FBOGfiESS OF LOCOMOTION
 
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 THE 
 
 PHOGRESS OF LOCOMOTION; 
 
 TWO LECTUEES 
 
 %M\\m mah in SlrtMrial 3i^ff0niolt0ii m @rmt Britain' 
 
 -" Progress has been made ; the human race 
 
 Advances palpably in its career. 
 
 Old errors fail, and old truths seeming new. 
 
 Shine on the nations with a steadier hght. 
 
 And point the way from sloughs of ignorance 
 
 To tHe firm ground where they must stand at last." 
 
 Mackat's "Egeeia. 
 
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 BENJAMIN SCOTT, 
 
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 '^C'o 8yo 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 3Z 
 
 /»i The following Lectures, designed for working men, are 
 
 i/) little more than a compilation from works of acknow- 
 
 ^ ledged merit. The writer acknowledges the assistance he 
 
 has received from a very excellent little hook, " The Silent 
 
 Eevolution," by ^iichael Angelo G-arvey, LL.B.,* — a work 
 
 very suggestive upon many topics to those who lecture 
 
 to the working classes ; also from a lecture (privately 
 
 .•_ printed) by the Eev. Gr. Ashmead, of Grreat Missenden. 
 
 vTJse has also been made of a learned series of papers, by 
 
 "^F. AY. Fairholt, E.S.A., which appeared, in the year 1847, 
 
 "in the Art Union Journal. The Leisure Hour, a useful 
 
 -;5w^eekly periodical, Knight's '•' London," and the Cyclo- 
 
 Vpsedia of the Society for Diffusing Useful luiowledge, 
 
 hhave all been consulted and quoted with advantage. 
 
 The Lectures are longer than is desirable ; but it was 
 
 ^thought better to err in this respect than to omit matter 
 
 u.of interest. Lecturers using them as a help will do well 
 
 to prune them vrith a free hand. 
 
 * Cash, London, 1852. 
 
 no-^*^^«
 
 OlSr LOCOMOTION, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE WORKING MEN'S EDUCATIONAL UNION, 
 
 Eeferred to in the Zeclure thus [143] . 
 
 No. 
 
 143.— SAXoy CKA.-RiOTS,ca]lediv:heeI-beds. C. Copied from Oluminated Pen- 
 tateuch, Cottonian Manuscripts, executed by Elfricus, Abbot of Malms- 
 bury, tenth century. D. A similar carriage, copied by Stnitt, from 
 a Saxon illuminated Manuscript. 
 
 144. — Saxon Waggon and Ladx on Horseback. E. Copied from Manu- 
 script of the Abbot of Malmsbury ; is intended to represent Jacob 
 going into Egypt. F, Saxon lady on a side-saddle. 
 
 145. — Ladies EiDiNG. I. Ladies hunting on Horseback, astride ; from the 
 "Eoyal MSS." in the British Museum (15th century). 
 J. Lady on PiUion, from a drawing of the fifteenth century, in the Eoyal 
 Library at Paris. 
 
 146. — HoKSE LiTTEE, of the fourteenth century, from the Eoyal Manuscripts 
 in the British Museum ; represents removal of Queen Clotilde in her 
 last illness. 
 
 147.— State Litter ; represents entry of Queen Isabella of France into 
 Paris, in 1399 (from Froissart's Chronicles) . 
 
 148. — Tratelling Waggon of the fourteenth century ; from an illumiaated 
 Psalter executed in 1345. 
 
 149. — Pack-horses and Deitehs. 
 
 150. — Coaches. G. Queen Ehzabeth's State Coach; copied from an old 
 print of the Queen setting out from the " Nonsuch" Palace to a hunt- 
 ing entertainment. H. Queen Elizabeth and attendants in State 
 Coach. 
 
 151. — Coaches. A. Coach of 1616 ; from Yisscher's View of London, pub- 
 dished at Antwerp. JB. Coach of 1696, from print in British Museum. 
 
 152.— Carriages. Various. K. Carriage of reign of Queen Anne, from a 
 print of a public procession in 1713. L. Carriage of the middle classes, 
 1750. M. Sedan-chair of the aristocracy, 1750. N. Stage-coach of 
 same date. 
 
 153. — Modern Stage-coach. 
 
 154. — Eailwat Train. Night. 
 
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 PROGRESS OF LOCOMOTION. 
 
 f dure |. 
 
 Have you ever noticed tliat man, "the lord of creation," as 
 lie lias been termed, to whom the brute creation has been 
 subjected, is in many respects placed in a condition inferior to 
 them as it regards physical capabilities ? He cannot, unassisted 
 by science, mount into the air like the bird, or cleave the sea 
 with the denizens of the deep ; he is at birth the most ex- 
 posed, defenceless, and dependent of the creatures ; his body 
 is unprovided with protection from atmospheric inclemency, 
 and those formidable weapons of self-defence supplied iii 
 some form or other to the other orders of the animal world ; 
 and when arrived at maturity, his physical power is less than 
 that of most of the brutes ; the Hon, the elephant, and ox 
 would lord it over him, did strength of body alone constitute 
 power; and with regard to his senses, they are often less 
 perfectly developed than those of the inferior animals — for 
 example, the power of scent in the dog, or sight in the eagle 
 tribe ; and so as it respects power of Locomotion, man, in a 
 state of nature, is decidedly inferior to many of the irrational 
 creatures. "While the Creator has endowed so insignificant a 
 creature as the bee with the power of moving at the rate of 
 seventy miles in the hour, and many of the feathered and 
 finny tribes can change their place of abode and secure for 
 themselves variety of climate by the rapidity of their migra- 
 tion, man, unless aided by art, wastes much time and strength 
 in locomotion, and is much localized as regards his geogra- 
 phical position.
 
 TTitli all these disadvantages and restricted privileges, man 
 has implanted within him strong feelings of curiosity and 
 desire for research and discovery, and not only is this cha- 
 racter bestowed upon him, bat the injunction has been im- 
 posed upon him to subjugate the natural world to his use and 
 profit, and to bring it under legitimate control. 
 
 These positions, at first sight, seem anomalous and irrecon- 
 r-iliable, but they appear to me to furnish corroborative evi- 
 dence that " there is a spirit in man," something conferring 
 more power than mere physical strength or configuration, or 
 development of the senses; affording more than compensation 
 for any deficiency in these respects when compared with the 
 inferior creation. God has bestowed upon man a body com- 
 paratively feeble, exposed, and defenceless, but an intelligence 
 which has proved its superiority by the conquests it has 
 achieved, the disadvantages it has overcome. ]Man, thus en- 
 dowed, has become the most ubiquitous and locomotive of 
 terrestrial creatures ; he climbs the moimtain or descends into 
 its bowels, mounts into the air, traverses the earth's surface, 
 crosses the ocean, and erplores its depths ; in fact, is a living, 
 moving demonstration of the superiority of the intellectual and 
 spiritual over the merely physical and material world. 
 
 The progress which man has been enabled to make towards 
 
 extending his powers and facilities of locomotion, particularly 
 as regards our own country, and the results springing from 
 such extended powers of communication between man and 
 man, constitute the subject of these Lectures. 
 
 Progress in these respects has been doubtless gradual ; a 
 float of ice or a drifting log, suggested perhaps the first 
 idea of navigation, and a canoe hollowed out of the trunk of 
 a tree was probably the first step in ship-building. And so 
 with regard to locomotion on land ; a tribe or family wending 
 their way through forest or prairie, over mountain or along the 
 banks of rivers, in search of fresh pastures, desirous of main-
 
 taining intercourse witli those tliey may have left behind, or 
 of retracing their steps, if needful, would mark their " trail," 
 which being traversed again and again, would become the 
 first germ of a pathway through the wilderness. 
 
 Very early in the world's history man availed himself of the 
 superior locomotive powers of the inferior animals. The first 
 distinct mention of beasts of burden is in that most ancient of 
 books, Genesis,* where he-asses, she-asses, and camels are men- 
 tioned as forming part of the possessions of Abraham. The 
 monuments of Egypt and of Assyria also acquaint us that 
 horses, asses, and camels M^ere very early subjected to the loco- 
 motive uses of mankind. From the primitive trail or track in 
 the wilderness would naturally be developed the hridle-path, 
 when quadrupeds came into extensive use for purposes of 
 transport ; soon followed, doubtless, the use of simple chariots 
 or carriages on two wheels, as is evident from the mention of 
 Pharaoh's " chariots" and "waggons" in the time of Joseph, f 
 and the representation of these carriages on the monuments 
 of Egypt, the former drawn by horses and the latter by oxen. 
 How soon, at what date, and in what country the simple two- 
 wheeled cart or chariot was first improved upon, and became 
 the double vehicle with four wheels, it would now be difficult 
 to determine. Sledges were likewise used in ancient Egypt, 
 chiefly for transporting the dead, as appears from the repre- 
 sentations of funereal ceremonies upon the tombs of that 
 country. Another method of transport likewise existed in the 
 East from very early times, and is still extensively used there — 
 I refer to the palanqidn or litter, supported on horizontal 
 poles, and borne either by men or horses ; that it was in use 
 in the days of Solomon is evident from the reference to it in 
 the book of Canticles, where the bridegroom is represented 
 as travelling, surrounded by his guards, in his palanquin or 
 state litter, which is infelicitously rendered " bed " in our 
 English version.^ 
 
 To follow up the inquiry thus suggested, and to trace the 
 
 * Gen. xii, 16. f Gen. xli. 43 ; xlv. 19. % Solomon's Song iii. 6—8.
 
 progress of artificial locomotion tlirough all its clianges in 
 the TTorld, would be to undertake a task of no trifling magni- 
 tude, would require an acquaintance with the records of the 
 past which few possess, and open a field for speculation in- 
 conveniently extensive ; it is proposed therefore that we 
 confine ourselves to tracing in outline the progress made in 
 these respects in the British Islands, so far as the scanty re- 
 cords of the social condition of those islands enable us to find 
 our way. 
 
 And here allow me to remark that the page of past history 
 is so crowded with the acts of ambition, the triumphs of 
 brute force, and the sickening details of mutual slaughter, 
 that little room has been left to record aught of social con- 
 dition or progress. The dawnings of a more enlightened 
 literature are evident, wherein the doings of war, if they 
 must be still recorded, will be thrust with shame into the 
 background, while the triumphs of peaceful progress, of 
 scientific achievement, and of Christian improvement will be 
 brought more into view. 
 
 The early history of Britain is little more than fable, and 
 our knowledge of its social condition is almost conjectiu'al 
 until the visit of Julius Caesar, half a century before the 
 Christian era. The natives of these islands were at that 
 time little in advance of the savages of New Zealand, when 
 those islands were recently discovered. As it regards artifi- 
 cial locomotion, however, they had made some progress : the 
 Britons, particularly the southern tribes, met their enemies 
 mounted on horseback, and in carts or chariots, managed 
 with much dexterity, as the Eoman writers affirm, which carts, 
 like most of the war-chariots of ancient nations, being armed 
 with scythes, extending laterally from the naves of the wheels, 
 cut down and much disordered the ranks of the invaders. 
 The Britons, being equestrians as well as charioteers, 
 must have been furnished with roads of some sort, which 
 was undoubtedly the case, although the Eomans have
 
 generally been complimented as tlie first road-makers in 
 this country. 
 
 The lines of the British tracTcicays, as they were termed, 
 have been ascertained, although their more ancient names 
 are in some cases merged in those given to the more recent 
 Eoman roads. A Hst of these trackways, whose courses, 
 however, are involved in much doubt, may not be considered 
 uninteresting. 1. The Southern Watling Street extended 
 from Eichborough, near Sandwich, in Kent, by London, 
 Verulam (St. Albans), and Weedon, to Wellington and 
 Wroxeter, thence to Holyhead and Anglesea. 2. The 
 NortTiern Watling Street, entering from Scotland, at Chew 
 Green, extended, by Manchester and Chester, also to Holy- 
 head. 3. The Ickineld Street, from Yarmouth to the Land's 
 End, Cornwall, by Eoyston, Dunstable, Chinnor, Streatley, 
 Old Sarum, Exeter, and Totness. 4. Ryhineld Street, from 
 the Tyne, in Northumberland, to Boroughbridge, Birming- 
 ham, Gloucester, and Carmarthen. 5. The Ermyn Street, 
 fi'om Berwick to Pevensey, in Sussex, by Doncaster, Stam- 
 ford, and London. 6. The Ilceman Street, from the eastern 
 coast of St. Davids. 7. The Fosstoay, from Lincoln shji'e, by 
 Leicester, Cirencester, Bath, and Ilchester, to Seaton, ia 
 Devonshire, then a considerable port. 8. The Saltway, from 
 Lincolnshire to Droitwich. There were doubtless other British 
 roads, portions of which can be still traced in some cases, but 
 respecting which no satisfactory evidence now remains. 
 
 You must not fall into the error of supposing that these 
 roads in any degree resembled the present turnpike-roads. 
 The greater part of the country at that period, and indeed 
 for centuries after^'ards, must have been much in the state 
 in which imreclaimed land is now found in America. 
 
 " Eudely o'erspread with shadovry forests lay 
 Wide, trackless wastes, that never saw the day : 
 Rich frnitful plains, noxc waving with deep com, 
 Frown'd rough and shaggy fhen with tangled thorn : 
 Through joyless heaths and valleys dark with woods. 
 Majestic rivers roll'd their useless floods.
 
 10 
 
 Full oft the hunter check' d his ardent chase, 
 Dreading the latent bog and green morass ; 
 WhUe, like a blasting mildew, wide were spread 
 Blue thickening mists, in stagnant marshes bred." 
 
 Tlie primitive roads, then, of wMcli I speak, were merely 
 j; tracks cleared tlirougk primeval forests, carried across the 
 i| soundest parts of undi'ained bogs and fens, crossing the 
 I rivers where they were fordable, for bridges were almost 
 I imknown. 
 
 \y At the close of this period came the Eoman occupation of 
 the island and with it the introduction of Roman roads, in 
 constructing Avhich there is every reason to believe that the 
 lines of the British trackways were not materially deviated 
 from. The improvements introduced by the Eomans con- 
 sisted in carrying their roads, by the aid of masonry, over 
 streams and ravines, by elevated causeways across low 
 country, and in making their course more direct, continuing 
 them in straight lines across hills and even mountains, which 
 had been avoided by the more circuitous trackways ; these 
 roads were raised above the general level, bedded upon 
 blocks of stone or chalk cemented together, or upon small 
 stone or gravel mixed with lime, forming a sort of concrete. 
 
 Most of our leading highways follow, at this day, the 
 course of these Homan " streets" or roads, and it is interest- 
 ing to notice, in passing, that the chief deviations from their 
 course consist in a return to the more circuitous, but less 
 precipitous route originally adopted. The constructors of 
 railways, on the other hand, have in modern times introduced 
 again the more direct method of crossing the country, so 
 that we find in the last nineteen centuries the following 
 variations in practice : — 
 
 The ancient Britons, by a circuitous route, generally sought 
 to avoid the hills. 
 
 The E,omans crossed them in a direct line.* 
 
 * Interesting indications of the old and direct Eoman roads, together with 
 modem deviations, may be still traced; for instance, upon the coach-road 
 from London to Arundel and Bognor, in Sussex. This road in ancient times
 
 11 
 
 The modem road-makers again wound round the hills. 
 
 The railroad-makers cut and tunnelled through them. 
 
 Macaulay justly observes, " the Eoman civilization, like the 
 Eoman sway, was of short duration in this country, and the 
 slight impression it made was speedily effaced ;" this remark 
 cannot, however, be apphed to the Eoman road-making, which 
 has, in some respects, even to the present day, ministered to the 
 prosperity and progress of Britain. The benefits originally con- 
 ferred on the country by this step in civilization must have 
 been immense ; it has ever been noticed in history, that the 
 peace, and consequent progress, of any country has been diffi- 
 cult to secure so long as that country continued inaccessible 
 by reason of defective roads ; as an illustration of the truth of 
 this remark, it wiH be remembered that it was the wise policy 
 of the Government, after the rebellions in Scotland of 1715 and 
 1745, to follow up their suppression by the construction of 
 good roads, which roads proved more effectual peace-makers 
 than an army of occupation. Thus we may conclude that 
 the Eoman roads were mainly instrumental in bringing the 
 strife of the Saxon chieftains to an end, healing the distractions 
 of government under a heptarchy or an octarchy, uniting 
 ultimately the whole country under one king. From the laws 
 of Edward the Confessor, it is evident that the principal lines 
 and roads were' still those traced by the Komans ; the chief 
 highways continued to be Watling Street, the Fossicay, the 
 IcJcineld, and the Ermyn Street. This being the case six 
 
 formed part of the /Stone .?^/-ee/, -which connected Chicliester with London ; after 
 passing south of Dorking and Ocklev, to a point about twelve miles from the 
 former town, and before reaching Shnfold, the road enters upon an undisturbed 
 portion of the Eoman route, which continues for ten miles, until it reaches Pul- 
 borough ; this portion of road is so direct, that a perspective view of the whole 
 length is said to be obtainable from the centre of the road-way , At the com- 
 mencement and termination of this portion of road, the direction of the now- 
 disused Eoman road is distinctly traceable, also its course across the South Downs, 
 to a point in the present Chichester tumpike-road, about six mdles from that town. 
 At Bignor, a village at the north foot of the South Downs, in the Hue of this 
 road, the foundations of a very extensive Eoman villa, famished with baths, and 
 paved with beautiful tessellated work, was discovered early in the present century.
 
 12 
 
 centuries after tlie Eoman occupation, evidences tlie sub- 
 stantial nature of the works undertaken by tliat people.* 
 The Eomans never deemed a country thoroughly subdued 
 till they had penetrated it with roads, so as to furnish a 
 prompt communication between the most remote districts and 
 the capital. They were thus able, without loss of time, to 
 march their forces upon any point where their services were 
 required. 
 
 In the later Saxon times, however, it would seem that the 
 Eoman roads were suifered to fall into neglect and disuse, 
 whilst our ancestors took no trouble to construct others. The 
 best of their highways were very rough and miry, and often 
 impassable, from rains and floods. Many of them were mere 
 bridle-tracks or even footpaths, and this state of thing con- 
 tinued till nearly the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 Throughout this period, as in more ancient times, the surface of 
 the country resembled that of some half-peopled island in the 
 Southern Ocean ; it was overrun with timber, and great part of 
 it covered with swamps and heaths. The forests were gloomy 
 wildernesses, savage and impenetrable, where the fox and 
 wild cat harboured securely, and the untamed bull roamed, t 
 
 We now arrive at what is called the early English period. 
 A journey even of a few miles could not at this date be ac- 
 complished without the aid of guides, whose local knowledge 
 might enable the traveller to avoid the dangers of treacherous 
 morasses, and wind his way through intricate and tangled 
 woods. In the year 1285, during the reign of Edward I., an 
 
 * The solidity of their construction, indeed, was fully equal to the boldness of 
 their design ; a fact proved by the existence of many portions that have borne the 
 traffic of nearly two thousand years without material injury. The strength of their 
 pavements is illustrated by a fact related by a modern traveller, who states that 
 the substratvun of one stiU in use has been so completely washed away by water, 
 without disturbing the surface, that a man may creep under the road from side to 
 side, and yet carriages pass over the pavement as over a bridge. — Vide CyclopcBdia 
 of Society for Diffusing Useful Knoivledge, art. " Eoad." 
 
 t Silent Kevolutiou, pp. 28, 29.
 
