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RAMBLES ON RAILWAYS.

With Maps, Diagrams, and Appendices

BY

SIR CUSACK P. RONEY,

B.A. TRIN. COLL. DUB., L.R.C.S.I.

LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON.

1868.

All Rights Reserved.

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PREFACE.

Just as the Author was completing the last of the following pages, he was seized with very serious illness. It has delayed their production two months beyond the time originally advertised. Meanwhile, several changes have taken place, which, though not of much importance, may be briefly referred to. Thus, Mr. Anthony Trollope, mentioned at page 104 as amongst the literary men connected with the Post Office, has, since that page was printed off, ceased to be an officer of the department.

Some trifling errors must also be mentioned; thus, at note of page 211, the length of Australian railways is stated at 480 miles, whereas it should have been 669, as set forth at page 307. Page 212; it is stated that the Euston portico is not used by anybody, whereas empty cabs, having set down their fares, go through it. Page 359; the name of the Secretary of the Palestine Fund is “Grove” not “Groves.” Page 390, line 27; the St. John’s Wood Railway terminates at 1 mile and 1,320 yards from Baker Street, and then the Hampstead Extension will commence with a gradient of 1 in 27. Page 423, line 11; for “Lowe” read “Love.”

The most important correction to be made has reference to pages 149 and 150, relating to the railway capital raised, traffic receipts, and net earnings for 1865. When the words in the text were written the complete returns of the Board of Trade had not been published, and the Author assumed that the debenture and preferential capital was greater in amount than it really[iv] is. The reader is, therefore, requested to take the subjoined analysis of the railway capital of the United Kingdom, extracted from the City article of the Times, of October 29th, 1867, as containing an exact statement of the several portions into which that capital was divided on the 31st of December, 1865, and to substitute it for the statements in the text as given in the before mentioned pages. If the traffic accounts, as published by the railway companies, be really correct, and that capital has not been improperly charged with items that should, in reality, be attributable to revenue, the dividends on unguaranteed capital are better, as a whole, than the Author assumed them to be.

“The complete railway returns of the Board of Trade for the year ended the 31st of December, 1865, have just been printed. They are full and elaborate, and would furnish excellent means for estimating the prospects of the enormous property involved, were it not for the drawback of their being issued so long after the period to which they refer. The leading features of the tables now presented may be summarised as follows:—At the end of 1865 the total ordinary capital of the railways of the United Kingdom was £219,598,196. Of this total £183,450,460 was represented by companies paying dividends, and £36,147,736, by companies (chiefly the Great Eastern and London and Chatham) not paying dividends, the latter including £12,849,590 for lines not yet opened. Setting aside the unopened lines, and reckoning only the capital of those at work—namely, £206,748,606—the average rate of distribution was £4. 11s. 5d. per cent., a satisfactory return could an assumption be safely made that it had not been in any degree paid out of capital. The result would have been still better but for the extent to which the average rate is reduced by the circumstance of the profits of the Scotch and Irish being below those of the English lines. The English rate was £4. 14s. 10d. per cent., while the Scotch was £4. 9s. 5d., and the Irish only £2. 16s. 8d. The lowest dividend disbursed by any of the English dividend-paying companies (57 in number) was by the Cromford and High Peak, which on an ordinary capital of £127,700 distributed 8s.[v] per cent. for the year, while the highest was £11. 2s. 6d., by the Lancaster and Carlisle on an ordinary capital of £2,420,300. The main cause of the respectable average of the English dividends is found, however, in the payment of £6. 12s. 6d. per cent. by the London and North-Western on an ordinary capital of £23,378,987; of £6. 15s. per cent. by the Midland, on £10,862,067; and of £7. 2s. 6d. per cent. by the Great Northern, on £6,455,584. At the same time there is an item which must now be regarded as fictitious, of £5. 15s. per cent., by the Brighton line, on an ordinary capital of £5,342,933. Of 19 dividend-paying lines in Scotland, the lowest was the Carlisle and Silloth Bay, 10s. per cent., and the highest was the Kilmarnock and Troon, £9. 5s. per cent., the ordinary capital of the latter being only £40,000. In this list the Caledonian figures for £7. 2s. 6d. on an ordinary capital of £4,141,254. Of 11 dividend-paying lines in Ireland, the lowest was the Waterford and Limerick, 15s. per cent., and the highest the Dublin and Kingstown, 9 per cent. The preferential capital of the railways of the United Kingdom was £124,263,475, and upon this the average rate paid (reckoning a sum of £8,455,279, on which the companies were unable to distribute anything) was £4. 7s. 9d. per cent. The total of the debenture stock, or funded debt of the railways in the United Kingdom, was only £13,795,375, and on this the average rate paid was £4. 2s. per cent., while the debenture loans, subject to renewal, and which in times of pressure must always be a cause of danger, amounted to £97,821,097, at an average rate of £4. 8s. 5d. per cent. The total paid-up capital of all kinds stood at £455,478,143.”

The Author had thought, that in tracing tunnels to the time of the erection of Babylon, he had gone as far backward as it was possible to extend research on this subject. It appears, however, that he was mistaken, for, during a visit that he paid to Paris just before his illness, he lighted, in Galignani, upon the following extraordinary paragraph, which is given in extenso, exactly as he found it.

“Antiquity of Man.—A most singular and unexpected discovery[vi] has just occurred at Chaguay, Department of the Soane et Loire, by some workmen. Engrossed in digging the foundations of a railway shed, at the depth of about ten yards, in a stratum of muddy clay and ferruginous oxides, remains of proboscians (elephants, rhinoceroses, &c.), were brought to light, comprising several back teeth and a formidable tusk, in large fragments, which, on being put together, constituted a length of seven feet. The depth at which this was found was more than six yards, higher than the level of the most considerable inundations of the Dheune, and in an undisturbed stratum. So far, there is nothing absolutely extraordinary, but who would have thought of finding, underneath the bed containing these fossils of the tertiary period, an aqueduct of the most primitive kind of human workmanship? Yet such is the case, and it is the only case of the kind on record. It is explained by M. Tremaux, who relates the circumstance, by the supposition—what seems indeed to have been the fact—that the tertiary fragments above alluded to had been pushed into the trench by a violent inundation, and thus filled up the aqueduct. The discovery of this aqueduct does not by any means authorise us to carry the antiquity of man as far back as the tertiary period, for, although the aqueduct lies under a stratum of tertiary formation, this stratum does not belong to the place, but was transported thither at a later period.”

One step from that period, whatever it was, to Anno Christi 1867. During the visit above referred to, the Author was afforded the opportunity, by M. Mouton, the eminent French contractor, of an inspection of the plans of the proposed Paris Underground Railway, which it is hoped will be commenced before the expiration of 1868. The course of the line is from Long Champs Race-course, beside the Seine, near Paris, underneath the Bois de Boulogne, thence to Arc de l’Etóile, from there almost in a straight line along the Champs Elysées, the Rue de Rivoli, the Rue St. Antoine, to the Chemins de Fer de Vincennes, thence to the Mazas Station of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Railway. Branches are given off from the main line just described, right and left, so as to form a complete underground connection between[vii] all the Railway Termini of Paris. There will be one bridge over the Seine, and one tunnel under it. The total length of the railway and branches will be 23 kilometres, of which about 18 will be in tunnel or covered way.

It only remains for the Author to express the sense of deep obligation which he feels to his numerous railway friends for the kindness and promptitude with which they have afforded him information upon every point upon which he sought it from them. It had been his wish to enumerate specially the names of all these gentlemen, and it is a source of much regret to him that the limited space allowed for the Preface prevents his performing this act of grateful recognition. To Mr. William Haywood, the Engineer of the Corporation of London; to Mr. John Fowler, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers; and to other members of the profession, he is also much indebted. He ventures likewise to tender his respectful thanks to George Graham, Esq., the Registrar-General, for the great kindness and courtesy with which he replied to several questions relating to populations; and the expression of the same feeling is due to Mr. Juland Danvers, the Government Director of Indian Railways, from whom information was sought on several occasions.

The Author has by him materials for another volume of “Rambles on Railways,” (relating principally to the railway networks of Foreign countries), which may probably be published in the course of the present year.

London,

January 1868.

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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.	PAGE
Travelling Two Hundred and One Hundred Years ago—The Liverpool and Manchester Railway—The First Locomotive, “Rocket”—The Grand Junction, London and Birmingham, and Birmingham and Manchester Railways—The Midland Railway—Early Gradients, Increase in their Steepness and in the Power of the Locomotive—The Carriage Road-way Passes of the Alps—Mountains of the World—The Sœmmering and Brenner Railways—The Route between London and Paris	1
CHAPTER II.
Union Pacific Railroad—South Austrian and Alta Italia—Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean—Orleans—Mileage, Cost, and Receipts of French Railways—London Traffic—London and North-Western Railway	17
CHAPTER III.
Railways of the United Kingdom—Coal and Iron	40
CHAPTER IV.
Railways and the Post Office—Speed on Railways	73
CHAPTER V.
Railways and the Post Office—continued	115
CHAPTER VI.
Railway Receipts, Working Expenses, and Profits in the United Kingdom— Delays and Accidents	147
CHAPTER VII.[x]
Horses and Engines—Crewe	186
CHAPTER VIII.
A Journey on the Locomotive	210
CHAPTER IX.
Indian Railways	245
CHAPTER X.
Canadian and Australian Railways—The Railways of other British Colonies	301
CHAPTER XI.
Paris to St. Michel—“Above Sea-Level”—The Holborn Viaduct—The Mont Cenis Railway	316
CHAPTER XII.
Tunnels, Ancient and Modern	358
CHAPTER XIII.
The Great Tunnel of the Alps—Tunnel Ventilation—Ventilation in the Metropolitan Railway	401
CHAPTER XIV.
Italy—The Eastern Mails—Sicily	427

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[xi]

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX, No. 1.	PAGE
Report by Mr. Edward Page, Inspector-General of Mails, on some points connected with the relations between the Post Office Department and Railway Companies	439
APPENDIX, No. 2.
Reply of Robert Stephenson, Esq., M.P., President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, to Observations in the Second Report of the Postmaster-General. Delivered at the Meeting of May 20th, 1856	454
APPENDIX, No. 3.
Copy of Letter Addressed to a Member of the Italian Parliament upon the Importance of the Eastern Mails, now despatched viâ Marseilles and viâ Southampton, being transmitted viâ Brindisi	482
INDEX	501

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MAPS AND DIAGRAMS.

	PAGE
Routes from London to Brindisi by the Mont Cenis and the Brenner	14
Plan of the Harbour and Town of Brindisi	15
Map of the United States and the Union Pacific Railroad	17
Map of India and of Indian Railways	245
Gradients of Holborn Hill and Snow Hill, London	322
A Centre-Rail Engine and Train ascending a steep Gradient and going round a sharp Curve	334
Patent Centre-Rail Engine—Front Elevation	337
Map of the Underground Metropolitan Railway, London	387
Section of the Metropolitan Line	388
Section of Mr. Remmington’s Proposed Tunnel between France and England	399
The Great Tunnel of the Alps	401
Section of the Mont Cenis Railway	401

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RAMBLES ON RAILWAYS.

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CHAPTER I.

TRAVELLING TWO HUNDRED AND ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO—THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY—THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE, “ROCKET”—THE GRAND JUNCTION, LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM, AND BIRMINGHAM AND MANCHESTER RAILWAYS—THE MIDLAND RAILWAY—EARLY GRADIENTS, INCREASE IN THEIR STEEPNESS AND IN THE POWER OF THE LOCOMOTIVE—THE CARRIAGE ROAD-WAY PASSES OF THE ALPS—MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD—THE SŒMMERING AND BRENNER RAILWAYS—THE ROUTE BETWEEN LONDON AND PARIS.

When, in 1672, Madame de Sevigny wrote of a journey she had just made from Paris to Marseilles, she was able to inform her correspondent that she had completed it, with great satisfaction to herself, in a month. She travelled over 530 miles of ground; she was therefore able to get over some seventeen to eighteen miles a day. The courier that brought Madame de Sevigny’s letter from Marseilles to Paris travelled twice as fast as she had done. He was only a fortnight on the road. In that year the course of post[2] between London and Edinburgh—130 miles less distance than between Paris and Marseilles—was two months: one month going with a letter, and one month coming back with the answer. Ninety years afterwards the one stage-coach between London and Edinburgh started once a month from each city. But in nine-tenths of a century, speed had been accelerated. It only took a fortnight on the road in each direction. Seventy-five years afterwards—that is, in 1837—the year before any portion of railway between the two capitals was opened for traffic, the mail-coach completed its 400 miles in forty-two hours, or one day eighteen hours. Now-a-days, our limited mail (one of the few “limited” associations of very modern date that has not come to grief) is 7½ hours less time over the road than eighteen hours; and by the time the one day in addition has expired, a course of post from Edinburgh to London, and back again from London to Edinburgh, will have been nearly completed.

On the 14th of September, 1830, we opened our first passenger railway in England worked by the locomotive. The line, thirty-one miles long, was then called the Liverpool and Manchester, but it has long since become part and parcel of the London and North-Western Company. Although the railway between Birmingham and Liverpool was first projected so far back as 1824, its construction was not sanctioned by Parliament until 1833, and it was not completed for traffic until the 6th of July, 1837. The then London and Birmingham Company also got its act of incorporation in 1833, but, owing to the difficult nature of many of its works, and the time required for their construction, it was only on the 20th of September, 1838, that Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham were completely connected with London by railway.

[3]

Several of the railways now constituting portions of the Midland Railway Company obtained their acts of incorporation in 1836. These lines, when amalgamated in 1844, comprised 181 miles. On the 1st of September, 1867, the mileage of the Midland Company was 695; and since the 1st of that month the important section between London and Bedford (forty-two miles long) was opened for goods traffic, thus making its present total working length, 737 miles.

By degrees, and notwithstanding the severe blow given to railway enterprise by the over-speculation of 1844-5, the net-work of British railways increased. On the 1st of January, 1843, there were 1,857 miles open for traffic; at the same date of 1849 they had increased to 5,007 miles; on the 1st of January, 1855, they were 8,054 miles; eight years afterwards, that is, on the 1st of January, 1863, they were 11,551; that day twelve months they were 12,322; on the 1st of January, 1865, they were 12,780; 1st January, 1866, 13,289; 1st of January, 1867, 13,882.[1]

We shall refer to the progress of the railway system on the continent of Europe and elsewhere hereafter.

Part of the heavy cost of the earlier railways was no doubt[4] due to the apprehension of engineers on the subject of gradients. And in the then state of our knowledge as regards the powers of the locomotive, this is not to be wondered at. Our first constructed lines had most favourable gradients. The rise from Camden Town to Tring, 1 in 200, or 26 feet in the mile for 31 miles, was considered by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson as the maximum gradient that ought to be ventured upon. Joseph Locke, more daring and venturous, and perhaps more prescient, ventured upon 1 in 100, or 52 feet in the mile for 10 miles; this is on what is known as the Whitmore incline, between Stafford and Crewe. Bucke, the engineer of the line from Crewe to Manchester, originally known as the Manchester and Birmingham, which obtained its act of incorporation in the same year as the Grand Junction, although it was five years later in its opening, determined upon a course the opposite of that which Locke had taken. Bucke therefore made his thirty-one miles nearly level, and no doubt (if we except the exceptional Great Western) there is not a line in England that comprises works better laid out as regards gradient, or more solidly finished than those we are now referring to.

There is a capital run of railway between York and Darlington, forty-four miles, almost level, and nearly straight. It was on this line that, just twenty years ago, most of the experiments and trials were made, instituted to vindicate the narrow gauge as the best for carrying on the traffic of the country. These trials formed one of the many phases of the great battle of the gauges, fought so vigorously by its champions on each side; yet, in the short space of the fifth of a century, how many of these then active and doughty men have passed away from us for ever.

