harewood, when it was urged by the gentlemen who waited upon him on behalf of the Liverpool and Manchester company, that great advantages to trade and commerce were to be anticipated from the facilities which would be afforded by railways, refused to admit the force of the argument, as he doubted whether any new impetus to manufactures would be advantageous to the country. And Mr. H. Berkeley, the intelligent member for Cheltenham, in like manner, strongly expressed the views of his class, when at a public meeting held in that town, he declared his utter detestation of railways, and wished that the concoctors of every such scheme, with their solicitors and engineers, were at rest in Paradise! Nothing," said he, "is

more distasteful to me than to hear the echo of our hills reverberating with the noise of hissing railroad-engines running through the heart of our hunting country, and destroying

that noble sport to which I have been accustomed from my childhood." Colonel Sibthorpe even went so far as to declare that he "would rather meet a highwayman, or see a burglar on his premises, than an engineer; he should be much more safe, and of the two classes, he thought the former more respectable!"

Railways had thus, like most other great social improvements, to force their way against the fierce antagonism of united ignorance and prejudice. Public-spirited obstructives were ready to choke the invention at its birth, on the ground of the general good. The forcible invasion of property-the intrusion of public roads into private domains the noise and nuisance caused by locomotives, and the danger of fire to the adjoining property, were dwelt upon ad nauseam. Then the breed of horses would be destroyed; country innkeepers would be ruined; posting towns would become depopulated; the turnpike roads would be deserted; and the institution of the English stage-coach, with its rosy-gilled coachman and guard, known to every buxom landlady at roadside country inns, would be destroyed for ever. Fox-covers and gamepreserves would be interfered with; agricultural communication destroyed; land thrown out of cultivation; landowners and farmers alike reduced to beggary; the poor-rates increased in consequence of the numbers of labourers thrown out of employment by the railways; and all this in order that Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham manufacturers, merchants, and cotton-spinners, might establish a monstrous monopoly in railroads! However, there was always this consolation to wind up with,- that the canals would beat the railroads, and that, even if the latter were made, the public would not use them, nor trust either their persons or their goods to the risks of railway accidents and explosions. They would thus prove only monuments of the folly of their projectors, whom they must inevitably involve in ruin and disaster.

Sanitary objections were also urged in opposition to railways; and many wise doctors strongly inveighed against tunnels. Sir Anthony Carlisle insisted that "tunnels would expose healthy people to colds, catarrhs and consumption.” The noise, the darkness, and the dangers of tunnel travelling were depicted in all their horrors. Worst of all, however, was "the destruction of the atmospheric air," as Dr. Lardner termed it. Elaborate calculations were made by that gentleman to prove that the provision of ventilating shafts would be altogether insufficient to prevent the dangers arising from the combustion of coke, producing carbonic acid gas, which, in large quantities, was fatal to life. He showed, for instance, that in the proposed Box Tunnel, on the Great Western Railway, the passage of a load of 100 tons would deposit about 3090 lbs. of noxious gases, incapable of supporting life! Here was an uncomfortable prospect of suffocation for passengers between London and Bristol. But steps were adopted to allay these formidable sources of terror. Solemn documents, in the form of certificates, were got up and published, signed by several of the most distinguished physicians of the day, attesting the perfect wholesomeness of tunnels, and the purity of the air in them.* Perhaps they went further than was necessary, in alleging, what certainly subsequent experience has not verified, that the atmosphere of the tunnel was "dry, of an agreeable temperature, and free from smell." Mr. Stephenson declared his conviction that a tunnel twenty miles long could be worked safely, and without more danger to life than a railway in the open air; but at the same time, he admitted that tunnels were nuisances, which he endeavoured to avoid wherever practicable.

* See Report of Experiments made in the Primrose Hill Tunnel of the London and Birmingham Railway, signed by Drs. Paris and Watson, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Phillips, and Mr. O. Lucas; and Report on the Leeds and Selby Tunnel, signed by Drs. Davy, Rothman, and Williamson.

Meanwhile the extension of railways in various directions continued to be discussed; but the legislature took no directing part in the matter. Their vis inertia was indeed at length overcome; and by dint of repeated pressure from without, carried on at great cost, the railway system was gradually extended. Parliament could not disregard the urgent and repeated petitions of the commercial towns of the North for improved postal communication. But the legislature was dragged on; it did not by any means aspire to guide or direct. Whilst associations of private persons, mostly belonging to the trading classes, were endeavouring to force on the adoption of railways, the English Lords and Commons,—unlike the government of Belgium, which early adopted the railway system, -occupied themselves in discussing the improvement of the turnpike roads. The country gentlemen determined to mend and patch up the old highways as well as they could. Their motto was stare super antiquas vias. The macadamised system was becoming effete, but they did not know it. The surprising performances of the "Rocket" at Rainhill opened their eyes to the significance of the locomotive engine; but they could not yet rise above the idea of a macadamised road, and hence they hailed the proposal to apply the locomotive to turnpikes. In the year 1831 the House of Commons appointed a committee to inquire into, and report upon-not the railway system-but the applicability of the steam-carriage to travelling on common roads. Before this Committee, Mr. Trevithick, Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, Nathaniel Ogle, and others, were examined; and the committee were so satisfied with their evidence, that they reported decidedly in favour of the road-locomotive system. Though railways were ignored, yet the steam-carriage was recognised.

But there are limits to the wisdom even of a parliamentary committee. Although many trials of steam-carriages were

made by Sir Charles Dance, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Gurney, Sir James Anderson, and others, and though the House of Commons had reported in their favour, Mr. Stephenson's first verdict, pronounced upon them many years before-that they could never successfully compete with locomotive engines on railroads, nor even with horses on common roads—was fully borne out by the result; for the steam-carriage projects, after ruining many speculators and experimenters, were at length abandoned in favour of railways, which extended in all directions. Another attempt was, however, made in 1836, in favour of the common-road locomotive system; when a bill was passed through the House of Commons to repeal the acts imposing prohibitory tolls on steam-carriages. When the bill went into the Lords, it was referred to a committee, who took evidence on the subject at great length. Many witnesses were examined in support of steam-carriages, including Mr. Gurney, Mr Hancock, and others, who strongly testified to their economy and efficiency.

Their lordships then called before them Mr. Stephenson, whose experience as a locomotive engineer entitled him to be heard on such a subject. "The steam-carriages," he said, "will never do any good on a common road: I do not see the slightest possibility of it." The principal difficulty, in his opinion, was the friction between the wheel and the road, so great, that it was as much as the road-engine could do to drag its own weight. Then, from the inevitable inequalities in common roads, the machinery of the road-engine would be liable to constantly recurring accidents, which no springs yet invented would enable it to avoid. But even admitting that the road-engine could be made to go regularly, he was quite confident that it could not be made to go so as to pay, even though all the tolls were taken off. Besides these objections, there was the element of danger in the road-locomotive; for its boiler could not be constructed so