 13 
 
 act ^vas passed " to clear the ground on the sides of all main 
 roads for the width of 400 feet," and this, it would appear? 
 was not so much for the improvement of the highway itself' 
 as that trarellers might not be suddenly surprised by Im-king 
 banditti.* With this exception, the only attention paid by 
 the legislature to the public ways amounted to an injunction 
 to the neighbouring proprietors not to plough them up and 
 enclose them as part of their own lands. In the reign of 
 Henry YIII., however, the country began to emerge from its 
 long-continued state of semi-barbarism, and the roads of par- 
 ticular districts were repaired by legislative enactment. The 
 first of these had reference to the weald of Kent, and was 
 passed in 1523.; the preamble states that it was required " in 
 consideration that many common ways in the said weald of 
 Kentf be so deep and noyous by wearing and course of 
 water and other occasions, that people cannot have their car- 
 riages or passages by horses upon the same, but to their great 
 pains, peril, and jeopardy." Seven years after this the roads 
 and bridges throughout England generally were in such a 
 state that an act was passed, making the county responsible 
 for the repair of the bridges, but leaving the roads to the 
 parishes ; as it was not, however, made binding upon any par- 
 ticular officer to call the parish together, and set the people 
 to work, the roads were left to take care of themselves pretty 
 much as before. Even the great thoroughfares to the metro- 
 polis were in winter little better than rivers of mud, diversi- 
 fied with deep break-neck gullies, whilst, in summer, they 
 
 • There are evident traces of the effect of this law in some parts of the country, 
 where, for manv miles together, the requisite space on each side of the road is still 
 common land ; this perhaps is most observable in the county of Hertford. 
 
 t The following extract is from a letter from Lord Chancellor Burleigh to the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury, dated August 1573 ; when Queen Elizabeth was at " Eridg, 
 my L. of Burgeni's houss.—The Q. Majty hath had a hard hegyning of a progress 
 in the Weld of Kent; and namely in some pt of Sussex, tcher suerly ar more 
 wondeross rocks and valleys, and much worss ground than is in the Peek." The 
 country so described is now the neighboui-hood of Tonbridge WeUs, near Erridge 
 House, the seat of the Earl of Abergavenny, where the roads are now in the 
 highest state of perfection.
 
 14 
 
 became hollow and rugged rayines, clioked witli mountains of 
 dust. In 1556, in the reign of Mary I., another general act 
 was passed for the mending of highways, and surveyors were 
 appointed, who were required yearly to set the common people 
 of each parish to work upon the roads, " for six days in 
 summer." This statute, we might suppose, would be more 
 effective than that of Henry, but the surveyors (as we are 
 told by Harrison, in his description of England, prefixed to 
 Holinshed's Chronicle) abused their office to their own pri- 
 vate ends, " eche surveior amending such bye plots and lanes 
 as seem best for his own commoditie and more easie pas- 
 sage unto his fields and pastures."* The authority of these 
 functionaries, too, was so vague and undefined, that the pa- 
 rishioners frequently evaded it altogether. In some places, 
 moreover, there was such want of stones *' as thereby the in- 
 habitants were driven to seeke them furre off in other soiles ;" 
 and Harrison observes, that " the owners of the lands wherein 
 these stones are to be had, and who, hitherto, have given 
 money to have them borne awaie, doe now reape no small 
 commoditie by raising the same to excessive prices, whereby 
 their neighbours are driven to grievous charges, which is 
 another cause wherefore the meaning of that good law is 
 verie much defrauded." The people generally, however, were 
 becoming sensible of their need of better, safer, and less 
 tedious means of communication. Six acts were passed in 
 the reign of Mary, and nineteen in that of Elizabeth, having 
 reference to the highways ; they were all founded on the 
 principle of enforcing parochial labour for their repair.f 
 
 Some of the local acts of the reign of Henry VIII. 
 amusingly illustrate the condition of the streets of London. J 
 In 1533 an act was passed for paving the highway between 
 St. Clement Danes in the Strand and Charing Cross, which 
 is described in the preamble as " very noyous and foul, and in 
 many places thereof very jeopardous to passengers, as well on 
 horseback as on foot, both in winter and summer, by night 
 
 * Silent KeYolution, pp. 29, 30. t Ibid., p. 35. X Ibid., p. 33.
 
 15 
 
 and by day." Tlie following year, another act was passed for 
 the repaving of Holborn, which is described as the great 
 thoroughfare from the west and north-west parts of the 
 kingdom. The complaint of the residents, quoted in the pre- 
 amble, states that " for lack of renewing of the said paving 
 by the landlords which dwell not within the city, the way is 
 so noyous and so full of sloughs and other incumbrances, that 
 oftentimes many of your subjects riding through the said 
 street and way be in jeopardy of hurt, and have almost 
 perished." In 1540, we find another act for the paving and 
 repair of the following thoroughfares : — " The highway leading 
 from Aldgate to Whitechapel Church, the causeway from the 
 bridge at Holborn Bars unto the end of Holborn westwards, 
 as far as any habitation or dwelling is on both sides of the 
 same street ; Chancery Lane, from the bars besides the Eolls, 
 late made and set up by the Lord Privy Seal, unto the said 
 highway in Holborn ; Gray's Inn Lane, from Holborn Bars 
 northward as far as any habitation is there ; Shoe Lane and 
 Fewter (Fetter) Lane, thoroughfares and passages from Fleet 
 Street into Holborn." The condition of all these places is 
 thus described : "very foul and fuU of pits and sloughs, very 
 perilous and noyous, as well for aU the king's subjects through 
 and by them repairing and passing, as well on horseback as 
 on foot, as also with carriage."* 
 
 By the time of Charles II. the great increase of population 
 and trade had rendered indispensable a more general and 
 effective system for the repair and maintenance of highways 
 than the old parochial plan, and turnpike trusts were accord- 
 ingly established, by which commissioners were appointed for 
 the construe don and management of roads, and those who 
 enjoyed the benefits of the improved mode of traveUing were 
 requii-ed to contribute to the expense by the payment of toUs 
 levied at toU-gates, called turnpikes. t From this event may 
 
 * Silent Eevolution, p. 34. 
 
 t The first turnpikes were established on the gi-eat north road in 1663, but 
 the system did not become universal for nearly another century.
 
 16 
 
 be dated the gradual improvement of all th.e main lines of 
 communication throughout the country. The measure, how- 
 ever, was long unpopular, and it was not, as Macaulay tells 
 us, " till the military had been called out, and much blood 
 had been shed, that the law was generally submitted to." 
 
 Between the j)assing of this act and the present time 
 26,000 miles of turnpike-road have been laid down throughout 
 G-reat Britain. For many years, however, the progress of 
 this great work was extremely slow. The bye-ways, and 
 many roads leading to and from towns, now places of wealth 
 and importance, were for a long period unimproved, and con- 
 tinued as before, full of ruts and sloughs, and in many districts 
 almost impassable. Some of them it was hardly possible, in 
 the dusk of evening, "to distinguish from the unenclosed 
 heath or fen, which lay on either side."* Often the mud lay 
 deep on both right and left, and only a narrow track of firm 
 ground rose above the quagmire. It happened almost daily 
 that coaches stuck fast until a team could be brought from 
 the nearest farm to extricate them from the slough. The 
 tales of travellers were most lugubrious. One was detained 
 four days at Stamford, from which place he only ventured in 
 consequence of being taken into the company of fourteen 
 members of the House of Commons, who were going to 
 London in a body, with a retinue of guides and attendants. 
 Pepys, the amusing author of the " Diary," and his wife lost 
 their Avay in travelling from Newbury to Eeading. In 
 December, 1703, Charles III., king of Spain, on a visit to this 
 country, slept at Petworth, in Sussex (the seat of the Duke 
 of Somerset), on his way from Portsmouth to Windsor, and 
 Prince George of Denmark (the husband of Queen Anne) 
 went there to meet him. " We set out," says one of the at- 
 tendants, " at six o'clock in the morning, and did not get out of 
 the coaches, save only when we were overturned or stuck fast 
 in the mire, till we arrived at our journey's end. 'Twas hard 
 service for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that 
 
 * Macaulay.
 
 day witliout eating anytliing, and passing through the worst 
 ways that I ever saw in my life. We were thrown but once, 
 indeed, in going, but both our coach (which was the leading 
 one) and his highness's body coach would hare suffered very 
 often if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised 
 it, or supported it with their shoulders, from Godalming almost 
 to Petworth; and the nearer we approached to the duke's 
 house, the more inaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine , 
 miles of the way cost us six hours' time to conquer."* In 1740. "^A 
 Pennant states that it took six days to travel from Chester to 
 London, and a team of six and sometimes eight horses to 
 draw the stage-coach through the sloughs. ]VIr. Arthur 
 Young, speaking of the Lancashire roads, tells us that the 
 only mending they received was the occasional throwing in 
 of large loose stones, which served no other purpose than to 
 jolt passengers in the most intolerable manner. Some of the 
 cross roads, or lanes, were of great length, embracing in their 
 route many villages and market towns. One of tliem, running 
 between lofty hedges, and under the shade of ancient trees. 
 may to this day be traced so far as from the midland town of 
 jVorthampton to the neighbourhood of the city of Gloucester 
 (a distance of at least eighty miles), and is still much used by 
 drovers for bringing their cattle to market, free of tolls, 
 which they would of course pay upon the turnpike-roads. 
 
 The perils of the roads, however, until a comparatively 
 recent period, were not merely those arising from mud and 
 mire. Highway robbery, prevalent from the earhest times, 
 continued to be of frequent occurrence till near the close of 
 the last century. Mounted marauders were to be encoun- 
 tered on aU. the leadiug roads, and travellers, whether on 
 horseback, in their own carriages, or by public conveyance, 
 unless they were numerous and weU armed, ran imminent 
 risk of being stopped and plundered. * The waste tracts lying 
 on the great routes near London were especially haunted by 
 
 * Art Union Journal, p. 24-5.
 
 18 
 
 tliese liigliwaymen ; and Hounslow and Bagsliot Heaths, 
 Fmcliley Common, Gad's Hill, Epping Forest, were no- 
 torious as tlie most frequent scenes of tlieir ruthless exploits. 
 The absence of an efficient system of police, and the badness 
 of the roads, made surprise easy and escape difficult. In 
 early times, the unsettled state of society, and the habit of 
 carrying large sums of money on the person (banks and 
 bankers being then unknown), tended to promote this evil, 
 which was, for many centuries, a truly formidable one to tra- 
 vellers. The thick forests were places of refuge for the plun- 
 derers, and indeed for outlaws and ruffians of every kind. 
 The nmuber of dangerous and disorderly persons who over- 
 spread the country in the Tudor period is astounding, and 
 almost incredible. Lawless and more desperate than the 
 Arabs or Tartars of the desert, they often united in bands, 
 and attacked whole towns and villages, setting the authorities 
 at defiance.. The law was too feeble to reach these evil-doers, 
 who, having declared war against society, sought and found 
 in woodland fastnesses a refuge from its justice, whilst the 
 makers of these laws sought to make amends for their weak- 
 ness by the cruelty of their enactments. This state of things 
 did not terminate till numerous roads and increased facilities 
 for travelling perfected the communication between all parts 
 of the country, and enabled the civil power to act with energy 
 and promptitude. So recently as 1737, the notorious high- 
 wayman, "Dick Turpin," with his accompHce King, occupied 
 a cave in Epping Forest, sufficiently large to contain them- 
 selves, their horses, provisions, arms, and booty. From this 
 they issued in open day, robbed passengers, and attacked the 
 residences of the neighbouring gentry. If little more than a 
 century ago such things were, what must have been the perils 
 of travellers in earlier times ?* 
 
 Let us now turn from the roads to the vehicles used upon 
 them. I have abeady shown you that the ancient Britons 
 
 * Silent Kevolution, p. 90.
 
 19 
 
 possessed chariots, but tliey -vrere for purposes of war only. 
 These chariots are described by Komau Tvi'iters of that day — 
 their number was immense. Cassibelaunus, the British 
 prince who so vigorously opposed the invasion of Britaui by 
 Julius Cffisar, after disbanding his army, still retained 4000, 
 and the use of them was universal amongst all the nations by 
 whom our island was then inhabited. We have, of course, 
 no pictures of these chariots. The first drawings we possess 
 of carriages used in Britain are those of chariots in Saxon 
 times. 
 
 The most common mode of travelling among our Saxon 
 forefathers was on horseback, but the chariot, of which there 
 were two sorts, was used by the sovereigns and nobility. So 
 early as the time of the Heptarchy (when England was divided 
 into seven kingdoms), we are told that one of the queens of 
 jS^orthumberland travelled from place to place in her chariot, 
 but the first MSS. containing sketches of these vehicles are 
 of a later date, after Egbert, king of the West Saxons, had 
 united the seven kingdoms into one. Here is a diagram 
 [143] representing the earliest of these carriages, sometimes 
 called a wheel-hed, from its resemblance to a hammock. It 
 consists, in fact, of a hammock suspended by two hooks fast- 
 ened to upright posts, one at the front, and the other at the 
 back of the carriage. Upon roads formed of blocks of stone, 
 in bad repair, such a carriage must have been almost indis- 
 pensable, until springs were invented. The drawings from 
 which this diagi'am is taken were executed in the tenth 
 century. Here is another drawing of the same date as the 
 former, and was originally intended by the artist (Elfricus, 
 Abbot of Malmesbury) to represent Jacob travelling into 
 Egj'pt to his son Joseph [144 e]. In form this waggon 
 resembled somewhat a farmer's cart. The preceding diagrams 
 are taken from illuminations to Saxon MSS., and are esaet 
 copies ; as works of art they will not stand the test of severe 
 criticism, otherwise the nature of the animals drawing 
 Joseph's waggon might be questioned, and inquiry suggested 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 as to what lias become of tlie nether part of the traveller's 
 body in the lower u-Jieel-hed. The Saxon ladies, when on 
 horseback, undoubtedly used side-saddles (although this has 
 been questioned) ; their riding-whip, however, was of a 
 different construction from the modern one, as you will see 
 from this diagi-am [144 f]. 
 
 In the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tudors, during what 
 are called the middle ages, the almost universal mode of riding 
 and travelling was on horseback. The nobility, the knights 
 and the squires of this age of chivalry, were all accomplished 
 horsemen; and the ladies, when jom-neying, either managed 
 their steeds themselves, single handed, or rode behind their 
 lords on pillions or otherwise. The way in which ladies in 
 the fifteenth century rode both on saddles and on piUions may 
 be seen in our next diagram [145] ; the pillion is copied from 
 a drawing of that period, in the Eoyal Library of Paris. It 
 was a softly-cushioned low-backed chair, with a hanging shelf 
 to support the feet, somewhat like the contrivances in which 
 young children now take their first lessons in donkey-riding.* 
 Mr. Knight tells us, that when Katharine of Arragon came 
 over in 1501 to marry Prince Arthur, a horse was provided 
 for her conveyance from the Tower to St. Paul's, upon which 
 she was " to ride with the pillion, behind a lord to be named 
 by the king."t Queen Elizabeth herself, on public occasions, 
 rode in this manner, behind the lord chancellor, through the 
 streets of London. Sometimes, however, on occasions of state 
 and ceremony, ladies of rank and wealth preferred the horse- 
 Utter, which was also employed to carry royal and noble in- 
 valids when too weak to mount the saddle. It was in such 
 a carriage that Edward I. was carried towards Scotland, 
 enfeebled by the illness which cost him his Hfe ; being some- 
 what recovered at CarHsle, he dedicated the litter in which 
 he had travelled to the cathedral there, but setting forward 
 on horseback, the journey overcame him, and he expired 
 before reaching Scotland. The horse-htter shown in this 
 
 » Silent Kevolution, p. 43. t Knight, vol. i. p. 24.
 
 21 
 
 diagram [146], is taken from a drawing of the fourteenth, 
 century, representing Clotilde, Queen of France, travelling, 
 in her last illness, to the city of Tours, where she died. 
 The litter was furnished with a bed and cushions, with 
 curtains, as a protection from the weather, and was, as 
 you see, borne by two horses, one before and one behind.* 
 It must have been an uneasy, jolty vehicle, suitable 
 only for level roads (of which there was then a plentiful 
 lack), and short journeys ; it could not be used for travelling 
 the more difficult and rugged paths, without imminent risk to 
 the necks of its occupants. t " When Margaret, daughter of 
 Henry YII„ set out for Scotland, sbe rode on a fair palfrey, 
 but after her was conveyed by two footmen a very rich Htter, 
 borne by two fair coursers very nobly drest, in the which 
 litter the said queen was borne, on the entering of the good 
 towns, or otherwise, to her good pleasure." Hall, the 
 chronicler, thus describes the conveyance of poor Anne 
 Boleyn to her coronation : — " Then came the queen in a htter 
 of white cloth of gold, not covered nor bailed, which was led 
 by two palfreys, clad in white damask down to the ground, 
 head and all, led by her footmen. So she, with all her com- 
 pany and the mayor, rode forth to Temple Bar, which was 
 newly painted and repaired, where stood also divers singing 
 men and children, till she came to TTestminster Hall, which 
 was richly hanged with cloth of arras, and new glazed ; and 
 in the midst of the hall she was taken out of her litter." 
 This vehicle continued to be used on state occasions, to the 
 time of Charles I. ; but after that period, was employed 
 almost exclusively by sick and infirm people of property and 
 rank. The last mention we have of it is in an attack upon 
 the repubHcans, wTitten in the time of Charles II., which 
 refers to an accident that befel Major-Greneral Skippon, 
 "who, coming in a horse-htter to London, when wounded, as 
 he passed by the brewhouse near St. John Street, a fierce 
 mastiff flew at one of the horses, and held him so fast that 
 
 * Art Union Joiirnal. p. 118. t Silent ReTolution, p. 44.
 
 the liorse grew mad as a mad dog, the soldiers were so 
 amazed that none had the vrit to shoot the mastiff ; but the 
 horse-Utter, borne between the two horses, tossed the major- 
 general like a dog in a blanket."* 
 
 The ordinary state litter is seen in our next diagram [147], 
 taken from an illumination in " Froissart's Chronicles," repre- 
 senting the entry of Queen Isabella of France into Paris, in 
 June, 1399. Froissart says : " The litter of the queen was led 
 by the dukes of Touraine and Bourbon at the head ; the 
 dukes of Berry and Burgundy were at the centre ; and the 
 Lord Peter de Navarre and the Count de Ostrevant behind 
 the htter, which was open and beautifully ornamented ; pages 
 rode on the horses, whose trappings were emblazoned with the 
 queen's arms."t " In London," says Mr. Knight, speaking 
 of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, " no sound of wheels 
 was heard but that of the cart labouring through the rutty 
 ways, with its load of fire-wood or beer, or perhaps the 
 king's pots and pans traveUing from Westminster to Green- 
 wich." 
 