By degrees, as the railway system progressed, we made[5] less flat gradients, and we made larger and more powerful locomotives. The result from the action of these two elements has been, that in present times we have got here and there to gradients of 1 in 45, 112 feet in the mile, more than four times as steep as Stephenson’s incline between Tring and Camden. It was on the 6th of October, 1829, that George Stephenson’s engine, “Rocket,” was first tried on a short length of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in the presence of thousands, poured in from the adjacent country. Since then the weight of the engine has risen tenfold, from six tons to sixty; its speed not quite three-fold, from twenty miles an hour to something under sixty. Additional weight has been essentially used for overcoming stiff gradients. The stiffest, as has just been said, 1 in 45, with a moderate load; a Titanic locomotive, unfettered with any weights behind her, can go up 1 in 25, or 211 feet in the mile; no steeper.[2]

But this rate of inclination, of 1 in 45, acquired on some few elevated ridges, as will be seen presently, at an enormous cost, was incapable of general application. Nevertheless, railways had hardly been established on low lands before men’s minds ran upon constructing them over mountains. It is now fully twenty years since the first idea of placing an iron road upon the bed of one or more of the carriage roadway passes of the Alps was promulgated. Of course it found favour, and created interest. Nor can this be matter[6] of wonder when we remember that communication across them has, for centuries, been of world-wide importance. Even if we study the traces that still exist of man’s earliest history in mid and southern Europe, we find that the passage of the great barrier which for more than 500 miles separates north from south, had occupied men’s thoughts and actions from the remotest period. Etruscan tools, coins, and sacred images, have, as we learn from Dr. Ferdinand Keller’s recent work on the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, been found frequently and in abundance, not only on the northern slopes of the actual Alps, but far northward beyond them. We know too, that the ancient Helvites and Gauls were ever seeking the traverse of the snow-capped mountains, that they might exchange their own cold and sterile plains for those on the sunny side, which gave them warmth and luxurious cultivation. By degrees, the early few, savage, daring, and intrepid, increased in numbers; they became masses,—they became colonies. They obtained possession of, and held the districts which in modern times we knew as Venetia, Lombardy, and Savoy; but now they form the northern boundaries of undivided Italy.

In the early Roman period, the northern limit of Roman territory extended to the Po, and no farther. Beyond was Cisalpeà, and so it continued until Augustus Cæsar Imperator finally subdued, some thirty years before the birth of Christ, the whole of the warlike tribes, and brought them under Roman subjection. History records but one solitary instance of the vanquished erecting a monument to do honour to their conqueror. This was at Susa, and the inscription on the Porta Cæsaris Augusti tells us why it was erected, and what deed it was intended to perpetuate.

Hannibal’s was the first army that made a passage across[7] the Alps, but the exact part at which he effected it is still matter of historic doubt. The balance of worthful opinion is however strongly in favour of its being by what we now call the Pass of the Little St. Bernard. The army would appear not to have been subjected to great difficulties in reaching its summit, notwithstanding that the 19th of October is believed to be the day on which the ascent was commenced, but the horrors to which his hourly thinned ranks were exposed, all occurred after they had attained the summit, and were within sight of the plains in which the autumnal foliage still spread a rich and glowing landscape before them. That some few of the army of ninety elephants with which Hannibal started from Spain completed the Alpine traverse is more than probable, but that one accomplished it is undoubted, for we have it on record that the Carthaginian General crossed the marshes of Clusium (which will be traversed by the railway train of the new and comparatively shorter line between Florence and Rome, to be opened for traffic a few months hence) upon the only elephant that was still spared to him.

Brockedon, whose illustrated work on Alpine Passes was published in 1828, states that there were ten passes traversable as carriage roads. The actual number has not been added to since then, but the trackway along many of the other passes has been greatly improved, and many, that at that period were only dangerous and very narrow mule paths, have now become available for chars, and possess other facilities and accommodation for traversing them that were quite unknown forty years ago. A very brief recapitulation of them may not be inappropriate. More full details of them can be obtained in The Alps and the Eastern Mails, a little work which we published a few months ago.

[8]

Commencing at the extreme west, we find the Col di Tenda, an easy pass for three-fourths of its ascent, when the mountain abruptly assumes a cone-like shape, and in a space of some two miles and a-half, rises on one side 1,200 feet. The descent on the other is of nearly equal length, and is nearly equally precipitous. Next comes Mont Genevre, the lowest of the Alpine passes that verge upon the Mediterranean. It is but a short giant’s step from Mont Genevre to the Mont Cenis. Next after, comes the Little St. Bernard, perhaps the easiest of all the passes over the Alps that connect important places together, for the construction of a carriage roadway. Napoleon, however, did not view it in this light, his great roads, being the Mont Cenis and the Simplon. Before we reach this last-named pass, we have that of the Great St. Bernard, one of the loftiest in the whole range, being in immediate proximity to the three highest mountains in Europe, Mont Blanc, 15,732 feet above the level of the sea, Mont Rosa, 15,130 feet, and Mont Cezvin, 14,835 feet.[3] It was by the Great St. Bernard that[9] Napoleon crossed with an army from Switzerland into Italy, in the winter of 1800, and, by a fall from his mule, narrowly escaped being hurled from the precipice of St. Pierre into the abyss beneath it.

Next after the Simplon comes the St. Gothard, and then[10] the Lukmanier, although this last can hardly be called a carriage roadway pass. Further east is the Bernardino. The easternmost pass between Switzerland and Italy, is the Splugen. There are as many as twenty passes available for mules and pedestrians between the Splugen and the next carriage road across the Alps, but they are only to be traversed by the knapsack tourist, who combines within himself vigorous health, activity, and endurance.

[11]

The Stelvio, the highest carriage road in Europe, 9,272 feet at its summit above the level of the sea, is, at that point, nearly 400 feet higher than the line of perpetual snow. It was constructed by the Austrians to give them direct access from Austria proper to Lombardy. The object in making it was political and military, not commercial; and now that not only Lombardy, but Venetia have become Italian, it is probable that a road, which in magnificence of conception and in grandeur of construction, exceeds even the Simplon, and which could only be maintained at great annual cost, will fall into decay.[4] For all the practical purposes of commerce it is useless, as within a short distance from it is the Brenner, the oldest, and at the same time the lowest carriage road across any of the Alpine passes. It has, in fact, been for centuries the trackway that has connected eastern and southern Germany with Lombardy and Venetia. It likewise can lay claim to the distinction of being the first pass that was made fit for the transport of carriages and of other vehicles, for it was certainly available for them, and was a good carriage road in the early part of the eighteenth[12] century. It was just one hundred years later, that is in 1809, that those deeds of daring and devotion were achieved in the defiles of the Brenner, which have rendered undying the name and fame of Andreas Hofer.

With all Austria’s arrierreism in politics, she is in the foremost rank of continental nations, as regards the world’s modern civiliser, the Railway. She was next after Belgium in determining upon their construction, and although Prussia anticipated her as regards actual opening, railway works have been accomplished within the Austrian dominions, the like of which cannot be seen within those of her great rival, no matter whether these dominions belong to her de jure divino, or by that of conquest.

To Austria, undoubtedly, belongs the honour of having constructed the first, which until the 18th of August, 1867, was the only iron road traversed by the locomotive through an Alpine pass. At a heavy expense it is true, for the cost of the double line over the Sœmmering was at the rate of £98,000 an English mile. The great line of railway which connects Vienna with its sea port Trieste, now more important and valuable to Austria than ever, is 362 miles long; and at Glognitz, exactly forty-seven miles from Vienna, the pass commences. Although the actual distance from one foot of the pass to the other is not more than sixteen miles, the length of the railway, owing to the numerous twists and zig-zags it was necessary to make to overcome the elevation with gradients that the engine could climb up, is twenty-six miles. Yet, in this short distance, there are no less than twelve tunnels and eleven vaulted galleries, the aggregate length of which is 14,867 feet, or nearly three miles. The longest tunnel—4,695 feet—is at the summit, which is 2,893 feet above the level of the sea. The gradients vary from 1 in[13] 40 for two miles and a-half to 1 in 54 for three miles and a-half. The average gradient is 1 in 47 on the north side, and 1 in 50 on the south. The foot of the mountain is 1,562 feet above the sea. The elevation to overcome was, therefore, only an average of 112 feet to the mile; nevertheless the difficulties in working the traffic have been very great. It was a considerable time before the present form of engine was adopted by M. Engerth, the locomotive engineer of the line. Its total heating surface is 1,660 square feet, its total weight, when filled with water and loaded with fuel, is fifty-five tons and a-half. This unfortunately is a weight most destructive both to rail and to roadway. The cost per train mile run averages 6s. 2d. the English mile down the pass as well as up it, whilst the average cost on the ordinary portions of the line is under 3s. per English mile. The time allowed for passenger trains is one hour and fifty minutes, being an average of fourteen miles an hour; for goods trains, two hours thirty minutes, or at the average rate of about ten miles an hour.

There was until just recently, a race running between the engineers at the Brenner and at the Mont Cenis, and it was, until the beginning of August, 1867, uncertain which of them would have the honour of being the second railway upon which the locomotive had crossed the Alps. But the Brenner has won by a length of eight days. The two lines differ in several respects, both as regard construction and working. The Brenner does not take a portion of the existing road for its road-bed. This is formed in the ordinary mode of construction; the company has made its own bridges, culverts, and viaducts, its own embankments and cuttings, its own tunnels and galleries, and in this way it has succeeded in constructing a railway of much less elevation at its summit[14] than the adjacent carriage roadway. It has done so, however, at great cost, but it is anticipated that the saving in working charges will more than compensate for the additional outlay which this species, as it were, of independent construction has rendered unavoidable. The line will be worked on the ordinary system, that is, with engines and other rolling stock similar to those on the plain, with the exception that the engines must and will be of great additional weight, to give them the power and adhesion required to overcome the very severe gradients they will have to contend against. “The opening of the Brenner Railway,” says the Times, “places not only Austria, but Bavaria and all Southern Germany, almost in contact with Lombardy, Venetia, and all Northern Italy. It recovers all the importance that the Brenner Pass possessed from the remotest Roman and Germanic ages, as the most direct and easy route across the main Alpine chain, as the natural highway from the Valley of the Inn, to that of the Adige, and which constituted it the key to the strong position of the March of Verona, which the Germans, from its erection into an imperial fief, under Otho I, in the 10th century, denominated ‘the Gate of Italy.’”[5]

p14

p15

[15]

Previous to describing the Mont Cenis Railway, we will ask the reader to place himself mentally with us in the train belonging to one or other of the two railway companies which, leaving the great British metropolis at four different points, Charing Cross or Cannon Street (South Eastern), Victoria or Ludgate Hill (London, Chatham and Dover), arrives by either route at a point common to both—the Admiralty Pier, Dover, in two hours and five minutes from the time of its departure. The South Eastern Company carries the land mails, both ordinary and extraordinary, as well as the bulk of the passengers; on the other hand, its rival carrying fewer passengers, and the distance being ten miles less, almost invariably arrives first at the Admiralty Pier, and thus enables those whom she (ships, trains, and locomotives are of the feminine gender) conveys, to secure some of the sofas, reclined upon which, the ceremony of seasickness can (as we know well, by great and varied experience) be performed with far greater ease, grace, precision, and satisfaction, than by him or her who is destined to perform it sitting or standing. At the time that the traveller touches terra firma at Calais, he has completed 110 miles of journeying, if he have travelled by the South Eastern Line, ten miles less, if he have committed himself to the London, Chatham and Dover. The original railway distance from Calais to Paris was 236 English miles, but thanks to two shortenings, the first between Creil and Paris, the second[16] between Hazebrouch and Arras, by which latter the detour to the neighbourhood of Lille was avoided, the length was diminished to 203 miles; and now, since the opening of the line between Calais and Boulogne, in April of the present year, the mail trains take this route to and from Paris, by which a further saving of seventeen miles is obtained, making the present distance between Calais and Paris 186 miles.

Our mental traveller having arrived at Paris, will need a pause, and whilst he is supposed to be refreshing himself, with a good dinner, at one of the innumerable restaurants to be met with at every corner, we will ask permission to occupy the time by giving, in the first instance, an epitome of the story of four great giants of modern times—the four longest and most important railways that science, practical skill, and money have as yet created on the European side of the Atlantic; and then we propose to show, by a general reference, how wonderfully and rapidly the railway system has already extended, and still continues to extend, in various parts of the globe. Eventually, most railways will have to yield the palm—at all events, as regards wonderful accomplishment—to the Great Pacific Railway, to which, therefore, we beg leave to accord precedence in our descriptions.

p17

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CHAPTER II.

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD—SOUTH AUSTRIAN AND ALTA ITALIA—PARIS, LYONS, AND MEDITERRANEAN—ORLEANS—MILEAGE, COST, AND RECEIPTS OF FRENCH RAILWAYS—LONDON TRAFFIC—LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY.

From the day that the Americans became masters of California, they had always had it in their heads to join it by the best possible roadway to the old states of the Union; and it was a grand conception, for the distance between the railways of the valleys of the Mississippi and the Missouri, that here had stretched their arms outwards towards the West, were still separated from the Pacific by fully 2,000 miles—as near as can be the distance which intervenes between St. Petersburg and Lisbon. Fremont—then captain, now general—a few years back nearly President of the Republic—son-in-law of Benton, one of America’s most worthy sons—traversed, with a few companions, in 1847, the desert that led to the Rocky Mountains, found out the passes through them, as well as those of the Sierra Nevada (the Snowy Mountain), and arrived in California just as his countrymen were taking possession of its territory. It was at the same time that the first golden nugget was discovered. The news spread, and a party of emigrants followed Fremont’s footmarks. Those who arrived in California left the bones of many of their comrades to whiten and then to moulder in the desert, and it was nearly six months before the survivors reached the El dorado. Similar casualties beset the parties that followed the first gold-seeking pioneers, for the same spirit which makes every American believe that he[18] may be President of the United States (therefore no American ever commits suicide), made each survivor of each party, as its ranks were thinned by famine, fever, and the attacks of the Red Indians, believe that he, at all events, would be spared and arrive at last at his destination.

But some did arrive, and by degrees the perils of the route diminished, although they have never, even at this day, altogether ceased. In less than ten years from the date that Fremont first set out on his expedition, a regular Overland Mail had been established, which completed its journey between San Francisco and St. Joseph, both for passengers and despatches, in three weeks. A grand total distance of fully 2,000 miles, on the average 100 miles in each twenty-four hours, of course some days more some days less, for independent of nature’s road on the desert, no less than two mountain passes had to be surmounted, and on these there was not, in the first instance, even a bridle-way. This pace, however, was considered too slow, at all events as regards correspondence. The “Pony Express” was thereupon inaugurated in 1860, by which time the system of eastern railways had extended 400 miles more towards the west than what they were in 1858, consequently diminishing roadway distance to 1,600 miles. This ground was got over in the marvellously brief time of six days, or at the go-a-head, we might almost add “helter skelter,” rate of 265 miles a-day! The rider performed no greater journey each day than his horse. The latter set off on a gallop and never ceased his fifteen to twenty miles, except when, as occasionally, although not frequently, happened, Red Skin stopped the way, sent the rider to his long account, and then quietly rode off on the dead man’s horse, which he claimed as his trophy. On the 12th of November, 1860, the courier rode[19] into San Francisco with news from Europe of no longer date than the previous 21st of October. Even this speed did not satisfy; the telegraph was therefore laid the whole way across the American continent; and now, thanks to the Atlantic Cable, and to difference of longitude, the merchant of London can tell his correspondent at San Francisco, events that have happened twelve hours before the same hour has arrived in California. Unfortunately, however, for California, notwithstanding that the normal speed of electro-telegraphy is 280,000 miles a second, she is unable to let us know her news here in less than some twenty-four hours after its occurrence.