 Those who were called by business or pleasure to travel 
 long distances in London, which could not be reached by 
 water- conveyance, rode on horses. All the records of early 
 pageantrj^ tell us of the magnificence of horsemen. Froissart 
 saw the coronation of Henr}^ IV., and thus describes the pro- 
 gress of the triumphant Bolingbroke through the city : — "And 
 after dinner the duke departed from the Tower to "West- 
 minster, and rode all the way bareheaded ; and about his 
 neck the hvery of France. He was accompanied with the 
 prince his son, and six dukes, six earls, and eighteen barons ; 
 and in all, knights and squires, nine hundred horse. Then 
 the king had on a short coat of cloth of gold, and he was 
 mounted on a white courser, and the garter on his left leg. 
 Thus the duke rode through London with a great number of 
 lords, every lord's servant in his master's livery, all the bur- 
 gesses and Lombard merchants in London, and every craft 
 
 * Knight's London, roL i. pp. 2i, 25. t Art Union Journal, p. 120,
 
 f 
 
 vritli tbeir livery and device. Thus he was conveyed to 
 Westminster. He was in number six thousand horsed* 
 
 " By the ancient order of crowning the kings and queens of 
 England, it is prescribed that the day before the coronation, 
 the king should come from the Tower of London to his 
 Palace at Westminster, through the midst of the city, 
 mounted on a horse, handsomely habited, and bareheaded, 
 in the sight of all the people. The citizens were familiar with 
 these splendid equestrian processions from the earliest times to 
 the era of coaches ; and they hung their wooden bouses with 
 gay tapestry, and their wives and daughters sate, in their most 
 cosily dresses, in the balconies, whilst shouts of rejoicing 
 rent the air."! 
 
 In the fourteenth century, travelling waggons were some- 
 times used by persons of high rank ; this diagram exhibits 
 one of these conveyances [148]. It is drawn by five 
 horses, with harness of rope of a primitive fasliion. The vehicle 
 contains coronetted dames, one of whom, seated in front, bas 
 a squirrel placed upon her shoulder, another behind receives 
 a pet dog, apparently from a mounted horseman. A frame- 
 work supports a tilt or awning, richly embroidered, a por- 
 tion of which forms a moveable curtain to the side windows. 
 We may notice, too, the panels on the sides, the sculptured 
 heads at the ends of the beams which compose the frame- 
 work, and the iron-bound chest underneath, faithfully 
 guarded by the old English talbot, who trots beside it ; the 
 peculiar perspective of the period, showing both ends of the 
 waggon at one view, has been faithfully retained by the artist. 
 These carriages were well supplied, as they had need to be, 
 with cushions and couches, being without springs. 
 
 Tbe other wheeled vehicles in occasional use before the 
 time of coaches were called by various names, as chares, 
 cars, caroches, or whirlicotes, probably from some slight dif- 
 ference in tbeir construction. Stow tells us that, in 1380, at 
 
 * Froissart's Chronicles. t Knight's London, vol. i. p. 23.
 
 24 
 
 the time of Wat Tyler's rebellion, the king, being threatened 
 by the rebels, "rode from the Tower to Mile End, and with 
 him his mother, because she was sick and weak, in a tvhirli- 
 cote of old times." In the reign of Henry VI., the king, 
 writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other high 
 functionaries, instructs them to provide for the use of the 
 Queen-mother, Joan of JSTavarre, "two horses for two chares," 
 and to " let her remove thence into whatever place within our 
 realm that she list."* These chares or chariots were some- 
 times in request at coronations, though but rarely on other 
 occasions, even by the nobility. 
 
 In the olden time, when shops were scarcely known, and 
 the stalls which stood on either side of Cheap (Cheapside) 
 resembled the booths at a modern fair, the majority of 
 London retail tradesmen were itinerants, who paced the 
 streets with baskets on their heads and arms, while provi- 
 sions for the markets were mostly conveyed in boats along 
 the highway of the Thames. It seems, however, that the 
 two-wheeled cart was used in the streets of London, from 
 a very early period, for the conveyance both of merchan- 
 dize and household stuff. For when royalty or nobiHty (as 
 Mr. Fairholt describes) " moved from place to place at this 
 period, the army of attendants, and the quantity of carriages 
 used for conveying household furniture and other things, 
 rivalled the appearance of an Eastern caravan ;"t and Har- 
 rison tells us that, " our princes and the nobility have their 
 carriage commonly made by carts, whereby it cometh to 
 passe, that when the Queen's majesty doth remove from 
 place to ijlace, there are usually 400 care-wares, which 
 amount to the sum of 2400 horses, appointed out of the coun- 
 tries adjoining, whereby her carrriage is conveyed safely unto 
 the appointed place." Henry fifth Earl of Northumberland, 
 when on a journey, appears, from his household book, to have 
 been accompanied by no less than seventeen carriages, filled 
 with every needful article of household furniture, it being 
 
 * Art Union Journal, pp. 119, 120. t Ibid., p. 158.
 
 usual tlien to carry from place to place thinojs tliat are 
 now always kept as part of the necessary furniture of 
 every chyelling. In tkose times, however, the town 
 house was unfurnished to make the country one habit- 
 able, and vice versa. ]S'ot only beds and tables, but 
 pots, pans, and kitchen utensils were packed up, and 
 brought at the fag-end of the procession, with the scullions 
 and turnspits. 
 
 The four-wheeled waggon was an improvement on the 
 two-wheeled carts ; that in use by persons of distinction we 
 have already seen.* But the transmission of goods and pro- 
 duce from one part of the country to another was effected by 
 pacJchorses [149]. The author of the "Silent Eevolution" 
 thus describes them :t — " They were strong, hardy animals, 
 capable of enduring much fatigue and privation, and were 
 furnished each with two panniers, one of which hung at each 
 side, so as to balance each other, from hooks fixed in. a 
 saddle that rested on the animal's back ; a strong bent pole 
 was sometimes passed under the horse's belly, and its ends 
 fixed in the bottoms of the panniers, to keep them from 
 pressing on the animal's sides. The panniers were then 
 laden with the articles to be conveyed, and the horse thus 
 equipped, and adorned with a bow and bells, set out with 
 many others on his journey. They were united in strings, 
 the halter of each being tied to the crupper of the preceding 
 one, till the line terminated in the leader, which was, if 
 possible, a stout, sagacious, old roadster, that knew the route 
 by experience, and would not lead his followers astray into 
 
 * A privy, seal of Queen Mary describes just such a waggon : — " One wagon of 
 tymbre work for ladies and gentle women of our prevye cbamber, ^vith wheels 
 and axletrees, strakes, nayles, clowtes, and all manner of work thertoo apper- 
 tayninge, fine redde cloths to kevre and line the same wagon, fringed with redde 
 sylke, and lyned with redde buckerum, paynted with redde colours; coUers, 
 drawghts of red lether, hamer clothes with our armes and badges of our 
 coulours, and all other things appertayninge unto the same wagon." 
 
 t Silent Eevolution, pp. 4S), 41.
 
 26 
 
 dangerous places ; these strings consisted of a dozen, t-vrenty, 
 fifty, and sometimes even a greater number of horses ; when 
 very large, it was accompanied by several carij^ers, well 
 armed, who rode beside the convoy on strong hacks. These 
 carriers, in their habits and the duties they had to discharge, 
 much resembled the Spanish muleteers, and, like them, were 
 frequently intrusted with charges of great value. The 
 cavalcade thus arranged proceeded at the rate of about two 
 miles and a half per hour, mnding its way, to the music of 
 its innumerable bells, through pathless moors, tangled woods, 
 and dangerous swamps, or chmbuig the rugged hill-sides at 
 a still slower pace. They rested at night in well-known 
 hostelries, and seldom accomplished more than from fifteen 
 to twenty miles a day. They were frequently attacked and 
 robbed by bands of armed plunderers, and, as a consequence 
 of this, when a merchant in a remote district had goods of 
 great value to transmit to a distance, he was often obliged 
 to wait for weeks, and even months, until a caravan 
 could be formed sufficiently numerous and well armed to 
 bid defiance to the marauders, and do battle in case of an 
 attack." Kearly all the internal traffic of the nation was 
 carried on by packhorses, even for a long time after atten- 
 tion had been given to the improvement of the roads- 
 It was not till about the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century that the stacje-vxujgon took the place of these loaded 
 annuals. 
 
 We come now to coaches. In the year 1564, Wilham 
 Boonen, a Dutchman (as Stow tells us), became Queen 
 Elizabeth's coachman, and was the first that brought the use 
 of coaches into England. "After a while, divers great 
 ladies, with as great jealousy of the queen's displeasure, 
 made them coaches, and rid in them up and down the 
 country, to the great admiration of all the beholders ; but 
 then, by little and little, they grew usuall among the nobilitie 
 and others of sort, and T^dthin twenty years became a great
 
 27 
 
 trade of coach-making."* The first nobleman ^ho set up his 
 coach vras the Earl of Arundel, and the first made in this 
 country was by one Walter Eippon, for the Earl of Eutland. 
 These first coaches were huge, unwieldy structures of timber 
 and iron (without glass windows), and resting on the axle 
 without the intervention of springs, or any other contrivance 
 to break the force of the tremendous bumps and shocks 
 which the passengers had continually to encounter. Here 
 is a diagram [150 g] representing Queen EHzabeth in her 
 coach at a hunting, got up for her amusement, and is taken 
 from an old print of the time, which is curious, as the first 
 engraved representation of an English coach that we possess. 
 " It reminds us, with its canopy and feathers, more of the 
 triumphal chariots used in stage plays, than of a sober aid 
 to locomotion. The body is low and heavy, and there is a 
 clumsiness about the whole afiair that we shall find common 
 to all coaches until a comparatively modern period. The 
 coachman (perhaps William Boonen himself) sits with 
 Dutch solemnity in front, driving, or rather walking his 
 horses by measured stately steps, the whole looking about as 
 active as a modern hearse."* Another diagram represents a 
 coach containing the queen's attendants [150 h]. The sides 
 of this coach are perfectly open, but it is less fancifol in form ; 
 the back and front are closed, and the vehicle covered by an 
 oblong canopy, at each corner of which balls, surmounted by 
 spikes, are placed as ornaments. A similar decoration is 
 
 * Simultaneously with the introduction of coaches, i. e., about the year 1568, 
 came post-horses into use, relays of which, for the accommodation of travellers, 
 began to be kept on the principal roads. They appear to have been first esta- 
 blished at Xorwich. ^o one was allowed to have them except by warrant 
 from the Queen, the Duke of Norfolk, the Privy Council, or the Lord Mayor. 
 The charge was twopence each mile, and sixpence for the guide. It was the 
 suppression of monasteries which led directly to this change. The removal of 
 those houses, used formerly for the accommodation of travellers, led to the 
 establishment of inns upon the public roads ; this, again, led to the establish- 
 ment of the post-horse system. 
 
 * Art Union Journal, p. 158.
 
 28 
 
 seen on the summit of the raised centre. In the middle of 
 each side you will notice a projection, capable of holding one 
 person, this was called the boot, and was generally a very 
 inconvenient, uncomfortable seat. The driver of this 
 carriage, unlike the queen's coachman, sits on one of the 
 horses. This coach, though with less pretension, certainly 
 has a more commodious and social look than the former. 
 Clumsy as these coaches seem to us, they were long con- 
 sidered a royal and aristocratic luxury, and when their use by 
 the wealthy citizens became general, it was regarded as 
 dreadfully effeminate. The wits of the day directed their 
 ridicule against the coaches ; the London watermen, whose 
 trade they injured, denounced them ; the carmen ran foul of 
 them ; the mob hooted them ; and in 1601, a bill was brought 
 before Parliament *' to restrain the excessive use of coaches 
 within this realm of JEngland." It was alleged that they 
 endangered life in the streets, that they encouraged idleness 
 and luxury, impoverished the poor, and injured trade. The 
 bill, however, was rejected, and coaches multiplied, notwith- 
 standing all the efforts of their foes. Of these, one of the 
 most notable was John Taylor, a Thames waterman, who 
 could wield the goose feather with no less dexterity than he 
 could " feather" an oar, dabbled in verse and prose as well as 
 in the Thames, and was knoAvn as the " Water Poet." In a 
 poem called the" Thief," published in the reign of James I., 
 he tells us that — 
 
 "When Queen Elizabeth came to the crown, 
 A coach in England then was scarcely known." 
 
 Adding, that it is not becoming that — 
 
 " Fulsome madams, and new scurvy squires 
 Should jolt the streets in pomp, at their desires, 
 Like great triumphant Tamlnirlaines, each day. 
 Drawn with the pampered jades of Belgia. 
 That abnost all the streets are choked outright. 
 Where men can hardly pass from morn till night, 
 WliiUt watermen tvant work." 
 
 The Thames waterman had, indeed, been an important and
 
 29 
 
 distingiiislied class in society. Tlie river liad liitlierto been 
 tlie great thorouglifare of London ; its broad and cheerful 
 aspect contrasted favourably with the gloomy narrow streets, 
 and barges, boats, and wherries were in constant requisition 
 for kings, nobles, and subjects of every degree. Those who 
 kept no horses had no mode of conveyance but by boat, and 
 those who did keep them were wont to prefer the smooth 
 flowing river to the rutty miry lanes. Between Westminster 
 and the Tower, "the north bank of the Thames was studded 
 vrith. the palaces of the nobles ; and each palace had its 
 landing-place, and its private retinue of barges and wherries. 
 JS'othing could then have been more picturesque than the 
 Strand, with its broad gardens, lofty trees, and embattled 
 turrets and pinnacles. In the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, the river was at the height of its glory, as the great 
 thoroughfare of London. Howel maintains that the ' Thames 
 hath not her fellow, if regard be had to those forests of 
 masts which are perpetually upon her, the variety of smaller 
 wooden bottoms plying up and down, the stately palaces 
 that are built upon both sides of her banks so thick, which 
 made divers foreign ambassadors aifirm, that the most glorious 
 sight in the world, take water and land together, was to come 
 upon a high tide from Gravesend, and shoot the bridge to 
 Westminster.' Of the smaller wooden bottoms, Stow com- 
 putes that there were in his time as many as two thousand ; 
 and he states that there were forti/ thousand watermen upon 
 the rolls of the Company, and that they could furnish twenty 
 tliousand men for the fleet. In this large number were 
 doubtless included the private watermen of the court and the 
 nobility, — still, the number of the public "R-atermen must 
 have been surprisingly great. " * But, with the introduction of 
 the coach, their glory began to wane, and their wrath Avas, 
 not unnaturally, roused against the innovation. In 1623, 
 John Taylor returned with renewed vigour to his attack on 
 coaches, in a prose tract, entitled, " The World runs on 
 
 * Knight, vol i. p. 8.
 
 30 
 
 Wheels, or Odds betwixt Carts and Coaclies," dedicated ironi- 
 cally, " To the Sacred Society of Hackney -men " (hackney- 
 coaches having just been set up) ; in this preface, he says, 
 "I think, never such an impudent, proud, saucy intruder 
 came into the world as a coach is, for it hath driven many 
 honest families to all misdeeds, hospitality to extortion, plenty 
 to famine, humility to pride, compassion to oppression, and 
 all earthly goodness almost to utter confusion." 
 
 The following is a specimen of his argument : — " As man 
 is the most noblest of all creatures, and all four-footed beasts 
 are ordained for his use and service, so a cart is the emblem 
 of a man, and a coach is the figure of a beast. For as man 
 hath two legs, a cart hath two wheels ; the coach being, in 
 the like sense, the true resemblance of a beast, by which is 
 parabolically demonstrated unto us that as much as men are 
 superior to beasts, so much are honest and needful carts more 
 nobly to be regarded and esteemed above needless and time- 
 troubling coaches."* " I pray you," he adds, " look into the 
 streets, and the chambers or lodgings in Fleet-street or the 
 Strand, how they are pestered with them, especially after 
 a mask or a play at the court, where even the very earth 
 quakes and trembles, the casements shatter, tatter, and 
 clatter, and such a confused noise is made, that a man can 
 neither sleep, speak, hear, write, or cut his dinner or supper 
 quiet for them. Butchers cannot pass with their cattle 
 for them ; market-folks which bring provisions are stopped, 
 stayed, and hindered ; carts or wains, with their necessary 
 wares, are debarred and letted ; the milkmaid's ware is often 
 spilt in the dirt ; " and then he describes how the x^roud 
 mistresses, riding in these odious conveyances, grin at and 
 deride the people, " crowded and shrouded up against stalls 
 and shops. "t No doubt these coaches were as great a calamity 
 to John Taylor and his brethren of the oar as, in our times, 
 the introduction of railroads has proved to coach-proprietors, 
 postmasters, and postillions. All social improvements iuHict 
 
 * Art Uuion Journal, p. 159. t Knight, vol. i. pp. 12, 26.
 
 31 
 
 temporary suffering on some particular class, in tliis imperfect 
 state it must be so, and this diminislies somewhat of the 
 pleasure with which we should otherwise regard these 
 changes ; but then the evil is but temporary, while the good 
 remains, and " when we look back upon the past, we learn 
 to estimate the evil and the good upon broad principles. 
 Fifty years hence, a London without railroads, that inns and 
 stages might be maintained, would appear as ludicrous a 
 notion as a London without carriages, that John Taylor 
 might row his wherry in prosperity, gladdened by the smiles 
 of ladies, who, living near the Thames, were wont to take a 
 boat and air themselves upon the water ; and having no 
 ground to complain that ' every Gill Turntripe, Mistress 
 Fumkins, ^ladam Polecat, and my Lady Trash, Froth the 
 Tapster, Bill the Tailor, Lavender the Broker, Whiff the 
 Tobacco-seller, with their companion trugs, must be coached 
 to St. Albans, Burntwood, Hockley-in-the-Hole, Croydon, 
 Windsor, L^xbridge, and many other places.' " Mr. Knight 
 observes that, " as in the diffusion of every other convenience 
 or luxury introduced by the rich, the distinction of riding in 
 a coach soon ceased to be a distinction. The proud Duke of 
 Buckingham, seeing that coaches with two horses were used 
 by all, and that the nobihty had only the exclusive honour of 
 four horses, set up a coach with six, and then the stout Earl 
 of ^Northumberland estabhshed one with eight horses." * 
 
 This diagram [151 a] represents the coach of 1616 (in the 
 reign of James I.), and another, [151 b], approximating in 
 many respects to the more modern style, represents a carriage 
 of 1696, in the reign of Wilham III. 
 
 The perplexity of coach-travelling in the country in these 
 days was truly ludicrous. If two carriages met on the high- 
 road, neither, without great difficulty, could turn aside to let 
 the other pass. The moveable axle was unknown, and, where 
 the road was naiTow, one coach was obliged to back to a 
 wider portion of the way, where there was room enough to 
 
 * Knight, vol. i. pp. 13, 26.
 
 32 
 
 let the other go by without tumbling into the ditch by the 
 wayside. To meet these contingencies, the owners were 
 obliged to retain a number of running footmen, — six, eight, 
 and sometimes twelve attending the coach in its progress. 
 Their duty was to run before and see that all was clear, 
 warn off carts and horses, and explore all suspicious windings 
 and narrow passes with rigid scrutiny. Each footman carried 
 a stout pole, armed with an iron pike, by the help of which 
 he cleared guQeys, sloughs, and rivulets, raised the wheels 
 out of the deep ruts and hollows into which they continually 
 sank, propped up the coach when it was in danger of over- 
 setting, and when it was fairly capsized, righted it again, and 
 assisted his masters or mistresses to recover themselves out of 
 the mire. The gold-headed staves in the hands of our 
 modern fashionable footmen are derived, doubtless, from the 
 pole carried by these running footmen.* 
 
 A good idea may be formed of the condition of travelling 
 about one hundred years since, from the following amusing 
 dialogue, respecting the journey to London of a genteel family 
 in their private carriage : — 
 
 " Manly. Honest John ! 
 
 Moody. Measter Manly ! I am glad I ha' sun ye.— Well, and 
 how d'ye do, measter ? 
 
 Manly. I am glad to see you in London ; I hope all the good 
 family are well. 
 
 Moody. Thanks be praised, your honour, they are all in pretty 
 good heart ; thof ' we have had a power of crosses upo' the road. 
 
 Manly. AMiat has been the matter, John ? 
 
 Moody. "Why wc came up in such a hm-ry, you mun think, that 
 om' tackle was not so tight as it should be. 
 
 Manly. Come tell us all — pray, how do they travel? 
 
 Moody. AVhy, i' the awld coach, measter ; and 'cause my Lady 
 loves to do things handsome, to be sure, she would have a couple of 
 cart-horses clapt to the four old uns, that neighbours might see that 
 
 * Silent Uevolution, pp. 46, 47.
 
 33 
 
 she went up to London in her coach and six ; and so Giles Joulter, 
 the ploughman, rides postillion. 
 
 Manly, And when do jou expect them here, John ? 
 
 Moody. Why, we were in hopes to ha' come yesterday, an' it 
 had no' been that th' awld weazle-belly horse tired : and then we 
 were so cruelly loaden, that the two fore-wheels came down at once, 
 in Waggon-rut-lane, and there we lost four hours 'fore we could set 
 things to rights again. 
 
 Manly. So they bring all their baggage with the coach, then ? 
 
 Moody. Ay, ay, and good store on't there is. Why, my lady's 
 gear alone were as much as filled four pormantel trunks, besides 
 the great deal box that Ealph and the monkey sit upon behind. 
 
 Manly. Ha, ha, ha!— And, pray, how many are they within the 
 coach ? 
 
 Moody. Why ther's my lady and his worship, and the younk' 
 equoire, and Miss Jenny, and the fat lap-dog and my lady's maid 
 Mrs. Handy, and Doll Tripe the cook, that's all — only Doll puked 
 a little with riding backwards ; so they hoisted her into the coach- 
 box, and then her stomach was easy. 
 
 Manly. Ha, ha, ha ! 
 
 Moody. Then you mun think, measter, there was some stowage 
 for the belly, as well as th' back too ; children are apt to be 
 famish' d upo' the road ; so we had such cargoes of plum cake, and 
 baskets of tongues and biscuits, and cheese, and cold boil'd beef — 
 and then, in case of sickness, bottles of cherry-brandy, plague- 
 water, sack, tent, and strong beer so plenty, as made th' awld 
 coach crack again. Mercy upon them ! and send them all well to 
 town, I say. 
 
 Manly. Ay, and well out on't again, John. 
 
 Moody. Measter ! you're a wise mon ! and for that matter, so 
 am I — Whoam's whoam, I say : I am sure we ha' got but little good 
 e'er sin' we turned our backs on't. Nothing but mischief! some 
 devil's trick or other plagued us aw th' day lung. Crack, goes one 
 tiling ! bawnce goes another ! Woa ! says Eoger — Then, sowse ! we 
 are all set fast in a slough. Whaw ! cries Miss : Scream ! go the 
 maids ; and bawl just as thof they were stuck. And so, mercy on 
 us ! this was the trade from morning to night. 
 
 Manly. Ha, ha, ha ! 
 
 C
 
 34 
 
 Moody. But I mun liie me wlioam ; the coach will be coining 
 every hour now. 
 
 Manly. Well, honest John — 
 
 Moody. Dear Measter Manly ! the goodness of goodness bless 
 and preserve you." 
 
 The nobleman's carriage was in due season followed by the 
 huchney-coach, which, was first seen in London about 1623 or 
 1625, and the first hackney-coach stand was established in 
 1634, by one Captain Baily, an old sea-officer, at the " May- 
 pole," in the Strand. A letter of that time thus describes his 
 proceedings : — " I cannot," says the writer, addressing the 
 Earl of Stafford, " omit to mention any new thing that comes 
 up amongst us; here is one Captain Baily, he has been a 
 sea-captain, but now lives on the land about this city, 
 w^here he tries experiments. He hath erected, according to 
 his abilit}^, some four hackney-coaches, put his men in livery, 
 and appointed them to stand at the Maypole, in the Strand, 
 giving them instructions at what rates to carry men into 
 several parts of the town, where all day they may be had. 
 Other hackney-men seeing this way, they flocked to the same 
 place, and performed their journeys at the same rate. So 
 that sometimes there is twenty of them together, which dis- 
 perse up and down, that they and others are to be bad every- 
 where, as watermen are to be had at the water-side. Every- 
 body is much pleased with it. For whereas before coaches 
 could not be had but at gi-eat rates, now a man may have one 
 much cheaper."* The following year it was represented to 
 the king (Charles I.) by one Sir Sanders Duncombe, a 
 traveller, that " in many parts beyond seas people are much 
 carried in chairs that are covered, whereby few coaches are 
 used among them," and prayed for a patent to introduce such 
 vehicles into this country, to be let out for hire. Duncombe 
 was patronised by the king's favourite, the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, and thi'ough his influence obtained the patent he re- 
 
 * Eaiglit, vol. i. p. 27.
 
 35 
 
 quested for fourteen years. Thus the hackney-coaeli '^vas 
 rivalled by the sedan chair, the patent expressly declaring 
 " that the lives and limbs of his ^Majesty's subjects being 
 greatly endangered by the multitude of coaches in London 
 and Westminster, these conveyances would be a proper sub- 
 stitute."* It would seem that both the coui't and the nobility 
 looked upon the hackney-coaches with feelings of dislike, and 
 were rather anxious to supplant them by this new mode of 
 conveyance. Sedans had been first seen in England some 
 years before; for when Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.) 
 returned from his notable journey to Madrid, to woo the 
 Infanta of Spain, he brought with him from that country 
 three, of curious workmanship. Two of tliese he presented 
 to Buckingham, who thereupon moved about the streets 
 borne on men's shoulders, to the great indignation of the 
 people, who, with great clamour, would rail on him as he rode, 
 " loathing that men should be brought to as servile a condi. 
 tion as horses. "f The sedans introduced by Sir Sanders 
 Dnncombe, however, were borne not upon the shoulders, 
 but in the hand. These vehicles, like the first coaches, were 
 viewed on their introduction with much disgust by the popu- 
 lace, and, though favoured by the aristocracy, had to encounter 
 the hostility of the hackney-coach interest. In 1636 was 
 pubhshed a tract, entitled " Coach and ISedan pleasantly 
 disputing for place and precedence, the Breiver's Cart heing 
 Moderator." But, notwithstanding all opposition and mutual 
 rivalry, both these vehicles held joint possession of the streets 
 for more than one hundred and fi.fty years. The wretched state 
 of the pavement till the middle of the last century rendered 
 carriage conveyance very disagreeable and unsafe, and the 
 higher classes generally preferred the sedan. " In 1635 the 
 king published a proclamation, in which he declares that the 
 great nimiber of hackney-coaches, and their general use in 
 London and Westminster, were not only a great distm'bance 
 
 * Art Union Journal, p. 159. t Knight, vol. i. p. 2S.
 
 36 
 
 to his majesty, his dearest consort the queen, the nobility, 
 and others of place and degree, in their passage through the 
 streets, but the streets themselves were so pestered, and the 
 pavements so broken up, that the common passages were 
 hindred and made dangerous, and, besides, the prices of hay 
 and provender made exceedingly dear, — ' wherefore,' he con- 
 cludes, 'we expressly command that no hackney-coaches be 
 used or suiFered in London, Westminster, or the suburbs, 
 except they be to travel at least three miles out of the same." 
 So arbitrary and absurd an edict enables us to measure the 
 distance between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century, — 
 between EngHsh freedom as it existed before the civil wars 
 and as it now exists."* E-oyal opposition, however, could not 
 put down the hackney-coaches. Charles II., too, tried his 
 hand at their suppression, but without success ; for in 1660 
 Pepys thus writes : — " Notwithstanding this is the first day 
 of the king's proclamation against hackney-coaches, yet I got 
 one to carry me home." The popular feeling was too strongly 
 in favour of this convenience to yield to the wishes of the 
 court. That which kings, with aU their authority, could not 
 accomplish, has in our day been brought about by time and 
 fickle fortune ; not a hackney-coach is now to be found. 
 
 The drivers of the first hackney-coaches sat upon a bar, or 
 narrow seat, low behind the horses. But after the Eestora- 
 tion the driver was a postillion, with short whip and spurs, 
 compelled to mount one of his horses, that he might more 
 effectually manage his progress through the narrow streets ; 
 his coach, too, was a narrow one. After the fire of London, 
 the streets were widened, and the coaches likewise ; the 
 latter " were closed all round, and covered with leather, orna- 
 mented with bright nails, and had red wheels;" the coach- 
 man, too, was restored to the dignity of a seat upon the 
 carriage, for in the times of William III. and Anne we find 
 him invariably on the box, which was covered with a hammer- 
 cloth. This seat was reaUy a box, and in it were contained a 
 
 * Art Union Journal, p. 159.
 
 37 
 
 variety of articles, as a liammer (lience the name of the cloth), 
 pincers, nails, screws, ropes, chisel, saw, and other appliances 
 wherewith to repair the vehicle in case of accidents, which 
 were constantly occurring ; for, besides the hostility of carmen 
 and the ordinary dangers of mts and sloughs, deep holes and 
 open vaults, unprotected by a raihng, were often found with 
 no light at night, to give warning of danger, but a farthing 
 candle in a lantern. Gay thus describes an accident from 
 this cause : — 
 
 " AMiere a dim gleam the paly lanthom throws 
 O'er the mid iJavement, heaxjj rubbish grows. 
 Or arched vaults their gaping jaws extend. 
 Or the dark caves to common-shores descend ; 
 Oft by the winds extinct the signal lies. 
 Or smothered in the glimmering socket dies. 
 Ere night has half rolled romid her ebon throne ; 
 In the wide gulf the shattered coach o'erthrown, 
 Sinks with the snorting steeds ; the reins are broke. 
 And from the crackling axle flies the spoke." 
 
 The sedan was less dangerous, but it had its inconveniences. 
 In those days the water-pipes from the roofs of houses dis- 
 charged their contents neither into sewers nor rain-water 
 butts, but upon the pavement; and Swift portrays the 
 alarmed condition of a fop in one of these vehicles during a 
 City shower : — 
 
 Boxed in a chair, the beau impatient sits, 
 "While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits ; 
 And ever and anon, with frightful din 
 The leather sounds — he trembles from within."* 
 
 The chairmen were sturdy independent fellows, who did 
 pretty much as they pleased, and would not scruple to set 
 down their fare, when opportunity offered, for indulgence in 
 a pot of ale. Disputes amongst them for precedence were 
 frequent, and when two chairs met on narrow footways, words 
 
 * Knght, vol. i. p. 30.
 
 38 
 
 would often lead to blows. In " Mist's Journal" of Saturday, 
 July 8, 1721, we are told that— "On Thursday sennight the 
 Eight Hon. the Lord Carteret, one of his Majesty's principal 
 secretaries of state, passing through St. James's Square in a 
 chair, was met by the Lady Harley in another, when a dispute 
 arising between the footmen about giving the way, they im- 
 mediately came to blows, and the chairmen and footmen being 
 engaged with their poles and sticks, one of them struck his 
 lordship as he was getting out of his chair; but whether 
 accidentally or designedly, we know not. In the meantime 
 that person is committed to Newgate, and three of his brethren 
 are bound over to the next session." The public sedans were 
 of plain leather, with brass nails. The chairmen, as a body, 
 often influenced the elections for Westminster and Middlesex 
 by the terror they produced with fist and bludgeon. The 
 aristocracy often kept private sedans, which were furnished 
 with crimson velvet cushions and damask curtains, and the 
 chairmen strutted in all the finery of cocked hats and feathers, 
 with embroidered coats and epaulettes.* This diagram [152 m] 
 represents one of this kind of chairs, as used about 1750. 
 Another [152 k] represents the kind of carriage used by the 
 aristocracy in the reign of Anne, and is taken from a print 
 representing the procession of both Houses of Parliament to 
 St. Paul's, to return public thanksgiving for the peace of 
 Utrecht. The carriage used on most occasions by the middle 
 classes at this time is shown in the next diagram. It was 
 drawn by one horse, and generally carried one person, or at 
 most two, with a squeeze. It somewhat resembles the old- 
 fashioned postchaise, except, that being without springs, it 
 must have been much more uncomfortable [152 l]. 
 
 Postchaises, or carriages for private hire in travelling, 
 were introduced about 1734, by a Mr. John TuU, an artillery 
 officer, who obtained a patent for their use. The plan suc- 
 ceeded, but brought no benefit to its projector, who died in a 
 
 * Knight, vol. i. pp. 30, 31.
 
 39 
 
 state of destitution in the King's Bencli Prison. These con- 
 veyances became very poxDular, especially with those who, in 
 travelling, preferred a carriage to themselves to the use of 
 the more public vehicles ; or on roads on which the coaches 
 were but few. Post-horses had been earlier introduced, as 
 before stated. 
 
 Stage-coacJies were first started about the beginning of the 
 reign of Charles II. Few of them had springs ; the journey 
 from London to Chester occupied six days ; from London 
 to Bristol four days ; and to other places in proportion. The 
 coaches did not travel by night, and the passengers were 
 obliged to put up at the inns where the coachman and horses 
 were accommodated, so that the expense of a journey was 
 such as only the wealthy could afford. The Oxonians thought 
 themselves wonderfully privileged when a coach ran between 
 London and Oxford in two days, the passengers sleeping at 
 Beaconsfield ; but their astonishment was unbounded when, 
 in the spring of 1669, it was announced that a vehicle, 
 styled ' The Plying Coach,' would perform the whole journey 
 between sunrise and sunset I We find, from the "Diary of 
 a Yorkshire clergj-man," that in 1582 a journey from jS'ot- 
 tingham to London in a stage-coach occupied four whole days. 
 We, who are used to railroads, look with astonishment on this 
 state of things, and wonder how in those days people lived 
 at all ; but even this was an improvement on former modes 
 of travelling, — especially on the broad- wheeled waggon, with 
 its high tilt, long team, jingling bells, and pace of two miles per 
 hour, which was long the only popular conveyance. In this 
 vehicle, in the winter-time, persons of both sexes, aU ages, and 
 almost all conditions, were crowded together, and had to travel 
 for long hours in succession, in total darkness, shaken and 
 jostled together by the surging and jolting of the vehicle. The 
 consequence of this was, that travelling was then very rare. 
 Macaulay observes that " the country squire of the seven- 
 teenth century did not visit London three times in his life,
 
 40 
 
 and when lie presented himself in Fleet-street, was as easily- 
 distinguished from the denizens of the place as a Turk or 
 Lascar ; and if the cockney appeared in a country village, he 
 was as great a wonder as he would have been in the tent of 
 an Ai-ab, or the kraal of the Hottentot." Town and country, 
 and the different districts of the latter, were then as widely 
 separated from each other, for all practical purposes, as are 
 now the different quarters of the globe. People generally, of 
 almost all ranks, lived and died on or near the spot where 
 they were born. The several districts often differed as 
 widely from each other in habits, manners, and dialect as the 
 German States do from one another in the present day.* 
 Edinburgh was as remote from London as now are Boston 
 and New York ; and poor persons, living in different parts of 
 England, were more com]jletely separated from one another 
 than the settler in Australia is now from his friends in this 
 country, though separated by half the circumference of the 
 globe. 
 
 The introduction of stage-coaches, like aU other improve- 
 ments, met at first with determined opposition. Instead of 
 being ahve to the advantages which must accrue to all classes 
 from increased facilities of locomotion, the wiseacres of that 
 day regarded the innovation as fraught with danger, and 
 tending to the ruin of the nation. A pamjDhlet was pubhshed 
 in 1673, called " The Grand Concern of England explained 
 in several Froposals," wherein the author attributes the dull- 
 ness of trade and the embarrassment of the country to the 
 stage-coaches. He complams that they perform the journey 
 from London to York, Chester, and Exeter, in the unpa- 
 triotically short space of four or five days, carrymg eighteen 
 passengers each. He then calculates the vast amount of 
 employment those eighteen persons would give to grooms, 
 farriers, innkeepers, hostlers, saddlers, etc., if each were to 
 ride his own horse, instead of adopting the revohitionary 
 practice of clubbing for a common convey ance.f "When 
 
 * Silent Kevolution, p. 56. t Ibid., p. 50.
 
 41 
 
 gentlemen travelled on horseback," says he, " they wanted 
 boots, spurs, saddles, saddlecloths, bridles, pistols, and hol- 
 sters ; they required a riding-dress ; found it necessary to 
 carry a change of suits with them, the one they travelled in 
 soon became soiled and unlit for wear at the end of their 
 journey, and often in the course of two journeys altogether 
 spoiled ; whereas those who travelled by coach could pro- 
 ceed on their journey ready dressed." AH these circum- 
 stances, which were to the traveller himself so many reasons 
 why he sJioidd go by coach, were, by this eminently conser- 
 vative member of society, propounded to the legislature as so 
 many reasons why he should not be allowed to journey in 
 this manner ; for he concludes by advising Parliament to 
 interfere to suppress stage-coaches, especially those within 
 fifty or sixty miles of London, and recommends the others 
 being obliged to travel with one set of horses, and to be 
 limited to thirty miles in summer, and twenty-five in winter 
 per diem ! The legislature, however, was too wise to adopt 
 the recommendation of this " slow coach," and the obvious 
 advantages of the new mode of travelling — rude as we should 
 now consider it — gradually overcame all opposition. This 
 diagram [152 n] represents a stage-coach of the year 1750. 
 " The heavy hoot in front, and the equally clumsy coachman, 
 buried beneath his coat and apron ; the overloaded top, 
 upon which the cheap traveller reclines in as precarious a 
 position as possible ; the hashet behind, in which travellers sit 
 as they best can, and from which hang trunks and packages 
 of every form and size, render the stories of slow travelling 
 in those days perfectly credible, however monstrous they 
 appear to us now."* Some of the anecdotes of these 
 early stage-coaehes are amusing enough. A gentleman 
 writing to his father, in 1673, says, — " I got to London on 
 Saturday last. My journey was noe ways pleasant, being 
 forced to ride in the boot all the way : y^ company y^ came 
 up with me were persons of great qualitie, as knights and 
 
 * Art Union Journal, p. 247.
 