In 1862 President Lincoln signed the Act of Congress for “The Union Pacific Railroad Company.” Forthwith its works were commenced. Where? At two points:—The eastern, at Omaha, near the confluence of the Missouri River, with that of the Platte, or Nebraska, in the state of Nebraska, latitude 41° north, longitude 19° west, of Washington. The line follows the course of the river to the Rocky Mountains, which it climbs up until not far from the summit of the Bridger Pass, due west of Omaha. A tunnel not more than 500 yards in length carries the line into Utah. In this territory it passes by Salt Lake and Salt Lake City, head-quarters of Brigham Young and his Mormons; thence to the state of Nevada, as rich in silver-yielding mines as those in California are in supplying gold. No wonder, then, that its capital—Carson City—should now have a population of 15,000, although, seven years ago, there was not even one inhabitant to boast of. At the passage of the Sierra Nevada there will also be a tunnel 500 yards long. Thence to Sacramento, and from there, it will wend its way close to the river of the same name, and find itself at[20] San Francisco. This is not only its extreme western, but it is also its extreme southern point, for, in coming west from the Bridger Pass, the latitude changes from 41° to 38° 20″; and it is from San Francisco that the western works commence and proceed easterly to meet, at some point as yet uncertain, those advancing in the opposite direction. They are already at the eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains, 500 miles from Omaha; and on the Pacific side, they have reached the western slopes of the Sierra. Therefore, already more than a third of the whole line is accomplished. On the plain, progress is made at a rate that would astonish the European engineer, for the Americans are satisfied with the road bed such as nature has made it; and thus it is no uncommon thing to lay 2½ miles of the railway in a single day! As the road advances, so do the locomotive and the train, but not always with the most perfect safety, for the Indians have now learned to do wholesale what they only did isolately upon the riders of the Pony Expresses,—witness the following paragraph from the Times of no later date than August 31 of the present year:—

[21]

No doubt the alarm is general along the line, but it will die out, for as a writer in the Revue des deux Mondes, to whom we are indebted for many of the facts we have just stated, says:—“En beaucoup d’endroits, le terrain a êté si bien nivelé par la nature, qu’ ou ne voit de quel coté il penche, et que les rails se posent sans aucune fouille sur le sol. Pas de grandes riviers a franchir, pas de torrens impetueux a dompter. Le seul enemi de la voie, est que sur quelques points, heureusement isolés, du desert, ou manquent l’eau et le bois, domine le peau-rouge, vagabond, et chasseur, adversaire-né du colon stable: mais le bois et l’eau, on les apporte, et quant a l’enfant des Prairies, il disparaitra et s’eteindra, bientot, devant l’homme civilisé. C’est la, une des lois fatales du progres; elle se verifie partout ou se presente l’Europeen.” Too true.

And who are making the railway? On the East they are all Irishmen. As each half-mile of it, or so, is made, they march along with it towards the West, with their wives, their children, their wooden houses rolled along on wheels, and their domestic animals—cats, dogs, goats—the more ambitious, have occasionally a cow, the richest of all can sport a little pony. When the day comes for the meeting of the two railway ends, the Irishmen will find that the fellow-labourers who have come to greet them are to a man “John Chinaman,” for none others work on the Pacific side of the railway.

Its total cost is to be £30,000,000 sterling—£16,000 a mile. Of the gross sum, one-third is guaranteed by the United States Government in money, in addition to the concession of immense tracts of land on each side of the railway. The state of Utah, or rather the individual Mormons, are good for £4,000,000, and private speculation furnishes the[22] remainder. Of the mighty company which carries out these works, General John A. Dix (now United States Minister in Paris) is president; and in Colonel Heine (an attaché of the Embassy) the Company has a warm, zealous, and active friend. We have said already that a third of the railway is already accomplished. By 1870, probably—by 1871, certainly—it will be finished in its entire length. New York will then certainly associate itself with Jeddo and Canton by this route; but not so London, Paris, and other parts of Europe. The writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes says, that, on the completion of the railway, Europe will only be one month from Canton. Let us see:—London to New York, ten days; New York to San Francisco, 3,000 miles, at 20 miles an hour (all stops and delays included), 150 hours—six days and a quarter; San Francisco is from Canton, even by great circle sailing, exactly 6,900 nautical miles. No paddle-wheel steamer could take coals for such a voyage; a screw vessel of very large size, but depending mainly upon her sails for her speed, might make twelve, but very probably would not average more than ten, knots an hour, yet, at the former rate, her passage would be twenty-five days—total, forty-one days and a quarter; at ten knots an hour, the passage would be nearly twenty-nine days, or a total of forty-five days. The Mail now goes from London to Canton in fifty-two days; in 1871 the journey will be six or seven days shorter. The route to Jeddo viâ San Francisco will be quicker than that viâ Suez by seven or eight days, even under circumstances the most favourable for the latter route. By great circle sailing, San Francisco is distant from Jeddo 5,600 knots, and it is also eleven degrees farther to the north than Canton. These eleven degrees of north add 600 miles more in favour of San Francisco.

[23]

The longest of all European railways is nearly half Italian, and a little more than half “South Austrian.” It is called in France “Sud, Autrichienne et Haute Italie.” In Italy the two last words are converted into “Alta Italia.” The total length is now 2,565 English miles, of which the South Austrian portion measures 1,349, and the Italian 1,216. The two next longest railways of Europe are French. The Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Company has a length of railway, in France, of 2,234 miles, and in 1864, it adopted a translitoral little son, which is known by the name of the “Algerian Railways.” At present the gentle youth is of modest proportions, only thirty-one miles open for traffic, eighty-one to be opened in the present year; and of the remaining 264 which are to constitute its full grown mileage (376 miles), little more work than “etudes preliminaries” has been bestowed upon them. At the period of the greatest growth of the Algerian railway, it will never be more than a pigmy as compared with its adopting parent.

The railway that in mileage comes next in succession, is the Orleans Company. Its length is 2,052 miles. The last of the four railway giants, is our own English giant, the London and North-Western. Now, although the length of our countryman is the least of all—only 1,320 miles—it will nevertheless be seen hereafter, that in its other dimensions it is in most respects superior, in none inferior, to its continental brethren, just as the late Mr. Thomas Sayers was less in height and length of arm than Heenan, nevertheless, in the long run, he managed to beat him.

The two extreme western points of the mighty system of the South Austrian and Alta Italia are at Susa, at the foot of the Mont Cenis Pass of the Alps, and Cuneo at the foot of that of the Col di Tenda. Its two eastern are Vienna,[24] and still farther (by means of its Hungarian net-work to the southward of Vienna), Pesth. Its northern is Kutzen, about a hundred miles to the south-east of Munich. Its southern, Pistoja, is twenty-two miles to the north-east of Florence. It possesses railways across two of the passes of the Alps, the Sœmmering and the Brenner. Its stations are at Genoa, Turin, Milan, Innspruch, capital of the Tyrol, Verona and Venice, Trieste, Vienna, and Pesth. It is equally fitted (as it has proved itself to be) for a great military railway, and for one to be devoted only to commercial and industrial development, but it has its skeleton in its closet,—it is not at Florence, capital of United Italy, nor is there prospect of its being there, except by a combination which shall unite with it the whole of the Strade Ferrate Romane, of which some particulars will be given hereafter.

The course and direction of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean, of the Orleans, and of the London and North-Western Companies, are, as there can be no doubt, sufficiently known to our readers to render description of them unnecessary. The great port of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean is Marseilles, the Liverpool of the Mediterranean, 537 miles from Paris, and 833 from London. The chief port of the Orleans Company is Bordeaux, 366 miles from Paris, 662 from London.

Before proceeding farther, let us refer, very briefly, to the early history of railways in France.

Neither the French Government nor the French people seemed to feel much interest about their construction until long subsequent to the opening of several hundred miles of them, both in Belgium and in Germany. The nation, was not, however, altogether ignorant of their existence, for tramways had been used in the Mineral Districts of St.[25] Etienne, and near to the Banks of the Loire, for many years previously. They were, for the most part, worked by horses, but in some few cases by locomotives of the rudest construction, just as happened in our own coal districts in the North of England, previous to the epoch of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Dr. Lardner, in his Railway Economy, says that “to M. Emile Pereire is due the honour of having first impressed upon his countrymen the advantages which must arise from the adoption of this mode of transport.” With much difficulty he succeeded in forming a Company for making the short line between Paris and St. Germain. The Act for its construction was obtained in July 1835, and it was opened for traffic in December 1837. It was originally, in part, worked as a locomotive line, and partly on what was known as the atmospheric system, but for the last five or six years the traffic is carried exclusively by means of the locomotive. Its length is thirteen miles, and it now forms one of the “Lignes de Banlieue,” of the Western of France Railway Company. (Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest.)

But it was not until 1837 that the importance of France having a net-work throughout the Kingdom was appreciated. In that year a Royal Commission Avas appointed, which made its report in 1838, but owing to internal jealousies and other causes, the recommendations of the report were not adopted, and the Government of the day had to submit to defeat upon them.

In 1838, what is now the Great Orleans Company obtained its first concession, which was for a Railway to extend from Paris to Orleans. Powerful and elongated as the Company now is, it had, in its early career, to undergo much financial difficulty and embarrassment, and it was only owing to the Government coming to its aid, by guaranteeing four per[26] cent. on its capital, that the Company was able to complete and to open the railway for traffic.

A concession was given to the Paris and Rouen Company in 1841. The line was opened for traffic on the 9th of May, 1843.

The Fundamental Law for the construction of French Railways, and for the subsequent administrative surveillance of them by the Government, was passed on the 11th of June, 1842.

By this law France was to possess seven main arterial lines of railway, all of which were to start from Paris as the concentric point. The first was to take the direction towards Belgium, so as to meet the railways then opened in that kingdom, approaching the French frontier. The second, part of which was to be in common with the first, was to proceed towards Calais or Dunkirk; Calais was selected as the most convenient for traffic with England, and the line to Dunkirk, twenty-five miles long, which branches off at Hazebrouck, was not constructed for several years after the main line had been completed. We remember Hazebrouck, a mere road-side stopping place, but it has of late become a first-class junction station, for in addition to the Dunkirk line diverging here, it is also the junction (bifurcation) at which the line leading to Lille, and to Brussels separates from those that run to Amiens, one viâ Douai (the old road), and the other, viâ Bethune, constructed to shorten the distance between Paris and Calais by twenty miles, and also to give railway access to the recently-opened collieries in the vicinity of Bethune, Nœux, Chocques, &c.

The third arterial line was to run towards the ports on the Bay of Biscay, from the Loire to the Gironde. The fourth was to extend to Bayonne and thence, eventually, to the[27] Spanish frontier. The fifth was to be common to the fourth, and then to follow a course tending towards the Mediterranean, passing through Toulouse and finally arriving at Perpignan, close to the Spanish frontier, and at the foot of the Pyrenees, not much farther removed from the Mediterranean than Bayonne is from the Bay of Biscay. It is but within the last few months that this line has been completed in its entire extent; the line to Perpignan having only been opened for traffic in September last.

The sixth was the great and important arterial line from Paris through Dijon, Chalons, Macon, Lyons, and Avignon, to Marseilles. The seventh, or last, was the important strategic and commercial line that was to connect Paris with Strasburg and the Rhine.

Of course, since the first conception of these seven arterial lines, modifications in the exact direction of several of them have taken place, but in the main they follow the courses originally proposed and afterwards decided upon. It will be unnecessary to record the various difficulties, financial and administrative, which attended the construction of the first net-work of French railways. Suffice it, therefore, to say, that by the end of 1847, 1,750 miles had been completed, and that by 1853, the essential parts of the whole system were finished. These have been followed by the “new” net-work, and the total mileage of French railways at present is 14,382 kilometres, or, 8,989 English miles.

This digression finished, we proceed to state the cost at which each of the four European leviathans of the railway world have been constructed. The capital expenditure of the South Austrian and Alta Italia, up to the 31st December, 1866, was £41,763,301, or at the rate of £18,200 a mile. Capital expenditure on the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Company is nearly double that of the South[28] Austrian and Alta Italia, being £80,922,000, which brings the cost per mile to £36,218. This expenditure is exclusive of £1,740,202, upon the Algerian lines, making the company’s total capital expenditure to the 31st December, 1866, £82,662,202.

As the total length of French railways was, on the 31st December, 1866, 14,382 kilometres, or 8,989 miles, and the total capital expenditure upon them to that date was £306,089,000, it follows that the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Company is one-fourth in length, all but twenty-eight miles, of the total railway mileage of France, but its gross cost has exceeded one-fourth of the total cost of French railways by £4,399,500, and its cost per mile, being £36,218, it has exceeded their average cost per mile (£34,051) by £2,167.

The capital expenditure of the Orleans Company has been £42,944,862, or at the rate of £20,928 a mile, which is £13,123 per mile below the average cost per mile of French railways. In addition, the company is proprietor of the coal and iron mines, and the Iron Works of Aubin, at a cost of £671,216. 194,694 tons of coal were raised there in 1866, of which 43,200 were used by the company’s locomotives, 16,000 were sold to the public, and the balance was consumed in the iron works, which manufactured 22,021 of rails during the year.

The total expenditure on capital account of all the railways of the United Kingdom up to the 1st January, 1866, was £455,478,143.

On the London and North-Western the expenditure on capital account has been £45,576,361, but a subdivision of this capital by the mileage worked by the company would not represent the cost per mile of the railway as the company is subscriber to the capital of other companies[29] (some of which are worked by it and some are not) for £3,556,969, but this amount hardly represents a tenth of the capital expended by those companies. There is no doubt however that the cost per mile of those lines for which the capital was exclusively provided by the London and North-Western Company exceeds £50,000 a mile.

The gross receipts from traffic for the year were, South Austrian, £2,957,713, Alta Italia, £1,738,202, total of the Company, £4,695,915; average weekly receipts, £90,306; per mile per annum £1,932. Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean, total traffic £8,105,776; average weekly receipts, £155,691; per mile per annum, £3,640. As the total traffic receipts of French railways was, approximately (but the figures are very nearly exact) £24,140,000, it follows that the receipts of this company exceeded one-third of the total railway receipts of the empire by £101,110, and that its average weekly receipts per mile exceed the average weekly receipts per mile of all France (£2,865) by £955.

The traffic receipts of the Orleans Company, for 1866, were £4,401,894; average weekly receipts, £94,267; per mile per annum, £2,189, or £496 per mile per week below the receipts per mile per week of the total French railway system. London and North-Western, £6,312,056; average weekly receipts, £120,400; per mile per annum, £4,782.

Owing to the war in Italy in 1866, the tables connected with the passenger traffic of the Alta Italia are defective, but of the 7,858,893 passengers carried on the South Austrian in 1866, 1 per cent. only were first class, but they yielded 5 per cent. of the passenger receipts; 12 per cent. in number were of the second class, they yielded 19 per cent. of the receipts; the third class were 87 per cent. in number and 76 per cent. in receipts.

The number of passengers carried on the Paris, Lyons, and[30] Mediterranean was 18,443,597, of which about 6 per cent. in number were first class, 13½ second, and 80½ third.

This total number represents between a fourth and a fifth of the gross number carried in France during 1866—about eighty-four millions—and is in no way in accordance with its proportion, either as regards its gross receipts or its gross mileage, the former being, as just stated, more than a third, and the latter one-fourth of the total railway receipts and mileage of the empire; thus showing that the principal traffic of the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company is long traffic; in this respect very strikingly resembling the traffic of the London and North-Western Railway Company. According to the testimony of M. Charles La Vollée, furnished in his very interesting work, “Les Chemins de Fer en France,” Paris, 1866, the average distance travelled by each passenger on French railways in 1865, was 40 kilometres (25 miles); average distance of a ton of merchandise, 140 kilometres (87½ miles); but as the average price of passenger travelling of all classes in France is only 5½ centimes per kilometre, equal to 9½ centimes per mile: of goods per ton, 6½ centimes per kilometre, equal to 10½ centimes per mile, it follows that each passenger and each ton of goods travels on the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway nearly double the average distance on all French railways. According to the investigations of M. La Vollée, the average cost of all three classes of passengers in England is 14½ centimes, or 1⅜d. per mile; goods precisely the same per ton. This gentleman makes the following calculation with regard to the saving effected in consequence of the substitution of railways for diligences in travelling. The latter, he says, sped their way at the rate of 6¼ miles an hour. Railways go at the rate of 25. For each of the 80,000,000 who were carried on French railways in 1865, there is a saving of 10[31] sous an hour, equal to 112,500,000 francs, or £4,500,000, and upon the transport of goods there would he a saving of ten millions sterling, supposing that all goods now carried by railway were to be carried by road.