 42 
 
 ladies. My journey's expense was thirty shillings. This 
 travel hath so indisposed me y^ I am resolved never to ride 
 up again in y^ coach." At this time so formidable an affair 
 was reckoned even a journey from Birmingham to London, 
 that a departure was a signal for making a will, followed by a 
 solemn farewell of wife, children, and household. Slow 
 travelling, indeed, continued to a much later period than we 
 might suppose ; and we read advertisements for " that 
 remarkable swift-travelling coach, the 'Fly^ which leaves 
 Birmingham on Mondays, and reaches London on the Thurs- 
 day follotving." Another advertisement just a hundred 
 years old, bearing date 1753, is taken from an old magazine : — 
 
 *' This is to give notice to all gentlemen and otters, that the Colchester ma- 
 chine sets out from the "White Hart Inn, in .Colchester, every Monday and 
 Thursday, to the King's Arms Inn, in Leadenhall-street, London, and returns to 
 the j)lace aforesaid every Tuesday and Friday, at twelve shillings a passenger ; 
 to be allowed twenty pounds weight, and aU above to be paid one penny a pound, 
 to be paid for at Ingatestone : and all outside passengers to pay six shillings a 
 passenger. To set out at sis o'clock in the sunamer and seven in the winter. 
 N.B. — Witham andKelvedon passengers to pay ten shillings with inside, and five 
 without ; and to set out on Monday, the 26th of June. Performed, if God permit, 
 by us, Wm. "Wood, Wm. Eeynolds, Tho. Cant, Wm. Webb." 
 
 Koio, there are five trains to and seven from Colchester 
 every day, and the time occupied in the journey is from two 
 to two and a half hours only. 
 
 A characteristic account of a stage-coach journey from 
 London to Chester, by Dean Swift, will afford illustration of 
 the discomfort attending travelling in a public conveyance 
 little more than one hundred years ago : — 
 
 " EesolVd to visit a far-distant friend, 
 A porter to the Bull-aud-G-ate I send, 
 And bid the man, at all events, engage 
 Some place or other in the Chester stage. 
 The man returns — 'tis done as soon as said, 
 'Your Honor's sure when once the money's paid ; 
 My brother whip, impatient of delay, 
 Puts to at thi'ee, and swears he cannot stay j' 
 (Four dismal hours ere the break of day.)
 
 43 
 
 Eoused from sound sleep— thrice called'— at length I rise. 
 
 Yawning, stretch out mj arms, half close my eyes : 
 
 By steps and lanthom enter the machine, 
 
 And take my place, how cordially ! between 
 
 Two aged matrons of excessive bulk, 
 
 To mend the matter, too, of meaner folk ; 
 
 "UTiile in like mood, jamm'd in on t'other side, 
 
 A bull}-ing captain and a fair one ride ; 
 
 Foolish as fair, and in whose lap a boy— 
 
 Our plague eternal, but her only joy ; 
 
 At last, the glorious number to complete. 
 
 Steps in my landlord for that bodkin seat : 
 
 When soon by ev'ry hillock, rut, and stone. 
 
 Into each other's faces by turns we're thrown ; 
 
 This grannam scolds, that coughs, the captain swears. 
 
 The fair one screams, and has a thousand fears ; 
 
 Wiale our plump landlord, trained in other lore. 
 
 Slumbers at ease, nor yet ashamed to snore ; 
 
 And Master Dicky, on his mother's lap. 
 
 Squalling brings up at once three meals of pap. 
 
 Sweet company ! — next time, I do protest, sir, 
 
 I'll walk to Dublin ere I ride to Chester." 
 
 The coacli of 1750 may be considered as the last and most 
 approved of the okl-fashioned coaches. The heavj^ clumsy, 
 formal style, which to that time had prevailed, ^as soon after 
 driven out by vehicles of a lighter construction, more adapted 
 for comfort and convenience, as well as far more elegant in 
 look. But as the introduction of these ushers in a new era 
 in the history of coaching, I shaU reserve any notice of them 
 for my next lecture. 
 
 We have together traced the progress of locomotion in our 
 own country from the earliest times to a century ago, have 
 glanced at the great changes that transpired during that 
 lengthened period. The ancient British and Eoman roads, the 
 footways, bridle-paths, and miry lanes of the middle ages, 
 have passed in review before us; we have witnessed the intro- 
 duction of turnpikes and turnpike-roads. We have observed 
 the universal use of the saddle-horse in the days of chivalry, 
 and the employment of the horse-litter for occasions of state.
 
 or by the wealthy or infirm. For the conveyance of goods 
 and merchandize we have seen the packhorse give way to 
 the stage-waggon ; have noted the extinction of the ancient 
 chariots, and the first appearance of the coach in England. 
 We have reviewed this vehicle in its various forms, — as the 
 luxury of the noble and rich, supplanting the showy cars and 
 gilded barges of the olden time ; as a conveyance in general 
 use, destroying the trade and exciting the hostility of the 
 Thames watermen ; as the hackney-carriage, vainly rousing 
 the opposition of courts and princes ; as it contended with 
 the sedan for popular support ; and as the stage-coach and 
 postchaise, graduaUy superseding the ancient mode of travel- 
 ling on horseback. In our next lecture I i)ropose referring 
 to the various improvements of the coach in its several varie- 
 ties since 1750, the construction of canals for inland naviga- 
 tion, the first appearance in London of the omnibus and cab, 
 and the introduction of the railway system and locomotion by 
 steam ; aU tending to show the immense and rapid progress 
 of facilities for locomotion made within the last hundred 
 years, and the high position to which, in these respects, this 
 country has now attained. 
 
 There is no subject from which we cannot extract useful 
 teaching and moral lessons ; the progress made in artificial 
 locomotion forms no exception to this rule. Much, however, 
 of the improvement to be derived from this subject I must 
 leave until the close of the next lecture. You will have 
 noticed the unthinking, unreasoning prejudice which has 
 been invariably excited by the introduction of every improve- 
 ment in travelling, and the opposition with which every new 
 invention has had to contend. Coaches, hackney and stage 
 carriages, and railways (as you will learn in the next lecture) 
 were all in their turn the subjects of ridicule, and were to 
 have been the instruments for effecting the ruin of the 
 country ; yet the country survives, aye, and flourishes too, 
 notwithstanding.
 
 45 
 
 Let us be careful, then, not to despise that which is new 
 merely because it is novel, but as reasoning beings let us en- 
 deavour to discover whether it is good, and to act towards it 
 accordingly. It does not, of course, follow that every novelty 
 is to be desired, but it is certain that many new discoveries, 
 novel appliances of the arts, or advances in social life, are useful 
 and beneficial, conducing to the moral and social well-being of 
 mankind. Our study, then, should be to discard passion and 
 prejudice, and calmly to investigate each new thing that claims 
 our attention ; and as in all matters of minor importance 
 attaching merely to the things of this life, so also in regard 
 to those infinitely important considerations which belong to 
 the Hfe to come, we should resort to the sound and truly 
 philosophical ride laid down for us in Scripture — " Peove all 
 
 THI>'GS ; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD."
 
 ftdm ||. 
 
 In my last lecture I endearoured to trace tlie progress of 
 improvement in relation to artificial locomotion, from tlie 
 time of tlie Eoman occupation of this country until about a 
 century ago— say to tlie year 1750— comprising a period of 
 about eighteen centuries. 
 
 You will have noticed that during that x^rotracted period 
 very little progress to boast of had been made in our travel- 
 ling facilities. Coaching, under the most favourable circum- 
 stances, was still tedious, uncertain, comfortless, and even 
 dangerous, while to the lower classes of society it continued 
 a luxury quite unattainable, if, indeed, a luxury such tra- 
 velling could be termed. 
 
 About the middle of the last century, however, a new era 
 commenced m these respects, and it may be said, without fear 
 of contradiction, that the century which has since elapsed 
 has witnessed greater changes, more decided progress and 
 improvement, than did the eighteen preceding centuries. 
 
 About the year 1750 a lighter style of coach-buildmg came 
 into vogue, and many novelties in the carriage line were soon 
 introduced. It will be impossible, and indeed out of place, 
 for me to detail all the particulars of these experiments in 
 carriage construction— suffice it to say, that their forms were 
 " legion ; " the names of haroucJie, landau, laudaulet, and 
 phaeton (amongst four-wheel vehicles), and dennett, huggy, 
 whiskey, tilbury, and stanhope (amongst two-wheel carriages), 
 will suggest general ideas of the various changes in form 
 introduced, as most of them are known to you, and continue 
 in use to this day.* 
 
 * Those who \rish to pursue this subject, may consult " The History of Pleasure 
 Carriages," by W. B. Adams.
 
 47 
 
 So much for pleasure-carriages. I must now request your 
 attention to tlie consideration of stage-coach travelling. 
 
 Even so late as 1760, the journey from Edinburgh to 
 London occupied eighteen days, a part of the road being 
 inaccessible to wheeled conveyances. Indeed, on the border 
 territories between England and Scotland, the country, we 
 are told, " was a complete wilderness," its geography very 
 little known, and its inhabitants continually exposed to 
 the attacks of robbers ; so that, after the accession of George 
 III., " the judges, barristers, attorneys, clerks, suitors, wit- 
 nesses, and tipstaffs, when on circuit, were obliged to travel 
 together on horseback to the assizes at Carhsle, carrying 
 their own provisions, and escorted by a strong body of 
 soldiers, with the sheriff at its head."* The state of the 
 Border-land, as thus described, could hardly have been worse 
 in the old days of feudal warfare, of Scottish raids and 
 Enghsh reprisals, — the days of Bruce and Baliol, and of our 
 first Edward, of the Percys and Douglases, and the woful 
 hunting of Chevy Chase. 
 
 ISText to the general improvement of roads by the turnpike 
 system, the 'invention of springs greatly increased the com- 
 fort and accelerated the speed of the stage-coach, in fact, 
 before this invention, " a man's power of endurance were the 
 limits of his journey." It was impossible to trBxel fast, on 
 account of the dragging weight of the vehicle ; it was equally 
 impossible to travel long distances at once, since no one 
 could long bear the direct and unmitigated jar.f It was not, 
 however, till the beginning of the present century that pro- 
 gress in the art of locomotion made rapid strides. Then it 
 was that coaching became almost a science : improvement 
 succeeded to improvement ; horses of a higher breed and 
 swifter pace were introduced ; the relays upon the route were 
 more numerous ; and road-making, as an art, advanced almost 
 to perfection, till at length the old rate of five or six miles 
 m hour was exchanged for one of twelve or fourteen. The 
 
 * Silent Revolution, p. 88. t Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Coach,
 
 improTements between 1800 and 1830 far exceeded all that 
 had obtained in the iDrevious century. 
 
 At the latter date, about fifty stages passed daily to and fro 
 between London and Brighton, and performed the journey 
 (one of fifty -two miles), on an average, in from four to four 
 hours and a half; Derby, a distance of 126 miles, was 
 reached in fourteen hours ; Manchester (187 miles), by the 
 mail, in nineteen hours ; Liverpool (203 miles), also by the 
 mail, in twenty-one hours ; and Holyhead (261 miles), by the 
 same conveyance, in twenty-seven hours. It thus appears 
 that the general speed of these vehicles (stoppages included), 
 was between nine and ten miles per hour, then* actual rate 
 when travelling being about twelve miles, and that of the 
 fastest Brighton coaches fourteen. These last were indeed 
 splendid machines, weU appointed in all respects, and were 
 long and justly admired as the very ne plus ultra of stage- 
 coaches—the pride and glory of the road. Men of rank and 
 fashion, skilled in horsemanship, not unfrequently aspired to 
 drive them, and would mount the box almost daily for weeks 
 and months together ; play their part consistently, and take 
 the usual fee from passengers, touching the h.at in return, 
 with the air of a professional whip rather than of an amateur. 
 
 Mail-coaches, which, on the majority of English roads, were 
 the most rapid and the best in aU respects, -uere first started, at 
 the suggestion of a Mr. Palmer, in 1784. Previous to that 
 time the mails were conveyed on horseback and in carts ; 
 the service was most in-egularly and inefficiently performed, 
 and the rate of travelling did not often exceed four miles per 
 hour. The singular discrepancy between the speed of the 
 post and of stage-coaches first attracted the attention of Mr. 
 Palmer. "Letters which left Bath on Monday night were 
 not delivered in London till two or three o'clock on Wednes- 
 day afternoon, and sometimes later, but the coach which left 
 Bath on Monday afternoon, arrived in London soon enough 
 for the delivery of parcels by ten o'clock the next morning ;
 
 49 
 
 and tliougli tte postage from Batli to London was at tliat 
 time only tlireepence, yet dispatcli was in many cases of sucli 
 importance, tliat the Batli tradesmen willingly paid two 
 sMllings to send their letters to London in a coach parcel, 
 besides requesting their correspondents to give a gratuity, to 
 the porter for the early delivery of the packet, this request 
 for additional payment forming part of the direction. The 
 post which left London on Monday night, or rather on 
 Tuesday morning, from one to three, did not reach !Xorwich, 
 Worcester, or Birmingham, till Wednesday morning, and the 
 Exeter post not until Thursday morning, while letters were 
 five days in passing from London to Glasgow." Mr. Palmer 
 proposed to Mr. Pitt (the then Premier) that the letters 
 should thenceforth be transported not on horseback or in 
 light carts, but by coaches, and that, as robberies of the mail 
 were so frequent, a man with fire-arms should travel with 
 each coach. These coaches were all to start from London at 
 the same hour, and from the country at such times as to 
 ensure, so far as possible, their simidtaneous arrival in town 
 at an early hour in the morning. 
 
 The first mail-coach upon Mr. Palmer's plan left London 
 for Bristol on the evening of the 24th August, 1784. These 
 improvements met with much opposition frem some of the 
 Post-oflBce authorities. One of them, a Mr. Hodgson, " did not 
 see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in 
 England, and conceived that to bring the Bristol mail 
 to London in sixteen or eighteen hours ^-uas a scheme altoge- 
 ther visionarT/." Another gentleman (Mr. Draper) declared 
 that the post " cannot travel with the same expedition as 
 chaises and diligences, on account of the business neeessaKy 
 to be done in each town," and that the quarter of an hour in 
 each post town which Mr. Palmer proposed to allow would be 
 insuificient, as half an hour would be required in many places. 
 The idea, too, of a guard to each coach, so far from ensuring 
 safety, would only occasion the crime of murder to be added 
 to that of robbery, since, " when desperate fellows had once 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 determined upon a mail robbery, the consequence would be 
 murder, in case of resistance. Timing the arrival and departure 
 of the coaches would " fling the whole commercial correspond- 
 ence of the country into the utmost confusion," Even the 
 Postmasters-G-eueraladdressed the Lords of the Treasury, after 
 Mr. Palmer's plans had been partially in operation for eighteen 
 months, stating that they felt " perfectly satisfied that the re- 
 venue had been very considerably decreased by the plan of mail- 
 coaches." Happily, however, the Premier saw more clearly 
 the advantages of increased safety, and of more frequent, 
 rapid, and certain facilities of communication, and he resolved 
 that the scheme should be carried out in all its most essential 
 features. The results were, that by 1797 the greater part of 
 the mails were conveyed in one-half the previous time, in 
 many cases in one-third, and in some of the cross posts in one- 
 fourth of the previous time. Daily posts were estabhshed 
 to above five hundred places, which before had only received 
 them thrice a week. The great commercial towns were 
 thought to be as much entitled to this advantage as the water- 
 drinkers at Tunbridge Wells thirty years before; and the 
 revenue of the Post-office increased beyond anticipation." 
 
 " The era of mail-coaches embraces about half a century ; 
 theii' origin, maturity, and perfection, and their gradual dis- 
 placement by the railways, all took place within that short 
 period. In 1836 there were fifty-four four-horse mails in 
 England, thirty in Ireland, and ten in Scotland. The nrnn- 
 ber of pau'-horse mails in England was forty-nine. Their 
 average speed in England was nine miles, all but a furlong, 
 per hour, including stoppages. Starting from London at 
 eight o'clock in the evening, the mail reached Exeter, 170 
 miles, in sixteen hours thirty-four miuutes ; Grlasgow, 396 
 miles, in forty -two hours ; Edinburgh, 399 miles, iu forty-two 
 hours and a half. The number of miles travelled by the mails 
 in England and Scotland in 1838 loas above seven millions^ 
 equal to a circuit round the glohe, every day in the year. 
 The English mail-coach was strongly characteristic of the
 
 51 
 
 national energy and spirit, and also of the national taste. 
 Tke 'niglitly' departure of the mail-coackes from the Post- 
 office was always a favourite sight. A short time before the 
 hour of starting, they arrived in the yard round the Post- 
 office from their respective inns, with the passengers already 
 in their places. Through the iron-railing, by the light of gas- 
 lamps, the public could see the process of packing the mail- 
 bags. It was really a fine sight to see twenty of these 
 vehicles drawn up, each occupying the same station night 
 after night, the horses fine and spirited animals, the harness 
 neat, and the coachmen and guards wearing the royal livery. 
 As the clock struck eight, the Post-office porters dragged out 
 huge bags, of which the guards of the different mails took 
 charge. Each coach, one by one, passed out of the yard, and 
 the sound of the guard's horn became lost in the noise of the 
 streets. About six of the mails on the western roads did not 
 take up their bags at the Post-office, but started from the 
 western end of Piccadilly. The annual procession of the 
 mail-coaches on the king's birthday was also an exhilarating 
 and pleasing sight, which will never again be witnessed." It 
 " proceeded from the City to the West-end, through Hyde 
 Park, and usually passed before the residence of the Post- 
 master- General. ' '* 
 
 A well-appointed four-horse coach, rattling at full speed 
 through the streets of a market-town, or dashing along on the 
 broad turnpike in the open country, with its fleet and spirited 
 horses, its roof covered with eager travellers, the driver the 
 impersonation of high health and good humour, and the 
 guard performing cheerily on his sounding horn, — the whole 
 seeming the very emblem of life and enjoyment, — was indeed 
 a pleasant, bhthesome sight, which daily, for many long 
 years, gladdened the eyes of the inhabitants of oui' rural 
 villages and country towns [153]. 
 