The construction of railways cheaply in France is now occupying attention. A railway on this system was opened on the 25th of August last—the line from Fougères to Vitré, on the Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest. Its length is 23 miles, and it has been constructed for £100,000, or at the rate of £4,348 a mile, notwithstanding the fact that it is carried through a difficult country, necessitating numerous heavy works, the greatest of which is a viaduct constructed of granite 120 yards long, and 22 yards high. The rails are Vignoles pattern, 60 lbs. to the yard. The above price includes rolling stock, shops, and their equipment, &c. But everybody received “argent sonnant” as the works progressed, and the line was not opened until everything had been settled up and paid for. This is one of the secrets appertaining to the economic construction of railways.

On the Orleans Railway, 9,630,460 passengers were conveyed in 1866: of which 7½ per cent. in number were first class, 14½ per cent. second, and 78 third.

Before quitting the subject of French traffic receipts, a word must be said about a little railway which appertains to the most stately city in France—Lyons—until a few years ago, when Marseilles superseded it,[6] the second in commercial[32] importance, the second also, not long back, in revolutionary susceptibility, yielding only in this respect to the once great head quarters of rebellion, barricades, and insurrection, Paris. As it is some years since our last visit to Lyons, an accident alone put us upon the track of this railway. We looked for some account of it in that great compendium of hotel-keepers’ advertisements, Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, (lucus, &c.), but, of course, not a word is said about it, and we are bound to record the same omission in the (with this exception) admirable “Indicateur des Chemins de Fer, et de la Navigation”, published weekly by Messrs. Chaix & Co., of Paris. Thanks, however, to “my Murray,” we discover the “Lyons-Croix Rousse” runs from the heart of the city to the Croix Rousse, the former hotbed of insurrection, and “inhabited principally by silk-weavers who live in densely crowded narrow streets, where twelve to twenty families are piled, one above the other, in the lofty houses.” But these revolutionary silk-weavers must be a grand moving population, for although the line is stated in the Moniteur des Interets Materiels, a weekly journal which treats, according to the words of its title, upon “tout ce qui a rapport au bien-être general, hormis la politique,” to be only 587 yards long, it had a daily traffic in 1866 of 666 francs, equal to 243,093 francs, or £9,723 per annum! The company has paid off all its debenture debt, and its modest share capital receives the benefit of all profits. What they are, however, is a mystery, for the directors have, in their wisdom and discretion, never thought fit to publish them.

Our Gallic neighbours lodge their Sovereign, his Empress, and his suite, in palaces replete with magnificence and luxury, and when he travels, they are equally mindful of his dignity[33] and of his comfort. Witness the following description of the imperial train in which the Emperor and the Empress went from Paris to Salzburg to visit the Emperor and Empress of Austria, in August last. It may well he said that it exceeds in comfort and elegance any previous equipment of a similar nature. It consists of nine carriages, communicating with each other by tastefully decorated bridges. In the middle is a handsome sitting-room, furnished with chairs, ottomans, pictures, clocks, and chandeliers. On one side of this room is the dining-room, and on the other the Emperor’s study. In the middle of the dining-room there is a table capable of being extended or contracted at pleasure, with easy chairs placed parallel to the sides of the carriage. The Emperor’s study contains an elegant writing-table, a clock in the style of the renaissance, a thermometer, a barometer, and a telegraphic apparatus, by means of which telegraphic communication is established with the several apartments of the various court officials travelling with His Majesty. Next to the study is the bed-room of the Emperor and Empress, with two beds placed transversely against the sides of the carriage. Two dressing-rooms are attached to the bed-room. The remaining carriages consist of a kitchen, wine cellar, and the apartments of the imperial suite. There is also a conservatory for the choicest flowers.

Our own gracious Sovereign travels in her journeys to and from Scotland with great comfort, but without the extent of magnificence above depicted.

Proportioned to the passenger traffic of other English railways, the London and North-Western Company is deficient as regards numbers, for although it has on its system Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and almost all the leading manufacturing bee-hives in the[34] north of England, it is the sole railway having its terminus in London, that does not encourage short local and Sunday traffic. Nevertheless the number of passengers carried on the London and North-Western in 1866 was 20,811,173, which however is less than a tenth (excluding the holders of 97,147 periodical tickets) of the total number (251,862,715) conveyed on all the railways of the United Kingdom in 1865. The returns before us do not enable us to state the relative proportions of classes of passengers carried by the London and North-Western, but, at all events, we know that they exceed two-thirds of the population of Great Britain and Ireland, which, according to the estimate of the Registrar-General, published a few days ago, was 30,157,239 in June, 1867. The estimated population of London and of its suburbs, comprised within a circle of twelve miles from the General Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, is, at present, 3,521,267, which is more than the population of half-a-dozen German Principalities;[7] more than half that of Ireland,[8] and equal to that of all Scotland. Those desirous of knowing the component parts of the metropolitan population, and how it is distributed over its area of 687 square miles, are[35] referred to the recently published vigorous and able statistical vindication of the City of London,[9] by its distinguished and learned Chamberlain, Mr. Benjamin Scott.

Here let us indicate a few facts illustrating the motive habits of the immense London population. In the twelve months ending the 30th of June, 1867, the number of passengers conveyed on the Metropolitan Railway—4½ miles in length—were 22,458,067, or 1,646,894 more than on the whole system of the London and North-Western Railway in 1866. In the same twelve months, the London General Omnibus Company, which owns about seven-eighths of those vehicles that ply in the metropolis, carried 42,995,910. These, independent of steam-boat passengers, the number of which we are not able to state, our application to the secretary of one of the companies for information not having been replied to; independent also of the persons who travelled in the 6,000 cabs that are licensed for London, and independent, finally, of the persons conveyed in the innumerable vehicles which are unceasingly circulating[36] during about sixteen hours every day through every portion of the great metropolis.[10]

Mr. Watkin, M.P., the chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, gave, at the recent meeting of the shareholders of[37] that company, a very striking illustration of the motive habits of the metropolitan population. During the half-year ending the 30th June, 1867, the total number of passengers conveyed on the South-Eastern Railway was 9,700,000, but of these 7,200,000 came into or went out of its three London stations (Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and London Bridge—the traffic of the last immensely diminished since the opening of the two first), yet the total length of the South-Eastern is 330 miles, and in the usual proportion of stations to mileage on English railways (one for each 3¼ miles) the number of stations is 101. Although we have not the exact figures before us, we believe the same proportions, as regards passenger traffic, holds good on the London, Brighton and South Coast, the South-Western and the Great Western Railways, and nearly so on the Great Eastern and the Great Northern.

The rolling stock of the South Austrian and Alta Italia consists of 963 locomotives, 2,663 passenger carriages, in which are included 11 for the exclusive use of royal personages, 19,182 waggons, in which are included 57 for the service of the Post. Its total mileage of train engines 10,451,870. The amount of rolling stock of the Paris, Lyons, and of the Orleans Companies is not stated in their reports, but the total engine mileage of the former company in 1866 was 17,271,502 miles, of which 9,656,690 were for passenger trains, and 7,614,812 were for goods, cattle, and coal trains; of the Orleans Company 10,715,458, of which 5,878,010 miles were for passenger trains, and 4,837,448 for goods, cattle, and coal trains.

We are not able to state the total mileage of the trains of French railways, but it will be seen by reference to the Annuaire des Postes de l’Empire Francais, published on the 1st of January, 1867, a work analagous in its character to[38] the Annual Reports of the Postmaster-General of England, that the postal service of France upon railways was, in 1865, 27,730,000 kilometres, equal to 17,331,250 miles. The British Post Office does not avail itself of all the railways of the United Kingdom for the transmission of mails. Thus the total mileage of British railways on the 1st of January, 1866, was 13,289 miles, but the Post Office only sent mail bags over about 12,000 of them. The Post Office Railway Service is 60,000 miles a day, equal (deducting for Sundays) to 18,780,000 per annum, or about 1,450,000 per annum more than the postal mileage on French railways.

Before proceeding to describe the present position of the London and North-Western Company as regards locomotive and rolling stock, a short epitome of what it was twenty years ago, may not prove uninteresting.

On the 30th June, 1847, the total length of railway worked by the company was 670 miles. The number of its locomotive engines was 504, or an engine for about each three-quarters of a mile of railway. The engine mileage was—

For passenger trains	4,649,556
For goods trains	2,882,674
————
Total	7,532,230

On the 30th of June, 1847, there were 1,018 passenger carriages, and so little encouragement was given by the company at that time to travellers of the humbler classes, that out of the 1,018 only 75 were third class. The Company had also 8 travelling post offices, and 13 post office tenders, 210 horse boxes, 183 guards’ break and parcels vans, 4,874 goods waggons, 612 cattle and sheep trucks, 653 coal and coke waggons. The total number of passengers conveyed in the year 1848, was 6,001,576. Tons of goods conveyed[39] (estimated) 1,811,000. At that period the conveyance of coal by railway was in its infancy.

On the 31st December, 1866, the London and North-Western Company possessed 1,347 locomotive engines, which is rather more than an engine a mile, the average for the whole kingdom being just over one-half of one per mile. It had 2,237 passenger carriages, 46 travelling post offices and post office tenders, 408 horse boxes, 418 guards’ break and parcel vans, 22,483 goods waggons, 1,703 cattle and sheep trucks, 2,069 coal and coke waggons, and for shunting carriages and waggons, and other work at stations, no less than 619 horses, all of good breeds, well-fed, intelligent, and well-tutored.

Its engines ran, in 1866, 21,637,163 miles, of which 10,613,324 were for passenger trains, and 11,023,839 for goods and minerals: average mileage of each engine for the year, 16,063; per day, of 365 to the year, 44, but, as the average number of working days of an engine in a year is about 250, the average mileage of the year, so divided, is 64. This seems an extremely low average. Besides the passengers already referred to, the company conveyed 15,425,119 tons of goods and minerals. These exceed the amount carried on the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean by 1,803,405 tons, and they are very nearly three times as much as those conveyed by the Orleans Company (5,216,879 tons). Although the length of the London and North-Western system is not at present more than a tenth of the total mileage length of the United Kingdom, its receipts are a little more than a sixth of those earned by all British and Irish railways. Its income, in fact, is just three times what Lord Macaulay tells us, in the fourth volume of his History of England, was the total national revenue at the time that William III. ascended the English throne.

---

CHAPTER III.

RAILWAYS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM—COAL AND IRON.

Thanks to the very valuable tables of railway statistics prepared by Mr. John Cleghorn, the secretary of the North-Eastern Railway, and compiled from the returns of the Board of Trade for the years from 1859 to 1865, both inclusive, we are able to present to our readers, in an abbreviated shape, a number of details respecting the railways of the United Kingdom, of a very interesting and instructive character.

Prefacing them with the remark that on the 31st December, 1852, the capital invested in British railways was £264,165,672, yielding a gross revenue of £15,710,554, we proceed to state that on the 31st of December, 1859, the amount of capital paid up was £334,362,928, and that there were then 10,002 miles opened for traffic. The number of passengers carried in 1859, exclusive of journeys made by 49,856 holders of periodical tickets, were 149,757,294, of whom 19,204,151 were first class, 44,351,903 were second, and 86,201,240 were third. The receipts from passengers, luggage, parcels, horses, carriages, dogs, and mails, were £12,537,493. Merchandise, 22,005,737 tons; minerals, 51,756,782 tons; live stock, 12,805,613 head. Receipts from these sources, £13,206,009. Total receipts, £25,743,502. The number of miles run by passenger trains was 49,753,344; by those for goods, minerals, and cattle, 43,762,452; total, 93,516,796. The Board of Trade did not furnish returns of working expenses for 1863, but we know that their proportions to receipts were about 45 per cent.

[41]

On the 31st of December, 1860, the capital paid up was £348,130,327. Miles opened for traffic, 10,433. Passengers conveyed in 1860 (exclusive of 47,894 holders of periodical tickets), 163,435,678, of whom 20,625,851 were first class, 49,041,814 were second, and 93,768,013 were third. Receipts from passenger traffic, &c., £13,085,756. Merchandise, 29,470,931 tons; minerals, 60,386,788 tons; live stock, 12,083,503 head. Receipts from these sources, £14,680,966. Total receipts, £27,766,622. The miles run by passenger trains were 52,816,579; by those for goods, minerals, and cattle, 49,427,113; total, 102,243,692. The total working expenses were £13,196,368; their proportion to receipts, 47 per cent.

On the 31st December, 1861, the capital paid up was £362,327,338. Miles opened for traffic, 10,869. Passengers conveyed in 1861 (exclusive of 52,079 holders of periodical tickets), 173,721,139, of whom 21,917,936 were first class, 51,146,672 second, and 100,656,531 third. Receipts from passenger traffic, &c., £13,326,475. Merchandise, 30,638,893 tons; minerals, 63,604,434 tons; live stock, 12,870,683 head. Receipts from these sources, £15,238,880. Total receipts, £28,565,355. The miles run by passenger trains were 54,055,476; by those for goods, minerals, and cattle, 51,085,964; total, 105,141,440. Total working expenses, £13,843,337; their proportion to receipts, 48½ per cent.

On the 31st December, 1862, the capital paid up was £385,218,438. Miles opened for traffic, 11,551. Passengers conveyed in 1862 (exclusive of 56,656 holders of periodical tickets), 180,429,071, of whom 23,105,351 were first class, 51,869,239 second, and 105,454,481 third. Receipts from passenger traffic, &c., £13,911,985. Merchandise, 30,256,913 tons; minerals, 63,405,864 tons; live stock,[42] 12,885,003 head. Receipts from these sources, £15,216,573. Total receipts, £29,128,558. The miles run by passenger trains were 57,542,831; by those for goods, minerals and cattle, 50,518,966; total, 108,061,797. Total working expenses, £14,268,409; their proportion to receipts 49 per cent.

On the 31st December, 1863, the capital paid up was £404,215,802. Miles opened for traffic, 12,322. Passengers conveyed in 1863 (exclusive of 64,391 holders of periodical tickets), 204,635,075, of whom 26,086,008 were first class, 57,476,669 second, and 121,072,398 third. Receipts from passenger traffic, &c., £14,521,528. Merchandise, 32,517,247 tons; minerals, 68,043,154 tons; live stock, 13,029,675 head. Receipts from these sources, £16,663,869. Total receipts, £31,156,397. The miles run by passenger trains were 61,032,143; by those for goods, minerals and cattle, &c., 55,560,018; total, 116,592,161. Total working expenses, £15,027,234; their proportion to receipts 48·23 per cent.

On the 31st December, 1864, the capital paid up was £425,719,613. Miles opened for traffic, 12,789. Passengers in 1864 (exclusive of 76,499 holders of periodical tickets), 229,272,165, of whom 27,701,415 were first class, 65,269,169 second, and 136,301,581 third. Receipts from passenger traffic, &c., £15,684,040. Merchandise, 34,914,913 tons; minerals, 75,445,781 tons; live stock, 13,673,786 head. Receipts from these sources, £18,331,524. Total receipts, £34,015,564. The miles run by passenger trains were 66,555,219; by those for goods, minerals and cattle, 62,575,724; total, 129,130,943. Total working expenses, £16,000,308; their proportion to receipts, 47·03 per cent.

On the 31st December, 1865, the capital paid up was[43] £455,478,143. Miles opened for traffic, 13,289. Passengers conveyed in 1865 (exclusive of 97,147 holders of periodical tickets), 251,862,715, of whom 29,663,205 were first class, 70,783,241 second, and 151,416,269 third. Receipts from passenger traffic, &c., £16,572,051. Merchandise, 36,787,638 tons; minerals, 77,805,786 tons; live stock, 14,530,937 head. Receipts from these sources, £19,317,475. Total receipts, £35,890,073. The miles run by passenger trains were 71,206,818; by those for goods, minerals and cattle, 68,320,309; total, 139,527,127. Total working expenses, £17,149,073; their proportion to receipts, 48 per cent.

The length of the railways in Ireland is 1,948 miles. In Scotland it is about 2,350 miles, with gross traffic receipts of about £4,200,000, whilst the income derived from Irish railways did not exceed £1,800,000 in 1866. Thus the mileage of the Scotch railways is about a sixth of the total mileage of the United Kingdom; its receipts about a ninth, the total amount of British railway receipts for 1866, being about £37,800,000.[11] The proportions for Ireland are about a seventh of the total mileage—less than a twentieth of the total receipts. There are 35 separate Boards of Railway Directors in the sister kingdom, an average of 55½ miles of railway for each Board to attend to, but, inasmuch as the aggregate length of the nine longest Irish railways is 1,354 miles, it follows that the average length of each of the remaining 26 companies’ lines is not quite 23 miles. Each company has, besides its separate Board of Directors, its separate Secretary, separate Traffic Manager, separate Engineer,[44] separate Locomotive Superintendent, and separate Accountant. Could the London and North-Western manage to sub-divide itself after the fashion of Irish Railway Companies, it would require a staff of 73 of every one of these officers. It is to be deplored that railway animosity[12] is, in its sphere, as intense in Ireland as that which has so-called religion, for its basis. Both inflict a fearful amount of injury upon the material interests and development of the country.

One of the most objectionable features in Irish railway management is the high rates of fares charged to passengers, but especially to those of the third class; in fact rendering third class carriages in a great measure unavailable for the persons for whose use they were specially intended by the Legislature. We are happy, however, to perceive a better, a larger, and a more liberal view is beginning to be taken in[45] Ireland on this subject, for at the meeting of the shareholders of the Midland Great Western Railway—the second of Irish railways in extent and importance, the Chairman made lengthened reference to the subject. “It was,” said Mr. Ralph Cusack, “a bold policy to adopt a scale of fares unusually low, to establish a system of excursion trains every week to and from distant points, and to hold out special inducements to the very humblest classes to avail themselves of the facilities of railway travelling.” This policy, nevertheless, was adopted, but it will not be matter of surprise that it did not find favour at the Boards of Direction of other Companies, it being alleged to be totally unsuited to the circumstances of Ireland, even where the population is numerous and tolerably prosperous. The result, however, has been that, notwithstanding peculiar difficulties arising from the embarrassed circumstances of the railway previous to the present directors coming into office, the experiment has already been successful, and will be more so. As the chairman truly said, “people require to be educated in travelling, and that could only be done by holding out inducements that would draw the masses to the railways.” It is to be hoped that the thirty-four other boards of directors will adopt this liberal and enlightened policy. It will, we are convinced, prove alike beneficial to shareholders, and to the material interests of the country.

The Board of Trade did not obtain returns of rolling stock from the companies until the year 1860. On the 31st December of that year they possessed 5,801 locomotive engines. By the 31st December, 1865, they had gradually increased to 7,414. The proportions have invariably been a little more than one engine for each two miles of railway open. On the London and North-Western, as already stated, the proportion[46] is a little more than one engine a mile. The passenger carriages on the 31st December, 1860, were 15,076; but there must have been a great demolition of them in 1861, for on the 31st of December of that year they were only 14,609. However, they speedily recovered their numbers, for at the end of 1862 there were 15,366, and on the 31st December, 1865, 17,997, just a shade over a carriage and a third for each mile of railway open. “Other vehicles attached to passenger trains,”—these comprise break and luggage vans, travelling post offices and post office tenders, horse boxes, and carriage trucks. Their number at the end of 1861 was 5,737; on the 31st December, 1865, 6,853, a little less than one for every two miles. The use of carriage trucks has greatly diminished upon railways, but the use of horse boxes has not diminished, partly because in recent years all over England, wherever there is hunting, a “horse and his rider” can go to the field, each with his return ticket, thirty, forty, and even fifty miles, making an early start in the morning, and returning in the evening in time, at all events, for the rider’s dinner. The other “partly” is, that horse boxes have for some years been employed in a traffic for which they were not originally intended; for the Time books of many of the railways contain notices that they are available for the conveyance of the remains of persons to their last homes and resting places; and they are frequently used for this purpose.

Waggons, which comprise vehicles for the conveyance of every description of goods and minerals, timber waggons, cattle waggons, gunpowder waggons, bullion waggons, salt waggons, milk waggons, covered waggons, high-sided waggons, low-sided waggons, in short the genus waggon of every possible shape and conformity, were 188,623 on the 31st December, 1860, and on the 31st of December, 1865, they had[47] increased to 226,407, or nearly 16¾ for each mile of railway.

The foregoing figures furnish matter for much consideration. They show, incontestably, how unceasingly the railway system of the United Kingdom, taken as a whole, continues its development. As new miles of railway are opened, and notwithstanding that they are situated principally in districts where both population and traffic are light, as compared with the population and traffic of the districts in which railways were first constructed, the total average of receipts throughout the United Kingdom, only receded three times. Thus, the average receipts per mile in 1852 were £2,141. In 1853, £2,346. In 1854, £2,510. In 1855, £2,597. In 1856, £2,659. In 1857, £2,660. There was a considerable fall in 1858 to £2,516. In 1859, they advanced to £2,574. In 1860, they were £2,661. In 1861, £2,628. In 1862, they fell to £2,523. They increased slightly in 1863, to £2,528. In 1864, they rose to £2,651; and, in 1865, they were the highest during the fifteen years, £2,691, or £550 a mile higher than in 1852.

Although the number of passengers has increased very greatly in the seven years, the principal increase has been, as will be seen presently, in those of the third class. As the average distance which each third-class passenger travels is much less than the average of one of the second class, and still less comparatively than one of the first class, it cannot be a matter of surprise, that the average money value of each railway passenger should have fallen from 1s. 6d. in 1859, to 1s. 2d. in 1865, and that of the total increase of receipts between 1859 and 1865 (£10,146,611), the receipts from passengers only has not increased more than £3,606,223, whilst the increase from goods, minerals, and cattle, has been[48] £6,111,466. Minerals come in for the larger share of this augmentation. In the shape of quantity, the advance has been 26,049,004 tons, or 50 per cent. In cash earned the advance has also been about 50 per cent. The amount in 1859, was £4,223,002; in 1865, £6,496,402. No doubt conveyance of coals by railway is gaining rapidly upon conveyance by water. This is every day becoming more evident, especially as regards London. In fact, we have by us a return showing that during the first six months of the present year, the sea-borne coal to the Metropolis has decreased 32,480 tons, as compared with the same period of 1866; whilst coal carried by railway has increased 154,453 tons. In the last few years the quantity of coal carried by railway to London, has been gradually creeping up. Last year it was equal to that borne by water, at present it exceeds it; and henceforward, a large increase may be looked for, as the Midland Railway being now completed to London, that Company will be able to carry very fine qualities of coal from collieries which are at the shortest distance from the Metropolis of all the coal-fields of England. This will, no doubt, diminish to some considerable extent the metropolitan coal traffic of the London and North-Western Company. It now carries about two-fifths (about one million tons) of all the coal brought by railway into London.

And here, as so much has recently been said about the enormous strides that have been made in the coal extraction from our collieries in the United Kingdom, a few words on the subject may not be deemed inappropriate. It is true that, as will be seen from the subjoined summary, extracted from the Times of the 13th of September last, its production has increased with very great rapidity during the last twelve years. In 1855 it was 64,453,679 tons; in 1856, 66,645,450[49] tons; in 1857, 65,394,707 tons; in 1858, 65,008,649 tons; in 1859, 71,979,765 tons; in 1860, 80,042,698 tons; in 1861, 83,635,214 tons; in 1862, 81,638,338 tons; in 1863, 86,292,515 tons; in 1864, 92,787,873 tons; in 1865, 98,150,587 tons; and in 1866, 101,630,544 tons. But is there any real reason for the uneasiness that has been created about failure of supply in a century or so? We believe not, and our reasons are explained in the foot note.[13]

And now it will not be uninteresting to see what has become of all these coals. In the first place our export of[50] them to all parts of the world was not very large, 8,733,327 tons in 1865, and 9,622,324 tons in 1866.[14] Secondly, they warmed (with the addition of some turf and a little wood), cooked, and made gas for the 30,157,239 persons who, according to the most recent returns, constitute the present population of the United Kingdom. Thirdly, we supplied with fuel, in 1865, some few foreign, and 2,718 British steam vessels, of which 1,745 were over fifty tons register, and 973 were fifty tons each and under; united, they represent a gross burden of 825,533 tons.[15] Fourthly, we furnished the principal consumption of coals for the engines of our iron-clads and our wooden-clads. Fifthly, our railway locomotives ran, as we have seen (in 1865), 139,527,127 miles, and taking the average consumption at about 35 lbs. a mile, which includes lighting up[16] and time that engines are standing in steam, waiting for duty, or acting as “pilots” (reserve and station engines), the total amount is 2,625,000 tons; and to this amount may be added the consumption in the[51] locomotive and carriage shops, stores, and stations, 1,375,000, making the direct railway consumption 4,000,000 tons. Sixthly, independent of the coal used in the reduction of our other minerals to the state of metal, we produced, by means of 613 blast furnaces, in 1866, from 9,665,012 tons of iron ore, raised during the year, 2,576,928 tons of pig iron in England, 952,123 in Wales, and 994,000 tons in Scotland; total, 4,223,051 tons, which consumed at least 6,000,000 tons of coal; and, by means of some 6,000,000 more tons, we kept at work, in 1866, 256 iron works, in which there were 6,239 puddling furnaces, and 826 rolling mills.[17] Seventhly, our agricultural steam cultivation is beginning to count for something. And lastly, our coal assisted in the manufacture of most of the articles of our dress, and of most of the articles we require in our domestic economy. It is by means of the coal that we raise that we are able to manufacture the greater portion of the articles we export to every part of the civilised or uncivilised world. Thanks mainly to disembowelled coal, and to its noble adjunct, iron,[18] combined with the unceasing[52] and undying energy of Englishmen, the money value of our exports has risen from £115,821,092 in 1854, to £188,827,785 in 1866. The returns for the first half of 1867 show a slight falling off as compared with those for the first half[53] of 1856. Nevertheless, they were £88,000,000. Our colonies take between a third and one quarter, and of that proportion India alone takes a quantity approaching to one-half. To be sure, India has a gross area of 1,553,282 square miles, with a population of 193,100,963, of whom 144,674,615 belong to British India, 47,909,199 to native and independent states, 203,887 to France, and 313,262 to Portugal. Australia[54] took from us £13,662,650 in 1866, being an increase of £323,409 over 1865, when her population was 1,599,580, an increase from 1861 of 333,148. In short,—let us say it again,—thanks to coal, energy, and iron, we deal with forty-eight independent states, and twenty-two of our colonies.[19] These seventy countries constitute, with our own little islands, practically every portion of the inhabited globe.[20]

[55]

The percentage of the working expenses of railways to the receipts was, for 1865, according to the returns of the Board of Trade, 48 per cent.; in 1862 it was the highest of the seven years, 49 per cent. But we fear that these returns are not very strictly accurate; recent inquiries and investigations have tended to show that some of the items charged to capital in the half-yearly accounts should have been debited to revenue. No doubt there has been exaggeration in several of the statements, which professional accountants have submitted to the committee of investigation by whom they have been employed. But whether this be so or not, the time has come when all charges must either be made against revenue or remain unpaid. Capital can no longer lend its friendly aid and assistance; therefore, in a year or so it will be seen how far the percentages hitherto published have been based on fact or on the fictions that have been alleged against them. The subject of working expenses is an important one, as affecting materially the question of dividend to shareholders. We therefore will give more detailed information respecting them when we connect them, in subsequent pages, with receipts and profits. In the meantime, we give, on the over-leaf, a return that has just been prepared from the three last half-yearly reports and statements of accounts published by the twelve following companies. We are aware that as regards one company, the London, Brighton and South Coast, the working expenses have been stated by the present board of directors at 10 per cent. higher than those we now publish, but we believe that these latter approach the nearer to correctness of the two.

[56]

Statement of Working Expenses on Receipts, for the eighteen months ending 30th June, 1867.

Name of Company.	Rate per cent.
London and North-Western	46·63
North-Eastern	48·05
Great Western	48·65
Midland	47·26
Lancashire and Yorkshire	44·87
Great Northern	52·68
Great Eastern	53·96
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln	45·24
London and South-Western	53·63
South-Eastern	52·68
London and Brighton	58·86
Bristol and Exeter	49·76

We need not, at the present day, discuss the abstract question of the value of railways to the community, but it will be well to record some of the advantages which the population of Great Britain has obtained by their establishment. Let us begin with passenger traffic. Previous to 1837, the year of the opening of the line between Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, the speed of stage coaches did not average eight miles an hour. The speed of mail coaches was a little under ten. It is true that in former times we were proud, as we ought still to be, of the roads which the skill and ingenuity of our engineers had, by means of what were then considered vast excavations, extensive embankments, bridges, viaducts, and other works, carried through the country. In one grand respect British roads differ from those magnificent constructions of a similar nature which Imperial Rome had accomplished when in the[57] zenith of her splendour. Those were made without the slightest view to commercial objects. The power which it gave her to transport her legions from one extremity of her dominions to another was the sole consideration with her in inducing the formation of those great causeways, the remains of which have excited the admiration of succeeding generations, even to the present day.

In 1837, there were fifty-two mail coaches, and about 500 stage coaches. If we allow to each of them the full complement of passengers that it was authorised to carry, we shall probably arrive at a tolerably correct estimate of the number of persons who then used to travel daily in the United Kingdom. It is true that the average loads of mail and stage coaches was not considered to exceed two-thirds of their number when complete, but they should be considered as carrying full loads, to allow for passengers travelling only short stages. Thus viewed, the number of persons travelling by these conveyances throughout the Kingdom was (mail coaches seven, stage coaches fourteen, exclusive of guard and coachman) 7,364, or at the rate per annum (of 365 days) 2,687,860. If to these be added 25 per cent., as representing aristocracy with post horses, and plebiscity in waggons, and a few in canal boats, we arrive at a gross total of 3,359,825. To this number may be joined, say over a million who were passengers in river and coasting steamboats.[21] Every other traveller went by the means of locomotion beneficently granted to us by the all-wise and ever-provident Creator of all things human and divine.

In 1837 the population of the United Kingdom was[58] 25,650,426 persons, so that, assuming our calculation to be correct, the number of travellers journeying only by road was little more than an eighth of its population. As already stated, seven years previous to 1837, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (31 miles long) had been opened for traffic. But during all that period it was simply a local line unconnected with any places except its two termini, and its then comparatively unimportant intermediate stations. Nevertheless, by the substitution of steam for horse power, the number of passengers (about 21,600 per annum), previous to the opening of the railway, at once quadrupled, notwithstanding that the speed had only increased in the ratio from nine to seventeen miles an hour, the number of trains being six a day in each direction.

By 1837, when the average speed had increased to 25 miles an hour, this quadrupling had increased seven-fold: at the present time the maximum running speed on this portion of the London and North-Western Railway is forty miles an hour—the average speed of trains is about twenty-seven miles, and on week-days there are sixteen trains in each direction, on Sundays six. Yet there are now three competing lines to that of the London and North-Western between Liverpool and Manchester.

Adding the 604,000 passengers of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the proportion of land travellers to the whole population of the kingdom, in 1837, was not quite a sixth. The passengers who travelled on only thirty-one miles of railway were nearly one-sixth of all that travelled by all the mail coaches, stage coaches, post cars, post chaises, private carriages with post horses, waggons, and canal boats, over all the high roads, post roads, and the canals of the United Kingdom.