 Those days may be said to have passed away, never to 
 return, for the " long coaches," in almost aU the districts of 
 
 * Knight, vol. iii. pp. 277—279. 
 D 2
 
 52 
 
 England, have been supi)lantecl by tlie superior advantages 
 and competition of the railioay. In Wales and Scotland 
 they still linger, for in those parts of Britain railway enter- 
 prise has not yet attained its fall development ; but south of 
 the Tweed and east of the Severn we now seldom see any 
 coaches but those that run short distances from stations to 
 towns not yet favoured with "a line," and the vehicles 
 appointed for this piu'pose are seldom such as to raise in our 
 minds any lively recollections of the past. Some persons, 
 especially when recalling to their thoughts the perfection to 
 which stage-coach travelling had attained, may regret the 
 bygone glories of those former days, the agreeable excite- 
 ment produced by the thought of a journey in fine weather, 
 and the many pleasures to be found and enjoyed upon the 
 road ; may 
 
 " Miss the cantering team, the winding way, 
 The road-side halt, the post-horn's well known air, 
 The inns, the gaping towns, and aU the landscape fair." 
 
 And undoubtedly there were many gratifications in the old 
 mode of journeying, which the modern traveller must now 
 forego. Yet, apart from the great saving of time, and inde- 
 pendently of that satisfaction at the change which all must 
 feel who rightly estimate the importance, on every moral and 
 social ground, of increased facilities for locomotion, there is, 
 unquestionably, when the merely physical advantages and 
 comforts of each mode are weighed against each other, a 
 decided balance in favour of the more modern system. 
 
 The miseries of the old mode of travelling and the favour- 
 able contrast afforded by the new are thus amusingly de- 
 scribed by a modern writer :*— " The only two journeys I 
 ever took in my life were the journey from London to 
 Exeter, which I made forty years ago, and the journey back 
 again, which took place not a fortnight since. In the autumn 
 of 1811 I left my father and mother to accompany my master, 
 to whom I had been aj)prenticed and his numerous family, 
 
 * Leisure Hour, August 18, 1853.
 
 53 
 
 to London. He liad engaged tlie whole interior of a double- 
 bodied stage-coacli for himself and family, twelve persons in 
 all, including a maid-servant and myself. It was between 
 two and three in the afternoon when the ponderous vehicle 
 began to move from the market-place. The horn blew ; the 
 six stout horses pawed and grappled, and we got under way, 
 soon increasing our velocity to five or six miles an hour ; and 
 rattling out of the town with a noise and din that brought 
 everybody to their doors. The excitement soon banished the 
 grief I had felt at parting with my friends, and I began to 
 enjoy the pleasures of the journey ; but when we had got 
 a few miles out, the pleasant rapidity of our passage became 
 modified. Macadam had done nothing for the roads, and 
 our way lay through a hilly country, upon a track of kneaded 
 moist earth, which our broad wheels brought up in masses, 
 and tossed into the air by shovelfuls. We changed horses 
 every seven or eight miles, and were too glad, on every occa- 
 sion, after the first, to get out and stretch our legs with a 
 walk, and count our bruises. "We passed through Taunton 
 shortly before sunset, and soon after, when darkness came 
 upon us rather suddenly, owing to the setting-in of rain, the 
 pleasures of the transit disappeared and its woes commenced. 
 The children (after supper) had dropped off to sleep, but they 
 were speedily jerked into wakefulness by a jolt that nearly 
 sent my head through the panels, the coach having suddenly 
 fallen into a rut a foot deep, upon the edge of which it had 
 been rolling for some time. This occurred ten times in the 
 course of an hour. It was too dark for the driver to see 
 the track, and in consequence he was continually getting out 
 of it and faUing in again. The result of this was a terrible 
 state of confusion. The packages were started in every 
 direction, and tokens of serious damage were audible in the 
 clinking of broken glass and the gurgling sound of escaping 
 liquids. Amid the squalling of the frightened childi-en, the 
 grinding of the wheels, the thumping together of the lumber- 
 ing boxes, and the noise in my own head, resulting from its
 
 54 
 
 iiiYoluntary contact ^Tit]l the sides of tlie coach, I heard the 
 voice of my mistress crying, ' There is the brandy-bottle 
 broken, feel for it and try if you can save some.' I began 
 groping about in the dark for the bottle, I could find none, 
 but I felt a child's naked leg at the bottom of the coach, and 
 with difficulty pulled out young Sammy, who, for aught I 
 know, might have been smothered but for the information of 
 the broken bottle." The writer then describes the difficulty 
 they had in procuring a Light from an old-fashioned tinder- 
 box ; how the brandy had saturated the children's buns, and 
 made one of them nearly tipsy; how his master bought candles 
 at the next stage, that they might burn a light all the night ; 
 and how they half slept and jolted on, till he was awakened 
 about six by the roaring and crashing of the wheels, when, 
 looking out, he found the coach was mounting a hill, and 
 ploughing through a mass of round gravelly pebbles, as big 
 as a boy's fist, lying six inches deep upon the road. " Every 
 now and then the horses stood stiU to recover strength, and 
 had to be lashed and cheered into action ere they would 
 renew the attempt, although an additional pair, under the 
 charge of a postillion, had been brought to assist in sur- 
 mounting the ascent. The coachman, finding we were 
 awake, requested that as many as could would alight and 
 walk up the hill. The outside passengers were already far 
 in advance, the insiders were glad enough to foUow their 
 example ; I marched on, happy to be released for a time from 
 the sweltering prison. The hill was some mile or so in 
 length, and we had walked for an hour after surmounting it 
 before the coach overtook us." He then relates how they 
 breakfasted at Bath, and, after a second day of adventures 
 and fatigue, slept at a small town near :\Iarlborough Forest ; 
 breakfasted the third morning at Eeading, and the coach 
 havino- been upset at Brentford the same afternoon, were 
 detained there four hours, and did not reach London tiU ten 
 o'clock at night, having spent nearly three days and tioo 
 nights u2:)on the entire journey. '• About a fortnight since," 
 
 ^
 
 55 +•> 
 
 he continues, " family matters compelled me to start off to 
 Exeter at a moment's notice. I received the summons as I 
 vras sitting at breakfast in the little parlour behind my shop, 
 a Httle after eight. In less than an hour an omnibus had set 
 me down at the Great Western Eailway, whence an express 
 train was on the point of starting. In two minutes I had 
 paid my fare, and, pocketing my ticket, was in two more 
 comfortably seated in a second-class carriage, where I had a 
 little leisure to look about me, and note the ease and indif- 
 ference with which travellers of the present day transfer 
 themselves from one side of the island to the other. A man 
 in a blue uniform blew a shrill whistle, and in an instant we 
 glided off from the station with a soft, imperceptible motion, 
 of which we should hardly have been a\^are but for the rapid 
 march backwards of the objects on each side of us. Every 
 now and then we transfixed a bridge with a sudden and 
 deafening ' shrang,' or we shot past a station which seemed 
 to fly away from us on the wings of the wind, and vanished 
 far in the rear ere I had time to turn my head to see what 
 had become of it. Then we met anotlier train coming to 
 London, with which we exchanged a crashing salute of some 
 seconds' duration ; then a toAvn and now a village rushed 
 fitfully past, the towers and steeples turning themselves 
 round like negroes jumping Jim Crow. Windsor Castle came 
 in sight, and soon we fired off Slough with a ' bang' and a roar 
 that woke up the echoes from every brick. Maidenhead and 
 Sheading were nothing more to us than a couple of rackety 
 explosions, which we did not condescend to notice. Then 
 came a series of exquisite landscape scenery on the banks of 
 the Thames, all flying past us hke an arrow ; and then, just 
 an hour from the time of starting, we slackened speed as we 
 approached Didcot, where we stopped a few short minutes, 
 just to give our iron steed a drink out of the pump. This 
 accomplished, we were off again in double-quick time, and in 
 half an hour more were shot down to Swindon having got 
 over seventy-seven miles of ground in an hour and a half.
 
 56 
 
 From Swindon to Cliippenliam occupied twenty minutes ; 
 and tlien we rushed, roaring and bellowing, through the two- 
 mile tunnel which perforates Box-hill, whence in a few 
 minutes we emerged within sight of the city of Bath, where 
 we arrived at ten minutes past twelve — having performed a 
 journey wliicli so late as twenty years ago occupied a tvhole 
 day, in two hours and tiventy-Jive minutes. After a short stay 
 at Bath, we were shot through a series of tunnels and into 
 Bristol in less than a quarter of an hour. From Bristol, by 
 a somewhat winding route, which affords us a view of the 
 Bristol Channel and Bridgewater Bay, and includes a few 
 more stoppages than are allowed in the early part of the 
 journey, we were steamed merrily along to Exeter, where I 
 arrived at five-and-twenty minutes to three o'clock — ^having 
 retraced the distance {which forty years before it took me three 
 days and two nights to accomplish, loith much personal suffer- 
 ing and at the risk of my neck) in four hours and three- 
 quarters, every minute of which was one of perfect ease and 
 pleasurable excitement"* [154]. 
 
 But we must not anticipate another portion of our subject, 
 and, before enlarging on the railway system, we must note 
 the origin and progress of canals. 
 
 From the most remote periods cities built on navigable 
 rivers had enjoyed the largest share of commercial prosperity, 
 the causes of which were universally khown.f It might 
 therefore have been expected that British enterprise would 
 have aimed to diffuse that prosperity by the creation of arti- 
 ficial rivers, especially as this cheap and easy mode of trans- 
 port for goods had been long known and made available in 
 various quarters of the world. Canals, both for purposes of 
 navigation and irrigation, had intersected ancient Egypt and 
 Assyria ; they had existed in China from a period antecedent 
 to the Christian era ; had been constructed by the Romans in 
 
 * Leisure Hour, Xo. 86. t Silent Eevolution, p. 51.
 
 Italy and about tlie outlets of the Eliine. In modern Europe 
 canals were first cut by the Lombards in the eleventh and by 
 the Dutch in the twelfth centurv-, and from that time they have 
 been the principal thoroughfares of Holland, which was inter- 
 sected by them in every direction ; yet, notwithstanding all 
 this, the first English canal does not date farther back than 
 1755, when an act of Parhament was passed for constructing 
 one eleven miles long, from the mouth of Skey Brook, in 
 the river Mersey, to Gerrard's Bridge and St. Helen's.* 
 Before this undertaking was finished, the Duke of Bridge- 
 water commenced his celebrated canal, the construction of 
 which estabhshed the fame of the celebrated engineer Brind- 
 ley. A rich bed of coal had been discovered on his estate at 
 Worsley, near Manchester, " but the charge of land carriage 
 to the best markets Avas so great as to swaUow up nearly the 
 whole produce of the sales, the duke therefore obtaiaed in 
 1757 an act of Parliament for the formation of a canal. The 
 outlay was very great, but it soon cleared itself, and, besides 
 itself becoming a source of large profit, the canal increased 
 the value of the mines a himdred-fold. This experiment 
 was decisive,"! and the great superiority of this mode of 
 transit for heavy goods speedily becoming obvious, it was 
 soon adopted on a most extensive scale, and about the begin- 
 ning of the present century canals came into general use 
 throughout the three kingdoms. These arteries of commerce 
 traversed every county, and the aggregate length of the total 
 number of canals in England alone now exceeds 2200 miles. 
 In addition, too, to the canals themselves, such of the rivers 
 as were capable of it were made navigable, so that it is 
 affirmed that there is " no spot in England, south of Durham, 
 which is more than fifteen miles distant from water communi- 
 cation, and in the principal manufacturing districts that 
 distance is even smaller." J 
 
 * Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Canals. t Silent Eevolution, pp. 51, 52. 
 
 J Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Canals.
 
 5S 
 
 "When raili'oads were first intrbdiiced it Avas supposed that 
 canals would no longer be wanted ; that not only would a 
 stop be put to the construction of new ones, but that many 
 then in use would be drained and converted into railway 
 lines. Experience, however, has proved that, in many in- 
 stances, even where railways have been most successful, they 
 have not injuriously affected the profits of canals. The 
 reason of this may be easily perceived. The expenses of 
 maintaining a raihoad in good working order are far greater 
 than those incurred in the keeping up of a canal, hence the 
 managers of railways are compelled to impose for the trans- 
 port of merchandize heavier charges than are suiBcient to 
 pay the proprietors of canals ; and a large proportion of the 
 internal traffic of England consists of goods, the value of 
 which is small as compared with their weight and bulk, and 
 which wiU consequently not bear the higher tolls demanded 
 by the " Z/»e," the speed attained by which is, moreover, 
 not required for their conveyance ; hence we have no ground 
 for supposing that any existing canals will be altogether 
 abandoned or superseded by the railways. 
 
 The construction of canals is an undertaking of greater or 
 less difficulty, according to the nature of the country through 
 which they pass. Where this is level the work is compara- 
 tively easy, but where the country is very hilly the enter- 
 prise is much more formidable. Either a cu'cuitous rout« 
 must be adopted, or deep cuttings and tunnels must be made ; 
 the latter course is for the most part preferred. " Some of 
 these cuttings are of great length. The timnel at Ellsworth, 
 on the Grand Junction canal, is 3080 yards in length (that is, 
 one mile and three quarters). The underground cuttings 
 in the Duke of Bridgewater's canal are said to be altogether 
 eighteen miles long, and to have cost £170,000. The Marsden 
 tunnel, on the Huddersfield canal, is 5451 yards long (above 
 three miles). The tunnel at Sapperton, on the Thames and 
 Severn canal, is two miles and three furlongs in length and 
 250 feet below the highest point of the hill through which
 
 59 
 
 the cutting is made. In tlie Thames and Medway canal, 
 betTveen Graresend and Eochester, a tunnel two miles and 
 one-eighth in length, is cut through the chalk ; and one of 
 the tunnels of the Leominster canal (at Pensax) is 3850 
 yards long. Besides these, there are many similar cuttings 
 of smaller dimensions in different parts of the kingdom."* 
 Sometimes the canal itself has to be carried at a high ele- 
 vation across a sti-eam or over a deep valley, in these cases an 
 aqueduct bridge is erected. These, in order to sustain the 
 constant and prodigious weight of water, must be made either 
 of masonry or cast-iron. The late :Mr. Telford constructed a 
 cast-iron aqueduct 186 feet in length, by which the Shrews- 
 bury canal is carried over the valley of the Tern at Long 
 Mill; and at Pont-y-Cysylte, in IN'orth Wales, is a similar 
 but more stupendous work, "where the Ellesmere and 
 Chester canal is carried over the Dee. This aqueduct is at 
 an elevation of 125 feet above the bed of the river, on nine- 
 teen pairs of stone pillars, fifty-two feet apart. The trough 
 which forms the canal is 988 feet long, twenty feet wide, and 
 six feet deep, and is composed altogether of cast-iron plates. 
 The invention of lochs, as a means of carrying canals through 
 an uneven country, is said to be modern. A lock is a chamber 
 formed of masonry, so contrived that the level of the water 
 which it contains may be made to coincide with either the upper 
 or lower level of the canal." It occupies the exact spot where 
 the difference of level has to be overcome, and is provided 
 with two pairs of gates, one of which is placed at each end of 
 the chamber. AYhile the gates at the lower end are opened, 
 and those at the upper end closed, the water in the lock will 
 stand at the lower level ; but when the lower gates are closed 
 and the upper opened, it will stand at the level of the water 
 in the upper part of the canal. " In the first case, a boat may 
 be floated into the lock from the lower part of the canal, and 
 if the lower gates be then closed, and water admitted from 
 the upper level, until the surface of the lock is in a line with 
 
 * Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Catials.
 
 60 
 
 tlie water above, tke boat will be floated up aud, on the open- 
 ing of the upper gates, may be passed onward. By reversing 
 the course of proceeding, boats may be as readily conveyed 
 from the upper to the lower level."* 
 
 We now approach the epoch of a mightier advance in the 
 science of locomotion, and a greater improvement in the 
 means of transit, than any that has previously been recorded 
 in the page of the world's history, — tlie introduction of steam- 
 power for propelling carriages on railicays. The possibility 
 of applying the steam-engine to locomotive purposes was con- 
 ceived by several of its first improvers ; it has been affirmed 
 that the first of these was Dr. Eoberts, of G-lasgow. In 
 1784, a plan for carrying out this idea was suggested by Mr. 
 Watt, in the specification of one of his patents, and a model 
 of a steam-carriage was exhibited in Edinbm-gh by a Mr. 
 Symington. In 1802, a high-pressure engine, admirably 
 adapted for purposes of locomotion, was patented by Messrs. 
 Trevethick and Vivian, who were the first to give practical 
 appHcation to the theory. Within a few years, they bmlt 
 several carriages, one of which was constructed for use upon 
 an ordinary road. In 1805, they made various experiments 
 on a tramway near Merthyr TydvH, in Glamorganshire, 
 which fully proved the feasibility of their views.f The ma- 
 
 * Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Canals. 
 
 t It was twenty-one years pre^-ious to this date that the first experiment was 
 made with a locomotive steam-carriage on a common road. " It was a dark 
 night, in the year 1784, that the venerable clergyman in the town of Eedruth, in 
 Cornwall, was taking an evening walk in a long and lonely lane which led to his 
 church, when an unearthly noise burst forth, and to his horror he beheld approach- 
 ing him, at a furious speed, an indescribable creature of legs, arms, and wheels, 
 whose body seemed glowing with internal fires, and whose rapid gasps for breath 
 appeared to indicate some deadly struggle within. The old gentleman shouted 
 lustily for help, and to his great relief he found a Mend in the person of a Mr. 
 Murdock, who explained to him that this dreadful monster was in fact a machine 
 for locomotion, generally tractable, though not always so, which he had incau- 
 tiously allowed to escape from its leading-strings. Such was the strange debut into 
 its sphere of practical activity which was made by the locomotive engine." — 
 Leisure Sour, Ko. 91.
 
 61 
 
 climes emx^loyecl by tliese gentlemen possessed almost all the 
 features and appliances of the more modern locomotives, and 
 their ideas xipon the subject were so comprehensive that 
 succeeding engineers have had little to do but improve upon 
 and more fully carry out their suggestions. The ancients 
 were doubtless aware of the reduction of draught arising from 
 the use of tramioays, for in the sculptures of ancient Egypt 
 heavy objects are represented drawn by oxen on level blockg 
 of wood or stone. "Wooden tram or waggon-ways were first 
 laid down and used in the collieries of the north of England 
 about the time of James I., to reduce the labour of drawing 
 the coals from the pits to the places of shipment, near New- 
 castle. At first, they were merely pieces of wood imbedded 
 in the ordinary roads, so as to form wheel-tracks for the 
 carts and waggons, and which, presenting a far smoother sur- 
 face than the roads themselves, greatly increased the available 
 power of the horses. Improvements were gradually adopted, 
 and about 1765 the customary plan was, first, to make the 
 road as even and level as possible, then to lay across it pieces 
 of wood about six feet long, and as many inches thick, and 
 upon these to place other pieces length\^ise, and fasten them 
 by pegs to the cross pieces, or sleepers below ; the road was 
 then finished by filling the spaces between the sleepers and 
 under the rails with ashes, gravel, or other road materials.* 
 The waggons used upon these railroads contained from two to 
 three tons of coal, and were mounted on small weeels, fur- 
 nished with Q. flange, or projecting rim, which kept the vehicle 
 in its proper place upon the rails. Upon the surface of these, 
 wherever a steep ascent or sharp curve rendered the draught 
 harder than usual, it was customary to nail thin iron plates, 
 by the greater smoothness of which difficult points were 
 passed without inconvenience, or occasion for using extra 
 horses. Som^etimes these railways were of stone, but such, 
 though more durable, were not so smooth as those of wood. 
 Cast-iron bars, nailed upon the wooden tramways, were first 
 
 * Penny Cyclopasdia, art. Eidlicmjs.
 
 62 
 
 used at tlie Colebrook Dale Iron-works about the year 1767, 
 and rails with nprigM rims, or flanges, to keep carriages from 
 running off the line, instead of flanges on the wheels them- 
 selves, were first laid down at the Duke of Norfolk's coUiery, 
 near Sheffield, in 1776. Subsequently, blocks of stone were 
 introduced as supports, instead of the wooden sleepers, and, 
 affording a firmer foundation, were found preferable where a 
 more durable road was required. This kind of railway, called, 
 from its form, and by way of distinction, the plate railway^ 
 is, with many improvements (amongst others that the rails 
 themselves are now almost always made wholly of iron), still 
 used extensively in mining districts. Another kind, with many 
 varieties of construction, is the edge railway, which is consi- 
 dered to economise more effectually the strength of the iron, 
 and has superseded the plate railway in many of tlie coUieries 
 of Durham and jSTorthumberland. This is the rail generally 
 employed upon the great passenger lines throughout the 
 country. The introduction of wrought instead of cast iron 
 rails tended greatly to diminish the risk of accident and delay, 
 and probably without this improvement (comparatively a 
 recent one) the application of steam-power to railwaj^s, and 
 their adoption for the conveyance of passengers, and as 
 a means of rapid travelling, would have been much retarded. 
 Indeed, for a long period after the experiments of Mr. 
 Trevethick, progress in the use of the locomotive was 
 obstructed by imaginary difficulties. Mr. Trevethick himself 
 was aware that if too heavy a load were attached to his 
 machine, or it were required to ascend a steep | incline, the 
 wheels would slip round without advancing, the adhesion 
 between them and the rails being sufficient only to ensure 
 the progress of the engine on a level or nearly level road ; 
 from this circumstance, however, many took up with the 
 erroneous idea that the adhesion between the wheels and 
 rails was, on account of the smoothness of both, insufficient 
 for any practical purpose, even upon level ground ; and much 
 ingenuity was consequently expended in contrivances for
 
 63 
 
 securing progressive motion by other means. One of tlie 
 experimentalists was a ]\Ir. Blenkinsop, who, in 1811, obtained 
 a patent for a locomotive in which the power was apphed to a 
 cogged wheel, instead of 2i]plain one, the teeth entering and 
 working in a rack laid down beside the ordinary rails. 
 Engines on this plan were worked for some years on a 
 coUiery line near Leeds, and drew very heavy loads at a slow 
 rate, but the friction of the machinery was found to be 
 excessive. Shortly afterwards a Zvlr. Brunton invented a 
 locomotive machine, which advanced by the alternate motion 
 of two legs thrust out from the hinder end of the engine. 
 This singular contrivance was carried into effect, and the 
 machine was found to have considerable power; but an 
 accident caused the inventor to abandon it. Similar pro- 
 pellers have since been tried on common roads. In 1814 and 
 1815, engines with plain wlieels only -^'ere again tried, and 
 being found efficient, were used upon colliery railways in the 
 north of England. Since that time, however, several con- 
 trivances have been resorted to in order to increase the 
 adhesion, and enable locomotives to mount ascents of greater 
 inclination than they can surmount with plain or smooth 
 wheels alone.* 
 
 The first railway of any importance opened in England, for 
 passengers and general traffic, was the Liverpool and ]Man- 
 chester hue, in 1S30. Whilst the projectors of this great 
 work were engaged in its design and execution, it was with 
 them a matter of discussion whether steam or horse power 
 should be employed to work it. The immense advantages of 
 the former were then but partially developed, and as the line 
 approached completion, the directors took great pains to 
 ascertain the plan it would be best for them to adopt. At 
 length they decided to offer a premium of five hundred pounds 
 for the best locomotive which should fulfil certain conditions, 
 of which some were " that it should not emit smoke, should 
 di'aw three times its own weight at the rate of ten miles per 
 
 * Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Eailivai/s.
 
 64 
 
 liour, sliould be supported on springs, and sliould not cost 
 more than five hundred and fifty pounds." The trial came 
 oflp, and the premiiun was obtained by an engine (the 
 " E-ocket ") constructed by the celebrated Robert Stephenson. 
 This engine, with a load of seventeen tons, averaged a speed 
 of fourteen miles an hour. Other engines of much greater 
 power were afterwards built, and imperfect as these first 
 attempts were, they proved (what multitudes, and even 
 many scientific men, had pronounced impossible) that a rate 
 of travelling might be attained by steam carriages on rail- 
 ways far beyond anything that horses could effect.* Indeed, 
 as we now sit in a carriage which flies over the country at 
 the rate of thirty to fifty miles an hour, it is amusing to look 
 back at the dogmatism of those who declared and " demon- 
 strated" the impossibility of the success of railway locomotion. 
 An amusing anedote is told respecting E-obert Stephenson 
 during the infancy of railway construction. He was giving 
 evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, in 
 support of a bill for authorizing the formation of a railway, 
 upon which steam power was proposed to be used— probably 
 the Liverpool and Manchester line ; being asked the speed 
 which he calculated as attainable with safety, he replied, 
 " from twelve to fifteen miles an hour :" a statement received 
 with evident marks of scepticism by the honourable members 
 present. One of these members, interested in the success of 
 the measure, took Mr. Stephenson aside, and told him that 
 his wild and visionary statements were calculated to imperil 
 the bill, and counselled him to withdraw his statement, and 
 substitute another more in accordance with reason and sound 
 sense. Stephenson replied, "Sir, if I am recalled I shall 
 make matters worse ; for I should have said twenty-six miles 
 an hour instead of fifteen, if I had not been fearful of scaring 
 the committee." The honourable member left him as a 
 hopeless and incurable enthusiast. Twenty-six miles an hour 
 is now the minimum performance of Stephenson's engines, 
 
 * Penny Cyclopfeclia, art. Railways.
 
 65 
 
 and one hundred miles an hour can be exacted from some, if 
 considered desirable. 
 
 Towns and cities protested against the intrusion of the 
 railways. Agricultural districts shuddered at the thought of 
 the invasion of their peaceful retreats, and the sullying of the 
 purity of the fleeces of the sheep by the plutonic clouds 
 of smoke which would arise from the chimneys of the engines. 
 Honourable members declared within the halls of Parliament 
 that " railways were dangerous and delusive speculations," 
 and, " above all, that they were unknown to the constitution 
 of this country." When the London and Birmingham line 
 was prox^osed, a whole chorus of voices shouted opposition, or 
 uttered withering sarcasms on the project. It was affirmed 
 that it would be " a drag on the coimtry ; '' that its works 
 would soon be objects suited only for the contemplation of 
 the antiquary ; and that " every hill and valley between the 
 two towns would behold falling arches and ruined viaducts." 
 Medical men asserted that the tunnels would be eminently 
 dangerous, and that the deafening roar, the fearful gloom, the 
 clanking chains, the dismal glare of the locomotive, and a 
 thousand other horrors which were vividly depicted, were so 
 alarming, that such inventions ought to be utterly and for 
 ever repudiated. 
 
 Such is only a very faint picture of the opposition which 
 had to be encoimtered by those who undertook the commence- 
 ment of our lines. But without dwelling further on this 
 part of the subject, we may just look at the results of railway 
 enterprise. 
 
 During the ten years immediately succeeding the opening 
 of the Liverpool and Manchester line, it observed a slow and 
 cautious movement. Up to 1840, only 1100 miles of railway 
 were open. Within the next ten years, no less than 800 
 acts were passed, sanctioning railway projects, and the extent 
 of hne thus legalized, amounted to 10,655 miles. The num- * 
 ber of miles of railway open for traffic, together with the 
 length in progress, amounted in 1849 to 7238 miles. Down
 
 66 
 
 to tliat date there had been expended more than 200 millions 
 of pounds upon railway projects. At the end of 1851, the 
 length of line open and in progress amounted, in all, to about 
 8000 miles ; the total amount of capital expended was 
 £281,685,960, making the average cost of construction for 
 each mile about £35,210. The number of persons employed 
 on railways up to June, 1851, was 106,501. 
 
 If you examine one of Bradshaw's Eailway Maps, you will 
 see at a glance that the whole country is now intersected by 
 a vast and elaborate network of iron-roads, joining and 
 crossing each other in all directions, and encountering in 
 theii* varied routes every description of natural and artificial 
 obstacle. It is easy to speak, as has been observed, of 
 " valleys being spanned, and hills cut through, of mountains 
 bored by tunnels, and quicksands and morasses turned into 
 solid ground ; but to accompHsh these undertakings by 
 science and skill in conception, and by hard and persevering 
 labour in the execution, is another thing." When, indeed, 
 we reflect on the immense practical difficulties, the cost and 
 labour of constructing a single railroad of any length, we may 
 well regard the formation of such numbers as, perhaps, the 
 most wonderful exemplification of human ingenuity, enter- 
 prise, and energy that we possess. To obtain, so far as 
 circumstances will allow, a uniformity of level upon a road of 
 llX) or 200 miles long, passing through every description of 
 country — to efiect this, in the most economical way, by means 
 of embankments and viaducts, cuttings and tunnels — to deter- 
 mine the precise course of a line, that it may unite (as much 
 as possible) directness with an avoidance of natural difficul- 
 ties — to decide upon the degree of curvature which may be 
 given it, in order that it may thread its course among hills, 
 valleys, swamps, parks, rivers, and towns, which may He upon 
 the route — all these are problems the proper solution of 
 •which requires the union of some of the highest mental 
 faculties with which man is endowed. 
 
 Hegarding the prodigious amount of labour in the execu-
 
 67 
 
 tion of tKese works of art, a few facts will supply the most 
 striking illustration. For instance, in the formation of cut- 
 tings through the l^illa upon the line immense masses of 
 material have had to be remoTed. Thus, the OHve-Mount 
 cutting on the Liverpool and Manchester line is in some parts 
 more than 100 feet deep, and 480,000 cubic yards of stone 
 were removed in its excavation. From the Haslingden cutting 
 on the East Lancashire line, nearly half a million yards of 
 peat, gravel, and sand were taken away ; a large amount of 
 the material being so saturated with water as to be almost 
 fluid. The BUsworth cutting passes through Umestone and 
 clay, and upwards of 1,000,000 cubic yards had to be exca- 
 vated, about a third of which was of a texture nearly as hard 
 as flint ; this material, if arranged in an embankment a yard 
 high and a yard iu width, would extend from the British 
 Channel throughout the entire length of England and Scot- 
 land, and to the farthest of the group of the Orkney Islands. 
 Li effecting this cutting 3000 barrels of gunpowder were 
 expended in blasting, and the entii-e cost was about a quarter 
 of a miUion sterling. The Tring cutting on the London and 
 Birmingham railway traverses a chalk ridge for nearly tT,\'0 
 and a half miles, being of an average depth of forty feet. No 
 less than 1,400,000 cubic yards of chalk were removed in its 
 excavation.* The difficulties, too, which have been overcome 
 in the construction of embankments, for conducting the 
 railways at elevations across low valleys, " have sometimes 
 been immense, and occasionally very unexpected ones have 
 arisen. Thus, on one occasion, an embankment was observed 
 gradually to sink without any apparent cause, and at length 
 the adjoining fields began to rise, the superincumbent mass 
 having penetrated some less solid stratum below, which, by 
 expanding at its base, had elevated without otherwise disturb- 
 ing the adjouiing surface." It has been also asserted that lq 
 North America a railway embankment once suddenly dis- 
 
 • Leisure Hour, Xo. 63. 
 
 e2
 
 6S 
 
 appeared from view, and was found to have sunk in sixty feet 
 of water. An extensive lake, it appeared, had in the course 
 of ages been covered with various deposits, which had formed 
 a soil of sufficient stability to be cultivated for agricultural 
 purposes, but unable to sustain the extraordinary weight of a 
 railroad. In the case of Chat Moss, on the Liverpool and 
 Manchester line, the engineer had to contrive some method 
 for carrying an embankment across a soft morass, extending 
 over an area of twelve square miles, and estimated to contain 
 at least 60,000,000 tons of vegetable matter, much of which 
 was so pulpy as to cause iron to sink in it by its own weight. 
 This task, however, was accomplished, and the railway crosses 
 it with perfect security to the passengers. Part of the em- 
 bankment is sustained by a platform of timber and hurdles, 
 covered with earth and broken stone, and floating, so 
 to speak, on the spongy swamp below. Some of the inci- 
 dents attending the formation of such works have been 
 remarkable. After the completion of the Wolverhampton 
 embankment it was observed, very unaccountably, " to dis- 
 play certain volcanic indications. It first began to smoke, 
 and then became exceedingly hot, while a slow smouldering 
 flame might at night be seen to rise from it. The people in 
 the neighbourhood were filled with alarm, and by some it was 
 confidently affirmed that the embankment would certainly 
 l;)low up." After the continuance of this spontaneous com- 
 bustion for some time the fiery energies of the material were 
 exhausted, and " it was found that the phenomenon had been 
 occasioned by the presence of a large quantity of sulphuret 
 of iron."* 
 
 " The earth-works on most of the great lines of railway in 
 England are very extensive ; in many cases averaging from 
 100,000 to 150,000 cubic yards per mile. On the London 
 and Birmingham line alone the quantity of earth and stone 
 removed was about 16,000,000 cubic yards, which, if formed 
 
 * LeisTire Hour, vol. ii. pp. 169, 170.
 
 69 
 
 into a belt tliree feet wide and one kigli would more than 
 encompass the earth at the equator /"* It \dll be interesting 
 to contrast tliis modern achievement with one of the most 
 stupendous works of antiquity. The Great Pyramid of Gizeh 
 occupied originally an area of thirteen acres, one rood, and 
 twenty -two poles, and was, when complete, 450 feet in vertical 
 height, comprismg about 89,028,000 cubic feet of solid 
 masonry (Ghddon's Otia Mgyptiaca, pp. 29, 31). This stone 
 would suffice to construct one thousand columns 200 feet in 
 height, as large as "the Monument" in London, containing 
 89,000 cjibic feet in each. Compare this with the amount of 
 work in one line of railway, such as the London and jVorth 
 Western : the cubical contents of the Pyramid give 3,297,333 
 cubic yards of matter, while the earth and -stone removed on 
 the railway is equal to 16,000,000 of cubic yards, being /w 
 times the quantity in the pyramid. Again, taking the London 
 and J^Torth Western railway as equal to one-eightieth part of 
 the 8000 or 9000 miles of railway constructed, we find that 
 the labour and enterprise already bestowed on railways in 
 Great Britain amount to the removal of 1,280,000,000 of cubic 
 yards of material, equivalent to the quantity contained in 400 
 structures as large as the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. Another 
 contrast will not be without interest and instruction to you 
 as working men. The ancient work, the Pyramid, according 
 to Herodotus, was effected by compulsory labour, and at a 
 great expenditure of human Hfe, and for the glorification of a 
 royal despot ; the modem works have been effected by free 
 labour and enterprise, have resulted in finding profitable 
 employment to tens of thousands, contributing to the 
 comfort, civiHzation, and happiness of all classes of the 
 people, including that to which you belong. Truly, the times 
 have fallen unto us in pleasanter places ; let us not forget to 
 be grateful for this privilege. 
 
 The amount of masonry and. hrickv:ork required in the 
 various erections of a railway is very great. The liniag of 
 
 * Penny Cyclopaedia, art, Sailuay$.
 
 70 
 
 tunnels, where the soil requires support, forms a peculiar 
 kind of work. Arcliing of almost every kind is required in 
 viaducts, bridges, and drains, and simpler work for station 
 building and retaining wslls. These last are used to sustain 
 the sides of cuttings and embankments, when it is desirable, 
 from the value of the adjacent land, to make these more 
 vertical than would otherwise be consistent with safety. 
 Viaducts of great magnitude are often executed for the pur- 
 pose of crossing valleys at an elevation greater than could 
 conveniently be obtained by embankment, and also for enter- 
 ing or passing through towns. They are usually of stone or 
 brick, but sometimes of wood or iron. Bridges are required 
 for crossing rivers, and very frequently at the intersection of 
 roads, either over or under the railway, and as communica- 
 tions between properties severed by the line. Prom a state- 
 ment in the " Encyclopsedia Britannica," it appears that, 
 taking the mean of nearly a hundred railways, the number of 
 bridges averages about two and a quarter per mile. This 
 gives, say, upon 8000 miles of railway constructed, no fewer 
 than eighteen thousand bridges. What would our ancestors, 
 who looked upon the construction of a few Roman bridges 
 with astonishment, say, could they now pay a visit to the land 
 of their birth ? 
 
 In the formation of railways it is usual to commence those 
 works first which take the longest time. Tunnels are gene- 
 rally the most formidable, and there is often great difficulty 
 in calculating the time and expense of their construction, 
 because unforeseen circumstances arise to retard their pro- 
 gress. The nature of the soil is tried by boring ; but this 
 sometimes seems favourable, while in reahty difficulties may 
 exist requiring great energy and an enormous outlay to over- 
 come. As tunnels are, moreover, objectionable on other 
 accounts, they are avoided as much as possible in the more 
 recently-designed railways.* Sometimes, however, it is found 
 that hills rise to such a height that it is better to penetrate 
 
 * Penny CyclopEedia, art. Bailways,
 
 71 
 
 them by means of a tunnel than by an open cutting ; it being 
 a common axiom that a cutting of more than sixty feet in 
 depth is the most costly of the two methods. 
 
 If you will again glance at a railway map, you will perceive 
 that the principal lines of railway radiate towards London as 
 to a focus. It is the great centre and heart of the system. 
 The lines which enter London are twelve in number, and the 
 termini are seven. These termini have been erected at a 
 cost, it is said, of from thirty to forty millions of pounds ; 
 they are so generally known that I need not detain you with 
 particulars concerning them. 
 
 There is one remarkable fact, however, connected with the 
 railway system in London, to which I should direct your 
 attention, as being without its parallel elsewhere in this 
 country. A universal break in the lines of twelve railways 
 occurs, so that a person cannot perform the "through" journey 
 in London without leaving the rail, traversing, with luggage, 
 a great portion of a crowded metropolis, and again encounter- 
 ing all the bustle inconvenience, and loss of time, in 
 seekmg at a fresh station a recommencement of his journey. 
 