[59]

Observe the onward progress of land passenger development. No railways of the slightest importance were finished between 1830 and 1837, but by the year 1843—two years and a-half after the Great Western line had been completed between London and Bristol—1,902 miles of railway had been opened for traffic, and in the year terminating at that date, 23,466,896 passengers were carried by railway. These were, of course, exclusive of those conveyed by mail and stage coaches, and other conveyances. Their numbers could not have diminished, on the contrary, they must have increased, seeing that these conveyances then began to be used in subordination, as it were, to railways, and not as the arterial and leading means of passenger communication. Travellers went shorter distances by them—nevertheless what used to be called the “post horse duty,” that is the tax levied upon public conveyances and horses employed in passenger traffic, never diminished—on the contrary, it increased slightly during several years. For some time past it has been modified in many of its features, so that a comparison between its amount, and what it was in 1837, cannot be instituted. But the fact is notorious, that even now, with upwards of 14,000 miles of railway open throughout the kingdom, many more horses are employed in connection with passenger traffic than there were in 1837.

The number of persons who travelled by railway in the year ending 30th June, 1843, was 23,466,896: the number estimated by road, 3,359,825, total 26,826,721.

As the estimated population of the United Kingdom in June, 1843, was 27,033,692, it follows that it and the number of persons who had travelled in the previous twelve months, both by rail and by road, were not far from equal. In fact the number of persons who travelled by railway[60] may be considered to represent the excess of travelling in 1843 over that in 1837. Let it here be noted, that in 1843, the third class passengers formed not more than a fourth of the total number carried, they being 6,891,844. We shall see presently how marvellously these numbers have progressed, not only absolutely, but in comparison with the travellers of the two other classes.

Twelve months more, on the 30th of June, 1844, with 2,050 miles open, the railway passengers exceeded the total population of the kingdom by 407,799; the numbers being respectively 27,763,602, and 27,355,803, and third class passengers had risen to be almost exactly one-third of the whole. We exclude travellers by road, not because they were less numerous than previously, but because their numbers become every year less important in comparison with the total passenger movement of the empire. For any purposes of computation that may result from these statements, they may fairly be taken for what they were in 1837, 3,359,825.

It was in 1848 that the greatest number of miles in any one year were opened for traffic,—1,191; the nearest approach to it was in the previous year,—780. In 1863, the number was 771. The smallest number was in 1843,—91 miles. The following year, 196; and in 1855, 236. The average from 1837 to 1866, both included, has been 690.

In the twelve months ending the 30th June, 1848, with an estimated population of 28,015,685, the number of persons travelling by railway had increased to double that of the population, 57,965,071, of whom 29,083,782 were third class,—1,068,097 more than the population, and a few more than one-half of the whole number carried.

“The cause of this augmentation of third class passengers is,” says the late Dr. Lardner, in his treatise upon Railway[61] Economy, edition of 1850, “easily explained. Previous to 1846, the carriages provided for third class passengers were frequently without roofs or windows. The third class trains were started at inconvenient hours, and were transported at a comparatively slow rate. In fact, the companies appeared to study the means which were most likely to discourage the use of these cheap trains, prompted, apparently, by the apprehension that the more affluent classes[22] resorting to them, the revenue and profits from the other trains would be diminished.” By these means the humbler classes were, no doubt, deprived in a great measure of the benefit of railway transport. An Act, however, was passed in 1845 for the establishment of at least one third class train a day in each direction, in accordance with a time bill to be previously approved by the Board of Trade, the speed to be not less than twelve miles an hour, and the fare for conveyance—in carriages, the dimensions, seating accommodation, and size of windows of which must be sanctioned by the Board of Trade—not to exceed a penny a mile. Without such approval and sanction, a train is not considered, what is known in railway language, as a “parliamentary train” within the meaning of the Act. The company offending, therefore, is not allowed[62] a remission of the duty on the passengers conveyed by such train, to which it would be otherwise entitled under the certificate of the Board of Trade, and it is liable to penalties for non-fulfilment of the terms of the Act. In two or three cases these penalties have been enforced and recovered by decisions obtained in the courts of law.

The very great development of third class traffic, by means of cheap parliamentary trains, has produced a marked change in the feelings of railway managers upon this subject in the last few years. Now, almost all the time tables show, specifically, the trains by which they can be conveyed, and by reference, among others, to the most recent monthly guide book of the London and North-Western Company, it will be seen that third class passengers are now conveyed from London to Liverpool by one particular train in six hours and a-half; to Manchester in five hours and twenty minutes. At the institution of parliamentary trains the time by them from London to both those cities was fifteen hours. But this was just half the time that the coaches took in the olden time between London and Liverpool, and it was also at just half the cost as regards fare, irrespective of the fees to guard and coachman.

In the three last years, both the Metropolitan and the London, Chatham and Dover Companies have carried the principle of cheap fares for the labouring classes much beyond the penny-a-mile system. These companies issue what are called “workman’s tickets.” It will be seen by the subjoined notice[23] contained in the monthly time books of[63] the London, Chatham and Dover Company, that there are two classes of workman’s tickets. The distance from Victoria Station to Penge is 7¼ miles.

[64]

With such facilities it cannot he a matter of surprise, that whilst in the seven years, between 1859 and 1865, both inclusive, the first class passengers increased 10,459,054, an average yearly increase of 1,494,122; the second 26,431,338, an average yearly increase of 3,775,905; those of the third class rose 65,215,029, an average yearly increase of 9,316,432. But this is not altogether the way to look at it, for whilst the increase of third class passengers, in the four years 1859-60-61-62, was 19,253,241—a yearly average of 4,893,310, the increase of 1863 over 1862 was 15,617,917; 1864 over 1863, 15,229,183; and 1865 over 1864, 15,114,688.

In 1865 the total number of passengers carried (exclusive of 97,147 residential ticket holders) was 251,862,715, thus composed—first class, 29,663,205; second class, 70,783,241; third class, 151,416,269. But to the total number have to he added the journeys taken by the periodical ticket holders. If 100 journeys be allowed for each such holder (a number much below reality), it adds 9,717,400 to the gross amount, of which two-thirds should be attributed to first class, and one-third to second. Per contra, a deduction of about 5,000,000 must be made for passengers “booked through”—that is, passengers conveyed in a single journey over the lines of two or more companies. For instance, a passenger booked from London to Limerick, is carried, independent of his water conveyance, over the lines of four railway companies, and in the returns to the Board of Trade he is included as a passenger upon each of those lines as if he had taken a ticket upon it, yet, in reality, he takes but one journey, although it is a long one, 464 miles. Deducting say 5,000,000 on this account, it makes the total number of paying railway passengers about 256,500,000. In twenty-eight years, population and land-conveyed passengers have completely reversed their positions. In 1837 population was eight times as many[65] as passengers, and in 1865 passengers were more than eight times as many as population.

As to the speed at which railway passengers are conveyed, we shall speak when referring to what our railways have done for postal service.

“Forty shillings a ton for goods between Liverpool and Manchester.” Yes; that was the price paid just a hundred years ago, and nobody could reckon upon having them in less than a week from the time of consignment. But the opening of the Duke of Bridgewater’s Canal diminished the price to six shillings a ton, and the time to three days. Now-a-days, the cotton spinner of Manchester would “spin a yarn” of formidable dimensions to a goods manager of a railway that dared to keep his goods more than a couple of hours on the road, with four or five hours more added for loading, unloading, and delivery. Not forty years ago, the charge was 1s. 1d. a ton a mile for goods, no matter of what kind or quality, conveyed by waggon. Thus, if any were weak enough to send a ton of goods from London to Manchester, the tariff rate would be £5. 1s. 4d., although probably the carrier, as an act of amiable condescension towards his customer, and in hopes of future favours, might take off the odd shilling and the level fourpence, and be content to carry for an even “fiver.” He would proceed at the top-gallant speed of fifteen knots a day, and he would reach his port, if all were well, in eighteen to twenty days from the time of his heaving anchor.

In process of time, the canal owners and lessees managed to more than double the charge for the conveyance of cotton between Liverpool and Manchester, and also to more than double the time for its delivery. They did more; if any of their customers happened to displease or offend them, their[66] goods were put under ban. Canal managers were the trade unionists of those days. Nevertheless, the quantity of cotton carried was six times as much in 1824 as it had been in 1795.

The goods traffic of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway commenced on the 4th December, 1830, with a train of eighteen waggons, the weight of each of which was a little over 1¼ tons. The eighteen waggons carried a paying weight of 51½ tons of goods, the tender, water, and fuel weighed 4 tons, and, with the fifteen persons in the train, there was a total weight of 80 tons, which was drawn by an engine weighing 7½ tons, in two hours and fifty-four minutes, just 10½ miles an hour.

The development of goods traffic of our first-born English railway, although it was rapid and important, was not so striking as that of passengers; nevertheless, it increased from 1,432 tons in the first month to 5,104 tons in the fourth month. The coal traffic, from which much was expected, was practically nil; it did not become an important item of receipts until years afterwards. In fact, the Goods and Mineral Traffic of railways scarcely developed itself in the early period of their history, and, until about the year 1840, the relative proportions of passengers to goods was as 85 to 15. A striking illustration of this fact is afforded by the London and Birmingham Company; in its estimates of traffic submitted to Parliament in 1833, it was calculated that the goods traffic would produce £340,000 in the first year after opening. It barely realised £90,000, and it was twelve years before it had attained the sum of £340,000. But since 1840 the change has been gradually working. In 1847, with an average length of 3,426 miles open for traffic, 16,460,599 tons of goods of all kinds (in which are included minerals) were carried, and 3,709,030 head of cattle. All[67] this traffic may he considered a new traffic, created solely through the influence of railways, precisely as the passenger traffic of railways, enormous as it is, is the excess of traffic over that conveyed by roadway. Between 1830 and 1837 it was often predicted that the canals of the kingdom would be ruined by the competition of railways, yet in 1846, seven to eight years after the main lines of railway which would come into competition with canals were opened, the latter were paying the following percentages on their capital:—Grand Junction 6, Oxford 26, Coventry 25, Old Birmingham 16, Trent and Mersey 30! Have canals suffered since then? Certainly not; they carry millions more tons of goods per annum than they did thirty years ago, and if they have to carry at a cheaper rate than formerly, competition has sharpened speed in transit, as well as despatch in collection and delivery; and not only is more business than ever done on the canals, but there is much more money made for distribution among shareholders.

In order to show the present state and estimation of canal property in England, we have extracted from the Investor’s Manual for August last, a publication issued monthly in connection with the Economist newspaper, a statement of the dividends that canals now pay to their shareholders. Commencing with the least profitable, and gradually ascending, we find that the Gloucester and Berkeley pays 2 per cent. in addition to paying 5 per cent. on its preferential stock; the Sheffield 2½; the Warwick and Birmingham 3; the Lancaster is leased to the London and North-Western Railway, at 3⅝; the Barnsley Canal pays 4; the Macclesfield Canal is leased by the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company, at 4¼; the North Staffordshire Railway Company leases 116 miles of canal, which under the[68] terms of the lease have recently paid 4¼ per cent., it has been as high as 4½. By comparing the canal receipts of the first half of 1865 with those for the corresponding period of 1866, it will be seen that the former were £45,414, the latter £52,488. The Grand Junction pays 4½, in addition to a 6 per cent. preferential capital, on exactly the same amount as the ordinary capital; the Rochdale pays 4¾; the Stratford and Avon is guaranteed 5 per cent. by the Great Western Railway Company; the Peak Forest pays 5; the Regents Canal, with its very large capital, pays 5¼; the Kennet and Avon, 6; the Forth and Clyde, 6½; the Oxford, 8¼; the London and North-Western guarantees the Birmingham Canal 10; the Coventry pays 13; the Stourbridge paid 14½ in 1864, but since then its profits have diminished, nevertheless it pays 11½; the Staffordshire and Worcestershire’s dividend was 21½ per cent. in 1864, but it has now fallen to 15½,—strange to say, the only canal in the whole list of canals that does not pay any dividend is close at hand, the Worcester and Birmingham; its capital is £450,000, the sum per share paid up is £78. 8s., yet the shares must have intrinsic value, as their price is quoted 12 in share lists. The last and the highest is the Liverpool and Leeds, notwithstanding that for about a third of its length it runs parallel to three railways, and for about two-thirds to two; its goods traffic is leased to the London and North-Western, the Lancashire, and the Midland, until 1871 at the rate of 28 per cent. per annum. Of course the profits of the Bridgewater and Elsemere Canals, being private property, cannot be stated, but they are known to be very large.

If we step from 1847 to 1859, we find that goods of all descriptions have in railway accounts become separated from minerals. Of the former, the 10,002 miles of railway that[69] were open for traffic at the end of 1859, had carried 27,005,737 tons, and they had yielded a receipt to the companies of £8,373,283, so that each ton of goods carried was worth 6s. 2¼d. to them. We shall not stop to tell the particulars of intermediate years up to 1865; suffice it to say, that every year not only has the gross tonnage increased, but also the amount realised upon each ton of goods carried. This item which, as we have just stated, was 6s. 2¼d. in 1859, had risen steadily up to 6s. 7¼d. in 1865, and at the same time the number of tons carried had increased 9,781,901 tons, the number in 1865 being 36,787,638. In like manner the money received for goods increased £3,784,956, the amount in 1865 being £12,158,239; but, just as with third class passengers, the main increase has been in the years 1863, 1864 and 1865. It was at the rate of about 2,000,000 tons a year, and nearly one million sterling.

We have already referred so fully to coals and other subterranean products, at pages 48 et seq., that we only add here, that the average value to the companies of a ton of minerals was 1s. 7½d. in 1859, and that, with occasional fluctuations, it had increased to 1s. 8d. in 1865. This is a low average, and it looks as if the profits to the railway companies from mineral traffic must be very slight indeed.

The carriage of cattle of all kinds increased from 3,709,030 head in 1847, to 12,805,613 in 1859, when each head was worth 11¼d. There was hardly any change or fluctuation until 1863, when the number increased to 13,029,675 head. In 1865 they were 14,530,937 head, but their value had risen to 11½d. a head.

The conveyance of cattle by railway reminds us how enormously all the great centres and bee-hives of our population[70] are indebted to the iron road and the iron horse for their daily consumption and sustenance. “Give us this day our daily bread,” is in the prayer that all Christians should offer up, morning and evening, and the railways do give it in a way the stoppage of which for two or three days would cause a famine in the land. Dr. Wynter, in the article “London Commissariat” of his Curiosities of Civilization, gives the marvellous statistics relating the daily supplies of food which come to London. But since Dr. Wynter wrote, the population of the Metropolis and of its outskirts has increased a fifth. Yet the great London mouth is fed, and the great London stomach is replenished with the same regularity as ever. As it is with London, so it is with every other concentration of souls in the land. Demand is always increasing, yet supply keeps pace, and never fails to be hand and hand with it. For we have the consolation of knowing that what we are unable to produce at home we have not the slightest difficulty in finding abroad. In addition to the 14,000,000 of cattle of all kinds that are conveyed, last year, from our green pastures to our slaughter-houses, we imported 237,739 oxen, cows, and calves; and as each of these animals, as he or she steps on shore, is, according to Board of Trade computation, worth £18. 14s. 5d., it follows that John Bull has paid for them, in meal or malt, in money or money’s worth, £4,092,941. 790,880 was the number of foreign sheep and lambs that came among us last year; and, as the Board of Trade put a value upon each of them of £2. 10s. in 1865, which value has not been diminished in 1866, the score against us on this account would be, according to arithmetic as practised in the Statistical Department of that branch of public service, £1,504,312; but according to the arithmetic as[71] known elsewhere, it is £1,977,200. The former sum could only be correct if the value were £1. 18s.½d. per head.[24]

But we must not continue the subject in anything approaching detail; suffice it is to say, that among other articles from abroad, we had meat in the shape of bacon, beef, and pork, to the extent of about 1,000,000 cwt. in quantity, and £3,000,000 in value. Of butter and cheese we had 2,000,000 cwt., of the value of £9,000,000. The use of coffee among us is diminishing. In 1852 it was 42,000,000 lbs., in 1866, it was 10,000,000 lbs. less; but the home consumption of Tea has risen in the same period from 54,713,000 lbs. to 102,265,000 lbs.,[25] nearly double; but on[72] the other hand the duty we paid for the lesser quantity was more than double what we paid for the larger, £5,900,625 in 1852, but happily only £2,658,716 in 1866. Of foreign corn we received, for home consumption, 23,000,000 cwt. of wheat, 8,000,000 cwt. of barley, 9,000,000 cwt. of oats, 14,000,000 cwt. of maize, and 5,000,000 cwt. of wheat flour, the aggregate value of corn amounting to £30,000,000. Of the important article of sugar, we received 10,500,000 cwt. The strong beverages came to us to the value of 2¼ millions for spirits, and not far short of five millions for wine. We are fond of spices and seasonings also, 130,000 cwt. of pepper, and 24,000 cwt. of cinnamon, cloves and nutmegs, and 1,100,000 cwt. of raisins and currants. But the article of all others in the list, the importation of which, in 1866, seems the most marvellous is that of eggs, 438,878,880! 14½ per annum for each inhabitant of the kingdom, ranging from “the infant mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms” to “the last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history, second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” and all these, independent and exclusive of all the eggs that all the true born English, Irish, Scotch and Welsh hens lay all over the kingdom. Truly we must be the most egg-eating nation in the world. Housekeepers of Great Britain! we wish you to know that the President of the Board of Trade assesses the value of each egg, when brought into the country, at a little less than 2⅖ farthings, or about 7¼d. a dozen. The difference between this price and the minimum of “16 a shilling warranted” constitute the charges and profits upon them between the time of their landing and their arrival in your kitchens. Fifteen years ago (1852) our importation of eggs was not a fourth of its present amount—it was 108,281,233.