 The causes which have contributed to this state of things 
 it would be difficult to define, and equally difficult to appor- 
 tion the share of blame attaching to those to whom it is at- 
 tributable. The various railway companies, having taken up 
 their stations outside the metropohs, irrespective of any 
 relation to a contemiDlated junction at a future day, have dis- 
 played much repugnance to incurring the cost of advancing 
 their respective lines towards the centre. A Government 
 commission appointed to report upon the subject came to a 
 conclusion unfavourable to the approximation of the various 
 lines, while the same short-sighted and unenlightened policy 
 induced the Corporation of London to oppose the introduction 
 of railway-lines within their limits. But the passage of rail- 
 way-traffic through London, by some well-devised arterial 
 line, is not far distant, indeed, it cannot longer be delayed, 
 unless the traffic of the country is to be fataUy afflicted with
 
 72 
 
 aneurism of tlie heart. The effect of this interruption in the 
 line of railway transit is, in many cases, equivalent to a loss 
 of time and money which would represent a journey of sixty 
 miles by railway, and frequently necessitates a detention in 
 London of many hours. The evils which it inflicts on the 
 metropolis cannot be estimated, either as it regards time 
 and money expended, or inconvenience incurred. The 
 traffic of twelve railways, hourly poured into cabs, omnibuses, 
 and carts, traversing the streets in every direction, inflicts 
 infinite annoyance, obstructs the thoroughfares, and causes 
 an amount of wear and tear to the pavements which obhges 
 their constant reparation, although constructed of the 
 most durable materials. One well-contrived arterial connec- 
 tion of the railways north and south of the Thames would 
 efiectuaUy remove from the streets that which at present so 
 needlessly affects them. The evil has risen to its height, and 
 a remedy cannot long be delayed. There attends, happily, on 
 all these social conditions a remedial process, which puts 
 itself into action, after more or less of suffering inflicted, 
 eventually overturning opposition, rectifying that which is 
 disordered, and asserting the force of right. 
 
 We must now return to the conveyances of the metropolis 
 itself. After a reign of 200 years, the fall of the hackney- 
 coach system came at last, and not before the change was 
 both needed and desired. Cabriolets, or cabs, as they are 
 now invariably termed, were introduced from France. There 
 were 1150 on the stands of Paris, ten years before they were 
 known or seen in London. Many of us can remember the 
 old coaches, with their increasing dir*t and discomfort, thfeir 
 mouldy musty straw, broken windows, frowsy cushions, steep, 
 narrow steps, and high tottering springs. They grew worse 
 from year to year, and every one felt the need of a reform ; 
 but it was not till 1823 that licenses for cabs were first ob- 
 tained by Messrs. Bradshaw and Eotch, wbo started twelve, 
 at eightpence per mile, the hackney-coach fare being then one 
 shiQing. The new vehicles becoming popular, their number
 
 73 
 
 was subsequently increased to fifty, tlien to a hundred, and 
 in less than nine years all restriction upon their use was 
 abolished. Since their first introduction they have under- 
 gone great alterations and improvement. The first cabs ran 
 upon two wheels ; they were a species of gig, with a huge 
 leathern hood for foul weather, which, being quite open in 
 front, served as a sail to catch the wind, the driver occupying 
 the seat in the dicky at the side. Several changes ensued 
 before cabs finally assumed their present twofold form of the 
 Hansom and the Clarence. The number now employed is esti- 
 mated at 3600, and that they are an improvement upon the old 
 conveyances few will question. "At the close of 1852, the li- 
 censed cab-drivers of London amounted to 6388, the licensed 
 watermen to the stands amounted to 346, making a total of 6734; 
 with their wives and families, they probably constitute a body 
 of 25,000 individuals. To this enumeration has to be added 
 about 1000 'bucks,' or men who have been, for bad conduct, de- 
 prived of their Hcenses, and who are continually loitering about 
 the cab-stands, watching for casual employment by the regular 
 drivers. These men are notoriously addicted to drunkenness, 
 extortion, and even theft, and, from being associated with more 
 worthy and honourable men, have brought indiscriminate 
 odium upon the entire corjjs. Yery many of the ' bucks ' 
 have been in prison. Yery few of them ai-e married men ; 
 their days are generally spent in the tap-room, while they 
 mostly sleep in cabs at night. As these depraved men there- 
 fore are not recognised members of the body, although for 
 convenience occasionally employed, it is not just to visit their 
 irregularities upon the reputation of the hcensed drivers. 
 This fact, if generally known, may tend to assuage that bit- 
 terness which is so often displayed in speaking of these 
 severely-censured individuals."* There is a curious drawing 
 in the illustrated copy of Pennant, in the British Museum, 
 whence we learn that a vehicle much resembling one of the 
 modern cabs was in use some eighty years ago. It is a view 
 
 • Leisure Hour, Xo. 80.
 
 of Temple Bar, with the heads of rebels stiU blackening orer 
 the arch, and beneath it a carriage like the slice or hinder- 
 part of an omnibus, with windows in front and a door behind, 
 which is described as the carriage of the ingenious Mr. 
 Moore, who, as is observed in Knight's ' London,' was, " like 
 many other iugenious persons, before his age." 
 
 The omnihus, which now plays so prominent a part in the 
 economy of London life, is of an origin still more recent than 
 the cab. Like cabs, however, the omnibuses came from 
 France. When first started many thought them a luxury ; 
 they may now be regarded as an absolute necessary to multi- 
 tudes, on account of the distances they have daily to traverse. 
 Were the omnibuses to " strike," as did the cabs, if only for 
 a day, the business relations of the metropolis would be 
 thrown into grand confusion. Mr. Shillibeer, the patentee 
 of the improved mourning-coaches, was the introducer of this 
 cheap and popular conveyance. In his youth he was a mid- 
 shipman, afterwards studied coach-building in Long Acre, 
 dud, having attained proficiency in the art, set up in Paris as a 
 maker of English coaches, and established a driving trade, 
 being patronised by Prince Polignac and the aristocracy. 
 In 1819 omnibuses were first started in that city by M. La- 
 fitte, afterwards the minister of Louis Philippe. This induced 
 Mr. Shillibeer to think that so economical a conveyance 
 might with advantage be set up in London. Eesolved to try 
 the experiment, he, in 1829, disposed of his Parisian trade 
 a,nd came over ;* and in order that the new vehicles might 
 stand every chance of success, " and have the full prestige of 
 respectability, he brought over with hitn two youths, both the 
 sons of British naval officers, and the young gents were for a 
 few weeks his ' conductors." They were smartly dressed in 
 
 * Omnibuses had been previously tried in the English metropolis at the com- 
 mencement of the present century, but hsd been found not to answer. In an old 
 print of the Bank of England, taken about 1801, a carriage exactly like our 
 present omjiibus is represented.
 
 *blue clotli and togs.' Their addi-essing any foreigner in 
 French, and the French style of the whole affair, gave rise to 
 the opinion that ]Mr. ShiUibeer was a Frenchman, and that 
 the EngHsh were indebted to a foreigner for the improve- 
 ment of their carriage transit. His speculation was at once 
 successful. His two vehicles carried each twenty-two persons, 
 and were filled every journey. The form was that of the 
 present omnibus, but larger and roomier, as the twenty-two 
 were all accommodated inside ; no one being on the outside 
 but the driver. Three horses, yoked abreast, were used to 
 draw these carriages. For some time, until the novelty wore 
 off, there were crowds assembled to see the omnibuses start ; 
 and many ladies and gentlemen took their places in them 
 from the Bank to the Yorksliire Stingo, in order that they 
 might have the pleasure of riding back again. The fare was 
 Is. for the whole, and 6d. for half the distance, and each 
 omnibus made twelve journeys to and fro every day. Mr. 
 Shillibeer's receipts were £100 a week. At first, he provided a 
 few books, chiefly magazines, for the perusal of his customers ; 
 but this peripatetic library was discontinued in consequence 
 of the customers abstracting the books, 
 
 In a few months this enterprising man had twelve of his 
 new conveyances at work. The proprietors of the short 
 stage-coaches grumbled and complained, but finding that they 
 got but Httle sympathy they made a merit of necessity, and 
 started opposition vehicles. The frequent -litigations of the 
 proprietors, however, continued till they gradually led, in 
 many cases, to their coalition for mutual protection, as they 
 found by experience that, to them, the co-ojperative was Hkely 
 to be a more efficient principle than the competitive. Many 
 joint-stock schemes of gigantic dimensions were originated, 
 underthenames of "Conveyance Companies" or "Associations." 
 
 Many of these associations, as well as some private pro- 
 prietors, own from forty to fifty-sis omnibuses each, which 
 involve the investment of an enormous capital, as wiU be 
 evident from the fact that each omnibus costs somewhat more
 
 76 
 
 than £100, and requires ten horses to work it, which, at £20 
 each, amounts to £200, besides £30 for harness and other 
 items. This, however, is only the 2>ri me cost The aiinual 
 expediture subsequently incurred is scarcely short of £900 
 for each omnibus. There being nearly 3000 London omni- 
 buses, the aggregate original cost would reach £1,020,000, 
 while it requires a further annual outlay of no less than 
 £2,700,000 to maintain them on the streets. 
 
 " Low as omnibus fares now are," says a recent writer, 
 " there is probably expended every year by the public of the 
 metropolis the enormous sum of £3,000,000 in omnibus fares. 
 The population of the metropohs is scarcely 2,500,000 ; so 
 that there is an average expenditure of 24^. by each inhabit- 
 ant in London every year in omnibus-riding, which would 
 pay for ninety-six threepenny rides. But as many classes 
 are shut out from these conveniences, and others decline to 
 use them, the parties actually/ tm)7(/ our metropoHtan omni- 
 buses must each, on an average, expend nearly double the 
 amount specified, and have probably an average of 200 eco- 
 nomical rides during the year. This vast branch of locomo- 
 tion is, in fact, the greatest in the country next to railway 
 traffic ; and, as can be shown, even greater than that, so far 
 as the metropolis is concerned. Thirty tJiousand horses are 
 employed in connection with the London omnibuses. It 
 costs very nearly £1,000,000 each year to provide them with 
 necessary hay and straw, and more than three-fourths of that 
 sum to buy them corn. The mere shoeing of the horses may 
 be reckoned at £7800 a year, and the wear and tear of each 
 omnibus is at the rate of £50 annually. 
 
 *' The taxes paid by these carriages are also considerable- 
 Some of our readers will be surprised to learn that each Lon- 
 don omnibus pays about £108 every year for duty to Govern- 
 ment, or, in all, £324,000 annually." 
 
 The immense distances annually travelled by omnibuses 
 are equally surprising. " The average journey is six miles, 
 and that distance is, in some cases, travelled twelve times a
 
 77 
 
 day by each 'bus ; or, as it is called, ' six there and six back.' 
 Some perform the journey only ten times a day, and a few a 
 still less number of times. Now, taking the average as 
 between forty and fifty miles a day travelled by each omni- 
 bus, and computing the omnibuses daily running as 3000, we 
 find a 'travel' of say, 140,000 miles daily— or nearly a 
 million weekly— or a yearly ' travel ' of more than 50,000,000 
 of nules — an extent that almost defies a parallel in any dis- 
 tances popularly familiar. The accuracy of thi3 estimate is 
 
 proved by the sum paid to the excise for mileage 
 
 The extent of individual travel by some of the omnibus - 
 drivers is enormous. Some men drive seventy-two miles 
 every day, with the exception of twelve miles less every 
 second Sunday ; equal in six years to 155,808 miles— being 
 a distance more than six times round the globe 1 Eeckoning, 
 too, only fifteen passengers each journey, and ten journeys a 
 day, we have 150 passengers by each 'bus, or 450,000 by the 
 entire London omnibuses, which is nearly one-fifth of the 
 whole population. The gross number every week consequently 
 exceeds three millions, and during the year runs up to the 
 enormous aggregate of o/ie Am /icZretZ and fifty-six millions of 
 persons." * 
 
 The short-stages which used to run between London and 
 the subm-bs have been entirely superseded by the omnibus, 
 and there is reason to think that great improvements will 
 ere long be made ui the construction of these vehicles, both 
 as regards dimensions, hght, and ventilation. Carriages on 
 an improved model in these respects have lately been started 
 on some of the principal lines of road.f 
 
 We have thus traced the progress of British locomotion, 
 both metropolitan and provincial, from the earliest ages, and 
 the striking contrast between those times and the present 
 
 * Leisure Hour, No. 80. 
 
 t 'While improTement is anticipated in the construction of omnibuses, it is 
 earnestly to be desired that some amelioration may take place in the social and
 
 cannot fail to excite the interest and astonisliment of all. 
 We now wonder how men lived in those " good old times," 
 when the streets of London were full of perils, pits, and 
 sloughs : their silence never broken by the passing wheel ; 
 when journeys, short or long, were invariably performed on 
 horseback ; when Edinburgh was further from London than 
 are now the cities of New York or Montreal ; when there was 
 no post-office ; and when not only the locomotive, but the 
 coach — private, stage, or hackney — andeven the slow travelHng 
 waggon, were alike unknown. Yet such things were, and the 
 different circumstances under which we live should awaken 
 feelings of lively gratitude. What facilities do we enjoy for 
 affectionate intercourse with those we love, separated from 
 us by local residence, compared with what our forefathers 
 possessed ! What opportunities are afforded to aU classes for 
 a better acquaintance with the varied beauties of nature ; for 
 exchanging brick and mortar for green fields and leafy- 
 woods, the smoke of the town for the pure breath of 
 
 moral condition of that large but meritorious class, the drivers and conductors 
 of our omnibuses and cabs, who have a strong claim upon the sympathy, support, 
 and kindly aid of society. Many, indeed most of them, are in a state of degrada- 
 tion truly painftd. Their condition, and the means by which we may assist in 
 raising them, are well set forth in a work recently pubhshed : " The Million- 
 peopled City ; or, oue-half of the people of London made known to the other 
 half." By John Garwood, M.A. London: Wertheim and Macintosh. The 
 author shows that one of the most fruitful causes of their demoralization is 
 their almost universal employment on the Lord's-day. They are compelled, 
 after six days of incessant and arduous toil, either to lose that seventh day's rest, 
 to which they have an undoubted right, or to sacrifice their situations, as few of 
 their employers wiU ever concede, it and to ask it would be, in many cases, to 
 ensure dismissal; they have thus no time either for physical relaxation, mental 
 culture, moral and rehgious instruction, or social enjoyment in the bosom of their 
 families. Many deeply feel this privation ; so much so, that between 2000 or 3000 
 recently signed a petition against the opening of the Crystal Palace on Sundays, 
 doubtless apprehending it would increase their Sunday toil. The condition of the 
 omnibus-men is, in these respects, worse than that of the cab-drivers, for the 
 running of omnibuses on the Sunday is more general than the use of cabs, 
 because it is more profitable, while the labour of the men is usually more severe 
 and oppressive. These facts should be borne constantly in mind, especially by 
 those who needlessly and inconsiderately employ these vehicles on the Lord's-day.
 
 79 
 
 heaven ! Wliat a wonderful change in the moral aspect of 
 society has resulted from the prompt and almost perfect 
 system of communication now established. The laws are less 
 cruel, because their administration is effective. Instead of 
 the nation being divided into the two classes of high and low, 
 the noble and the peasant — the second class the serfs and 
 vassals of the first — we have a numerous and influential 
 middle class, possessed of wealth and education, the fruits of 
 industry and commercial enterprise, constituting the main 
 bulwark of the nation's liberties ; many of the members of 
 this class possessed of Christian principle are foremost in 
 those works of philanthropy which have raised Britain to a 
 position unequalled in the previous history of the world. 
 The greater part of these blessings we owe, under God, to 
 those inventions that have hroicght men together, and by so 
 doing have dispelled the mists of prejudice, given an impulse 
 to inquiry, advanced learning, trade, and commerce, and 
 promoted the diffusion of Christian truth. The enmity 
 of adjoining nations is in course of mitigation, from the same 
 facilities of transit, leading to abetter acquaintance with each 
 other, and an interchange of visits and acts of courtesy on 
 the parts of the inhabitants. The poet of fifty years ago 
 would not now write with the same degree of truth — 
 
 " Nations divided by a narrow frith 
 Abhor each other ; mountains interposed 
 Make enemies of nations." 
 
 The railway and the steam-boat and the telegi'aph are 
 rapidly effacing the barriers which once divided enemies, but 
 which are henceforth, we trust, scarcely to separate friends ; 
 while a portion of the press labours unceasingly to set neigh- 
 bouring nations by the ears, while the laugh goes merrily 
 forward against those who labour to promote peace, while 
 peace-makers are disagreed as to the best means of procuring 
 that inestimable blessing, the cause of peace and good-will 
 is forwarded by each loaded train or freighted boat whose 
 engine pants towards its destination.
 
 80' 
 
 We certainly liave no right to say tliat " the former days 
 ■were better than these," and if, like the complainers of all 
 ages, we should say so, it wonld prove nothing bnt our own 
 ignorance, and uni'ellecting insensibility to the superior privi- 
 leges we enjoy. 
 
 Not only in Great Britain, but beyond her territories, by 
 sea and by land, vast progress is making as it regards facili- 
 ties of locomotion. Gigantic schemes of ocean traffic are in pro- 
 cess of accomplishment ;* mighty trunk lines are projected, 
 which will unite, in the bands of mutual intercourse and 
 interest, vast races of men now separated by the barriers of 
 an arbitrary geography ; and as these extend, and other 
 agencies are brought into activity, for the communion of 
 peoples, men will, or at least should, learn the great lesson 
 that they are the children of a common father, brethren of 
 one great family, and heirs of the same destiny ; and that 
 their highest happiness is to be promoted by the diffusion 
 throughout the world of the Gospel of the " Prince of Peace," 
 who came to render possible " Peace on earth, as weU as good- 
 will towards men." Willingly would we say with the poet — 
 
 " Lay down your rails, ye nations, near and far ; 
 Toke your full trains to steam's triumphal car ; 
 Link town to town , and in these iron bands 
 Unite the strange and oft-embattled lands. 
 Peace and improTement round each train shaU soar. 
 And knowledge hght the ignorance of yore ; — 
 Men, join'd in amity, shall wonder long 
 That state had power to lead their fathers wrong ; 
 Or that false glory lured their hearts astray. 
 And made it virtuous and sublime to slay." 
 
 *The subject ofNaval Locomotionhas been necessarily omittedintheselectures, 
 and is of suflicient importance to claim a book to itself; the projected schemes ia 
 this respect are so vast, moreover, that it is but fair to wait until they have been 
 afforded opportunity for development. The writer upon the progress of this 
 department, whoever he may be, will have to chronicle shortly greater things 
 than have been written of locomotion on land.

 
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