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CHAPTER IV.

RAILWAYS AND THE POST OFFICE—SPEED ON RAILWAYS.

Passengers, luggage, horses, carriages, dogs, merchandise, minerals and live stock constitute the whole of the traffic, as well as the whole of the receipts of railway companies, with one only exception. That exception is an important one: it is the conveyance of mails by railway.

From the day that railways were opened in England, the Post Office has resorted to them for the conveyance of its mails. The Liverpool and Manchester railway was opened for traffic, as already stated, on the 14th of September, 1830; on the same day the Post Office commenced using it, and mails were conveyed on it four times a day in each direction. The same happened at the opening of the Grand Junction between Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham on the 6th July, 1837; upon the completion of the line between London and Birmingham, on the 20th September, 1838, and so in succession with every leading railway throughout the kingdom.

The Post Office soon became jealous of the power and position of railway companies, and the expression of its jealousy culminated in the introduction, at its instance, of a bill into Parliament, in 1838, “for the conveyance of mails by railway.” The bill proposed to give power to the Post Office to run its own trains upon any line of railway open for traffic, without payment of toll. It was further to be authorised to remove all obstacles in the shape of passenger or other carriages out of the way of its trains; pains and[74] penalties were to be amerced on the servants of companies if the “lawful commands” of the postal officials were disobeyed. The aid of the railway plant and of railway officials was commanded, and the remuneration to the companies for these services was to be this much, and no more—the cost of the wear, tear and deterioration that Post Office trains inflicted upon the rails!

Mr. Labouchere, now Lord Taunton, introduced the bill, and in doing so said that the country was at the mercy of railway companies which had bound the land in bonds of iron—bonds from which it was necessary that the land should be freed by the action of Parliament. Mr. Rice, afterwards Lord Monteagle, prince of jobbers, and for many years enjoying the sinecure and emoluments of Comptroller of the Exchequer, an office abolished at his death, warned all railway directors to beware of opposing the bill, threatening them, on the part of the Government, of which he was then a member, with more stringent measures, if they were so ill-advised.

The bill, nevertheless, met with vigorous opposition; at its head was Mr. George Carr Glyn, chairman of the London and Birmingham Company, and then, as now, the honoured member for the Borough of Kendal, whom Mr. John Francis truthfully describes in the dedication of his History of the English Railway[26], as “one of the earliest, as well as one of the most efficient allies of the system;”

The effect of the opposition was that an act was passed which differed essentially in character and conditions from the bill that had been presented to Parliament. The chief[75] power given to the Post Office was that the railway companies were bound to convey mails at such hours as the Postmaster-General should direct; if required, they were to apply separate carriages exclusively to their conveyance, and remuneration was to be according to agreement between the Postmaster-General and the Directors, but in case of difference recourse was to be had to arbitration.

The era of postal reform commenced on the 10th of January, 1840. In the year previous to it, the number of letters circulating through the post was 82,471,000. In these were included 6,563,000 franks. The estimated number of newspapers conveyed by the post in 1839 was 44,500,000. In 1840 there were about 1,300 miles of railway open. What had before been an advantage to the Post Office, and to the letter-writing public, by the gain of speed which railways afforded, at once became a necessity to the department, in consequence of the sudden increase in the weight and the bulk of the mails. The number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom, in 1840, was more than double that of 1839. They were 168,768,000, and there was every indication that they would increase, if not in the gigantic ratio of the first year, at all events very rapidly; such was the case, for the number carried in 1841 showed an increase of nearly 28,000,000. Newspapers increased about 500,000 in 1840. It would have been supposed that the Post Office would have entered into negotiations, in a friendly spirit, with the officials of the railway companies; this, however, was not the case: on the contrary, from the earliest period of postal reform until recent years, the railway has experienced nothing but hostility and reproach from the department. Personal and friendly communication with its heads became out of the question, for the demeanour of one high official[76] (whose name, without being mentioned, can easily be surmised) to many of the leading railway officials was such, that several declined to meet him; recourse was then had to arbitration, in accordance with the powers conferred on the Post Office by the provisions of the Act of Parliament. The result of references, many of which were very protracted, and in the course of which very minute and elaborate evidence was adduced on both sides, was that decisions were given much more favourable to the railways than the Post Office had expected. The proof that the demands of railway companies did not justify the appellations which the Post Office attributed to them was, that they were not much above the amounts awarded. But as regards the Post Office, the payments proposed by it, and those awarded differed very widely. This, however, did not make any difference in the crusading energy of the department. Long before the issue of Postmaster-General’s reports,[27] whenever[77] an opportunity offered, either in giving evidence before a Committee of Parliament, or in furnishing information, there was sure to be an insinuation, an innuendo, or a more open attack upon the railway authorities who had succeeded in not allowing the Post Office to have it all its own way.

The Postmaster-General’s First Report partakes more of the character of an historic document than of a record of the transactions of an official year. There are, therefore, only some few unimportant remarks in it upon the subject of railways. It was otherwise in the second, as will appear by the following somewhat lengthy extract:—

The foregoing is in the body of the report, what follows appears as a foot-note.

“As nearly as it can be estimated it appears that, while the whole number of book packets conveyed annually by the Post Office is probably over stated at three millions, the number of newspapers[29] passing through the post has decreased by about twenty-five millions, or by more than eight times the number of all the book packets. Besides this reduction in number, there has been a decrease in the average weight of the newspapers sent through the post; and the combined effect of these changes has been to reduce the total weight of the newspapers by an amount more than nine times as great as the total weight of all the book packets.”

There never has been anything to show, either at the time those paragraphs were written, or subsequently, that cheap postage has tended to increase railway traffic. We are therefore at a loss to understand why such an assertion should be adduced as an argument. The same remark applies to the connection attempted to be set up between the amount paid by the Post Office for the transmission of mails through the country, and the tax which railway companies pay to the Government as their contribution to the fiscal burdens, unavoidably and of necessity imposed upon industry by the State: and it must also be considered strange that the[80] Post Office should make a Postmaster-General’s Report the medium of conveying to arbitrators its opinion as to the mode in which they should arbitrate between it and the companies.

However, we pass over these minor and insignificant points, to come to the very serious misrepresentation which is embodied in the foot-note. If the reader will be so good as to read it again, he will see words, which, if they mean anything, mean that the number of newspapers circulating through the post was 25,000,000 less in 1855, than it was in 1854, the object being to show that although 3,000,000 of book packets were carried through the post in 1855, railways were not sufferers thereby, as these packets only formed one-eighth of the number of newspapers that had been withdrawn from postal circulation, owing to the abolition of the compulsory stamp duty. Now we know that in consequence of the reduction in 1836 of the Stamp Duty upon newspapers,[30] from nominal 4d. and real 3¼d. each, to 1d., the number[81] posted had steadily increased each year. Therefore, if the assertion of the foot-note were correct, newspapers posted would have suddenly fallen, in 1855, to 46,000,000, that is to only 1,500,000 more than they were in 1839; yet at page[82] 19 of the identical Second Report, it is stated that 71,000,000 of newspapers were posted in 1855. Thus at page 15, to serve one purpose, figures are given which would show that only 46,000,000 were posted, but four pages farther, to serve another purpose, that of showing how postal business has increased, they are stated at 71,000,000.

Let us now turn to the Third Report. At page 10, the number of newspapers transmitted through the post in 1856, is stated to be 71,000,000. If this statement be correct, it would show, either that the number transmitted in 1855 had in reality been about 71,000,000, or that, on the mechanical principle of action and reaction being equal and contrary, there[83] had been a fall of 25,000,000 in 1855, and that precisely the same rise had taken place in 1856. This rise in one year would have to be considered all the more remarkable, inasmuch as the total number, not only of newspapers, but of book post packets transmitted in 1865, was 97,250,000 according to one statement, 2,766 more according to another. Owing to the unceasing changes in the mode of imparting information to the public by means of the Postmaster-General’s reports, the number of newspapers, exclusive of book post packets, cannot be given, but, including these latter, there was, according to the Postmaster-General’s Twelfth Report, an increase of only 26,250,000 in ten years, as against an alleged fall of 25,000,000 in one year, and a recovery to the same amount in the next.

We come now to deal with the Report, dated the 29th February, 1856, by Mr. Edward Page, an excellent officer within the limits of his duties as Inspector-General of Mails, as well as a courteous and agreeable gentleman. He is consequently much esteemed and respected.

But before going farther, let us premise that the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, in the course of the inaugural address which, as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he delivered on the 8th of January, 1856, made the following observations upon the connection between the Post Office and the railways:—

These words called forth Mr. Page’s Report, and, as the public usually feels interested in matters relating to the Post Office, we have given it in full as an Appendix. We also have done very nearly the same with the Reply to Mr. Page, which Mr. Stephenson read to the Institution on the 20th of May, 1856. Combinedly these documents are long; nevertheless, we think they will repay perusal; at all events, our readers, if they choose to read, will get both views of the question, about which we also wish to say something.

Mr. Page, as it will be seen, passes by “bulk,” and deals, in all his arguments, with weight only. Yet the difference between them, even in the case of mails, the most favourable for the Post Office is very great indeed. Let us, for illustration, take the case of our Eastern mails; being all conveyed in parallel-sided boxes,[31] filled to the uttermost their inner dimensions will permit, they pack closely, and there is no loss of space, as must be in the case of bags, which, even when full, do not lay compactly together. Thus, the weight of one mail conveyed from Southampton to the East, in 1864, was 46 tons; its measurement was 99 tons, and the weight of the heaviest Eastern mail conveyed viâ Southampton, in 1865, was 49[86]½ tons; its measurement 106½ tons. Weight to bulk in mail bags is nearer to 1 to 4 than to any other quantity. Had the weight (or bulk) of chargeable letters only increased about eight-fold between 1839 and 1855, no doubt the addition to the mails would not have been considerable. But Mr. Page, “no doubt without any intention whatever to mislead,” omits from his calculations matters which it is surprising that an officer of his intelligence and experience should have allowed to escape him. In the first place, he omits the fact that “chargeable letters” were very different in their character in 1855 from what they were in 1839. Then chargeable letters were, as has been stated by Mr. Page, about 7 per cent. of the total weight of the mails, but in 1855 letters quite equal in weight to the weight of those chargeable, viz., parliamentary and official franks, are excluded from Mr. Page’s calculation. It is well known that the correspondence of all the public departments has largely increased in the last thirty years, because, owing to the increased magnitude of the business of the nation, the number of clerks in the old offices has been greatly added to, and because several new branches of the public service have been created. To take a few examples at random. The Steam branch of the Admiralty consisted in 1838 of five or six persons; now, owing to rapid and frequent additions, an immense staff is necessarily connected with it. The Railway and the Navigation, the Education and the Scientific Departments of the Board of Trade, “Science and Art” and South Kensington, the Civil Service Commissioners, &c., have either been created or the staff of each has been added to. So that the substitutes for franks should be included among the letters of the general public, and it is quite certain[87] that the weight and bulk of official letters has kept pace with the weight and bulk of ordinary letters. Between 1839 and 1855, notwithstanding the foot-note about newspapers at page 15, of the Postmaster-General’s Second Report, the number circulating through the post had increased from 44,500,000 to 71,000,000, and although the weight per newspaper had slightly diminished in the interval, still the increased weight of newspapers to be carried by the mails was nearly 50 per cent. over that of 1839.

So far as regards the long established articles of conveyance by the Post Office. Let us now come to those of more modern date. The year before the commencement of the penny postal system, the number of money orders issued was 188,921. In 1855 they had risen to 5,807,412. Now, taking the advices that must be sent to each office upon which an order is issued, the returns that are forwarded daily to the accountant’s office in the metropolis of each part of the United Kingdom in which each Post Office Order has been issued, the remittances unceasingly sent from the provincial offices to the metropolis, and from the metropolis to the provincial offices, the receipts for these remittances and the correspondence which they entail, the weekly advices that are sent to London, and the correspondence connected with them, there were at least twelve millions more of letters or documents from this source in 1855 than there were in 1839. None of these letters or documents does Mr. Page bring into calculation, although, each being official, the certainty is that they are heavier in weight and greater in bulk than a like amount of chargeable letters; all these are carried free in the letter bags. And it is a question that it is not necessary[88] to discuss at present, whether they and the letters and documents (we shall see presently that these are enormous in number, and very great as regards weight) connected with the new services and functions which the Post Office performs, should not be brought into account as a postal charge against the department. The other revenue departments, such, for instance, as the Customs, Inland Revenue, &c., transmit large masses of documents necessary in the transaction of their business with their sub-offices all over the kingdom; but these documents are each subjected to postal charges which are regularly debited in the account of the transmitting department.

In 1839 all expenditure was made by the postmasters throughout the kingdom, and the voucher for each item was retained in their offices.

In 1855 the expenditure was made as heretofore, and as it now continues to be, but instead of the vouchers being retained, every tradesman’s bill and every other item of expenditure that is incurred at a provincial office, no matter how small the item may be, is, with the voucher, sent up to its metropolitan office. To specify the number of these documents would be impossible, but there must be tons weight of them through the post every year.

In 1839 there were no postage stamps. In 1855 the gross revenue of the Post Office was £2,716,420. Taking about a fourth of this amount, or, say £700,000 as the value of those sent through the post for distribution in every post town in the kingdom, their number (in penny stamps) 168,000,000; their dead weight (packed) would be about ten tons, not including the weight of materials in which they were packed, and excluding from the calculation the very considerable[89] number of post office envelopes sent all over the empire, one of which envelopes would weigh as much as two dozen stamps[32].

At the commencement of the new postal system, the number of post offices throughout the United Kingdom was 4,028, of which about a fourteenth, or 300, were head post offices, that is offices sending bags to and receiving bags from London. In 1855 there were 10,498 post offices in the United Kingdom, of which “920[33] were head post offices and 9,578 sub post offices or receiving offices.” Therefore not only had the number of bags going from or coming to London from this one cause been trebled in number, but for the reasons just stated the weight in them had also trebled. In[90] 1839 there were four or five day mails to and from London. In 1855 upwards of fifty, all of which required bags for working them, and their tributary cross posts in every part of the kingdom, but as Mr. Page’s arguments have reference principally to night mails, let them be excluded.

As London is the depôt from which the immense and unceasing supply of new bags for the whole postal system of England and Wales (as Dublin is for Ireland, and Edinburgh for Scotland) is furnished, every one of the bags for the night mails, the day mails, the railway mails, the mail coach mails, the mail cart mails, the horse mails, the foot mails, and the private bag mails, required, in no matter what part of the Kingdom, are considered by the Post Office as postal matters, and are sent post-free accordingly, and when bags are dilapidated or injured they find their way to London, just in the same inexpensive manner as new bags find their way from it. “The supply and repair of mail bags” in England and Wales involve an annual cost of nearly £6,000, exclusive of the cost of supplying and painting the 22,000 to 25,000 mail boxes per annum required for the despatch of our Eastern mails; and one man is borne on the books of the establishment for no other purpose than, as the estimates tell us, to label mail bags. In Ireland there is an annual outlay of £800, in Scotland of £900, for new bags and mendings. In short, empty mail bag transit must have been in 1855 a quarter of all that, whether filled or empty, of 1839.

In 1839 there was one departure a month of the East India mail viâ Marseilles and one viâ Southampton, yet the weight of the mails by the two routes was under five tons, in bulk about twelve tons. In 1855, with two departures a month viâ Marseilles, and two viâ Southampton, the Eastern mails[91] were about twenty tons weight. In 1839 the West India and Brazilian mails were despatched once a month, in the notorious ten-gun “coffins”; yet although the letters were then always sent in triplicate, because the certainty then was that one in three would be lost, and the chances were it might be one in two, nevertheless the letters were only about 200,000 a year; in 1855 they had risen to 700,000. In 1839 letters between Great Britain, the United States, and Canada were conveyed by the American “Liners,” they were under a million per annum; in 1855 they had risen to about 2,500,000, besides letters “in transit” between the United States, Europe, India, China, and Australia.

In 1839 the community had not the benefit of a “British Postal Guide,[34] containing the Chief Public Regulations of the Post Office, with other information, published Quarterly by command of the Postmaster-General.” The first number was issued on the 1st of July, 1855, seven months before Mr. Page wrote his Report. The cost of each number for two or three years was Sixpence. As we learn by the cover that they are “Printed, Published, and Sold by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty,” and that they are “to be had also of all Booksellers and the Principal Postmasters in the United Kingdom.” It therefore follows that these Postal[92] Guides were, from the date of their first appearance, transmitted by the Railways in the Post Office bags all over the Kingdom. We have seen them, from the earliest period of their publication, exhibited and advertised at the post offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Cork, and other places, and almost every postmaster receives one or more copies for the use of his office. Each number contains 234 pages at present, besides the pages devoted to advertisements, and they cost 2d. each for transmission if sent by book post. In 1858, the price per copy was raised to 1s.; but in 1864 it was reduced to 6d., and the sale has become very great.

But whatever their number or weight was in 1855, it escaped Mr. Page’s recollection to mention them in his comparison between the weights transmitted in that year, and those of 1839.

The foregoing items supply some of the omissions made by Mr. Page in his calculations, and furnish reasons for dissenting from his assertion, that whilst “in 1838 the gross weight of the night mails despatched from London was 4 tons 6 cwt. 1 qr., the total weight of the night mails despatched in a single evening at the present time, may be stated (the italics are ours) at about 12 tons 4 cwt. 3 qrs.”

Mr. Page estimates the gross weight of mails per annum for the entire Kingdom, including guards, clerks, &c., as being considerably under 20,000 tons, “a large portion of which was not conveyed by railway at all.” Mr. Page adds, “Assuming, however, that the whole of it had gone by the railways, it would appear that the Post Office paid 1/23 part of the total earnings for the conveyance of less than a 1/400 part of the total weight.” Mr. Page must excuse us for asserting that the total weight of mails in 1855 was nearer to[93] 80,000 tons than to 20,000, and that by bulk it was nearly 200,000 tons, of which more than half was carried by railway.

Until September 1838, fifty-two horses started every evening from London, with thirteen mail coaches behind them, to convey the mails that are now carried by the Scotch Limited Mail. The weight of mails carried by the coaches was about four tons, their bulk about ten tons measurement. The horses travelled gallantly up hill and down dale over first-class roads at the rate of more than ten miles an hour, and at the end of six or seven miles they were replaced by others of the same mettle. They were guided by thirteen first-class “whips” of the olden time, and no matter what the weather was, or how rough any portion of the road might be temporarily, the great ambition was, not to be a second after time at appointed places. In charge of these four or ten tons, as the case may be, were thirteen guards, to whom the custody of the mails was entrusted. They were responsible for their safe and faithful transmission between St. Martin’s-le-Grand and their destinations.

Each mail coach was considered to require a horse a double mile, to maintain its contract time. As Stafford is 133 miles from London, 133 multiplied by 13 gives the number of horses required, 1,729. The average weight which each mail coach carried was 4 cwt., taken as bulk it was half a ton. The maximum weight that, by the terms of the contract, could be imposed upon it was 15 cwt., a total, for thirteen mails, of 195 cwt.—five less than five tons.

In 1867 one horse—of the railway the iron-clad—invented, not conceived, not created—a living, but lifeless thing—yet withal of terrible power, draws, in addition to the same number of passengers that the fifty-two horses could draw,[94] the mails which are to be carried to Stafford and beyond it. Instead of the weight being four tons, it is often nearly twenty, and instead of bulk being ten, it is seldom less than forty, often fifty, and sometimes it mounts up to even four or five tons further. But no matter, the iron horse is ready to take its load, and does take it at speed four times as great as the speed of thirty years ago.

If we had to go back to mail coaches, and each were only to carry the average of 1837, we should require 100 mail coaches and 13,300 horses; but if each were loaded to its Post Office maximum of former times, then only 27 coaches and 3,591 horses would be requisite. At what cost for 27 coaches? Certainly, the former average of 2½d. a mile would no longer be attainable. More than double would be demanded. 13s. 6d. a mile per diem for 133 miles, multiplied by 365 days, is £32,785. Yet the highest price that the London and North-Western ever had for its night mail service was 4s. the double mile, £9,709.

This is one answer to the assertion of Mr. Page in his report, “Not only, therefore, would penny postage without railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but it would have been even more profitable[35] (assuming the increase of letters) than it is now.”

[95]

We learn from Mr. Howell, the Secretary of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company, that on Australian mail mornings the weight of mails is 46 tons; to carry these at the rate of 15 cwt. per mail coach from London to Southampton, 78 miles, it would he necessary to have 61 coaches and 4,758 horses, besides guards and coachmen. As mails, although not near so heavy as the Australian, are continually arriving at and departing from Southampton, it would be necessary to keep up at least the above stock both of bi-and quadru-peds for these 78 miles, at a cost of about £30,000 a year; but reference to the Post Office estimates will show that the annual payment made by the department to the London and South-Western Company is £21,950, and for that sum the Post Office has the right not only to receive and despatch its sea-going mails, but to use every one of the Company’s trains over the 503 miles which constitute its system, for Post Office inland business. How, it may be asked again, can any officer of the department assert in a report (designated by the Postmaster-General “an able report”) that the penny postage “would have been even more profitable without railways than it now is”?

There is a point in connection with this subject that may as well be referred to here. The Isthmus of Suez Railway[36][96] was opened for traffic in 1858, the same year that the Australian mail service by way of Egypt was commenced. The India and China mails had increased very rapidly during the few previous years, and the greatest trouble and difficulty were experienced in getting them across the desert. The addition of the Australian mails would have overwhelmed the service, but for the opening of the railway. For let it be asked, What number of camels would be required, or what time would they require to take some fifty tons of mails (adding to the transmissions viâ Southampton, those from England and France viâ Marseilles, and from Germany viâ Trieste) across the desert? By means of the Suez Railway, the cost to this country for the conveyance of the mails outwards and inwards through Egypt is £8,000 a year, and eight Janissaries accompany the mails in both directions, for which they are paid £750 per annum. The cost of a combined army of camels, camel drivers and Janissaries would be at least £60,000 a year, and it would be simply impossible to perform the service satisfactorily.

We think we have demonstrated that even in 1855 the[97] Post Office services of the country must have totally broken down, were it not for railways. But between 1855 and 1865 the postal business has increased enormously. The number of receptacles for letters[37] has risen from 10,498 to 16,246, the number of letters delivered from 456,276,176[98] to 720,467,007, of newspapers and book parcels,[38] from 71,000,000 to 97,252,766; samples and patterns, an item of Post Office transmission introduced in 1863, 1,286,116. The amount, in money, of the Money Orders issued has increased from £11,009,279[39] to £17,829,290. With the increase comes the concomitant increase of transmissions through the post. The weight of the Eastern mails has risen from 250 tons a year to nearly 2,000.

[99]

In 1861, the operations of the Post Office Savings Banks commenced, and by the 31st December, 1865, 3,321 banks had been established all over the kingdom. The total number of persons who had become depositors from the commencement was 857,701, of whom 245,882 had closed their accounts, leaving 611,819 on the books. The total number of deposits received had been 3,895,135. The total withdrawals 1,011,379. Without railways, the operations of those banks could never have been attempted. See what they have to carry? Every person on making his first deposit receives gratis, a numbered book, in which all deposits are to be entered. The weight of this book is about three quarters of an ounce; advice of each deposit is to be sent on the day of its receipt, by the Postmaster to the Post Office, London. The amount of the deposit is to be acknowledged, and the acknowledgment is to be transmitted by post to the receiver. Every depositor’s book must be forwarded each year (even from the remotest part of the kingdom), on the anniversary of the day on which the first deposit was made, to London, in a cover to be obtained at any savings bank. This cover exempts the book from postage charge, and it is also returned free from the London office to the depositor. Every necessary letter of inquiry respecting deposits in savings banks, and their replies are carried by the railways, and travel free of postage. If a depositor want to withdraw a part or the whole of the amount to his credit, he must make application on a form a copy of which can be obtained at any savings bank. It is sent free to London, as also the warrant from London payable at the place named by the applicant. The warrant when paid and receipted is returned by the Postmaster to London.

[100]

If the reader will be so good as to multiply the amount of correspondence caused by one depositor, by the total number, viz., 857,701, he will then be able to estimate what is the annual amount of work that is involved in the carrying out of the Post Office Savings Bank system, and also how completely it depends for its success upon railways. It is pleasant—it is more than pleasant—it is deeply gratifying and satisfactory, to know that the business increases, and will continue to increase, for the reason that the humblest classes of the community have now learned to appreciate the facilities which these institutions offer for the safe and fructifying deposit of their little earnings. To Mr. Gladstone is due the honour of their introduction. It was on the 8th of February, 1861, that he presented to the House of Commons the resolution that affirmed the principle upon which they are based, and both Houses of Parliament responded so promptly, that by the 17th of May following, an Act, the title of which is, “An Act to grant additional facilities for depositing small savings at interest with the security of the Government[40] for the due repayment thereof,” received the Royal assent. Mr. Gladstone, you have done many great[101] and many good acts in your time, but you have never done one greater or better than this.[41]

The Government Insurance and Annuities Act, which received the Royal assent on the 14th July, 1864, enables persons proposing to effect insurances on their lives, or to purchase deferred monthly allowances, to transmit their proposals, and to send and receive all correspondence between themselves and the Post Office relating to their proposals free of all postal charges. The Postmaster-General is compelled to admit, in his Twelfth Report, that the proposals, from their bulk, “present a somewhat formidable[102] appearance.” But, thanks to railways, these formidable-looking documents go free through the post. So do also their acknowledgments from head quarters; the numerous and minute inquiries made to friends and medical referees as to the proposer’s age, health, habits, and occupation, likewise the replies to all these inquiries. If these replies are deemed satisfactory, a letter is transmitted to the proposer, post free, directing him to present himself for examination to a medical man, and the report of the latter often leads to much correspondence, all of which goes without postal charge. If the proposer be rejected he is informed accordingly by a free letter, and there is an end of the matter; but if he be accepted, the insurance or annuity contract is sent to the Post Office at which the proposer desires to receive it, and he is apprised to that effect by another free letter. The system is in its infancy as yet, but the postal transmissions which it will involve, even at its greatest, will never be of the same extent as those connected with the Post Office Savings Banks. Nevertheless, they will be considerable, for every payment to an annuitant, and every receipt of money from a person assured, must be transmitted either from or to London, as the case may be. So that, in addition to the proposals of the “somewhat formidable appearance,” thousands of documents per annum in connection with that business will find their way into the mail bags.

Let us hark back to say that no rejoinder to Mr. Stephenson’s answer was ever given. Nevertheless, the answer, complete and conclusive as it was, had no effect on Post Office intentions, for during the session of 1857, the Duke of Argyll,[42] then Postmaster-General, was induced by the permanent [103]officers of the establishment to introduce a bill into the House of Lords for making “further Provision for the Conveyance of Mails by Railway.” Mr. William Lewins[43] tells us, in his book called Her Majesty’s Mail, that His Grace[104] deserves the gratitude of his country for introducing it. But it was well known that His Grace, like most of the Postmasters-General who have preceded him during the last twenty years, took but little interest in the working of the department over which he nominally presided, and knew little, probably nothing, of the bill, the obnoxious contents of which he was called upon to father.

It was, however, justly viewed with great apprehension by all the railway interests of the kingdom, and in consequence of the hostility excited by its appearance, it was withdrawn before it reached a second reading. In the very lame defence of it, given in the Fourth Annual Report, we find it mildly stated, that “taken as a whole, the bill certainly cannot fairly be represented as a measure opposed to railway interests.” Whether this be correct or not, at all events it can be stated that the department has never since proposed any similar enactment. From 1858 it has also ceased to use language such as “experience has satisfied me, that as the law now stands, it is impossible either to secure regularity in the conveyance of the mails, or to have that full use of the railways which the public[105] demand, which the department is anxious to afford, and which would be beneficial to the companies themselves.”[44] The relations between the companies and the department have been amicable during the last seven or eight years, and there is now scarcely a railway in the kingdom upon which mails are conveyed that has not adopted a system of general contracts. The Post Office acquires, by means of them, the right, for a fixed gross payment per annum, of using all the trains of the company for the transport of mail bags. There are certain trains which of course must be run for the convenience of the Post Office, such as the night mail trains to and from London, with their branch trains and ramifications. The same as regards Dublin, and, in a lesser degree, Edinburgh. But the expenses of these trains to the companies is considered in coming to a decision as to the total price to be paid. These arrangements are based altogether upon the voluntary principle, but when agreed to, they are necessarily embodied in legal contracts.

We have no earlier return of postal railway mileage than 1855; that was at the height of the antagonism with the Post Office. The miles run were then 27,109 per diem, but so rapidly had friendly arrangements been entered into, that in 1862 (the last year for which a mileage return is[106] published) it had risen to 49,782 miles per diem. Had these returns been continued to the present time, they would have exhibited an increase to 60,000 per diem, for in 1863, there were three hundred and ninety-three towns having a night and day mail from London, fifty having 3 mails daily from London, seven having 4, three having 3, and three having 4. But in 1865, the number had increased as follows: four hundred and ten having a night and day mail from London, fifty-seven having 3 daily from London, nine having 4, and six having 5.

The gross sum paid by the Post Office to the railways of the United Kingdom in 1866 was £570,500, only £170,500 more than, as Mr. Page states, were paid to railways in 1855; but at that time the Post Office, with only few exceptions, did not run more than one day and one night mail train in each direction on the greater portion of the 8,280 miles which then constituted the railway system of the kingdom; but on the first of January, 1866, the railway system was 13,289 miles, over about 12,000 miles of which, the Post Office was able by its contracts, to send mail bags by whatever trains, whether goods or passenger, they chose to select from. At the present time (as already stated) the railway service of the Post Office cannot be less than 60,000 miles a day[45].

The following statement exhibits the amount paid by the Post Office to the Railway Companies of the United Kingdom in 1866, together with the mileage length of most of them. Of the total sum of £570,500, the London and North-Western, with its 1,320 miles of[107] railway, naturally earns the largest share, £132,997. The other railways come as follows:—Great Western (1,311 miles), £50,789; North Eastern (1,229), £41,397; North British (732), £8,696; Great Eastern (710), £22,357; Midland (695), £44,600; Caledonian (574), £29,101; London and South-Western (503), £21,950; Great Northern (441), £9,805; Lancashire and Yorkshire (403), £6,500; South Eastern (330), £23,571; London, Brighton and South Coast (320), £1,977; Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire (246), £2,618; North Staffordshire (144), £1,000; Bristol and Exeter (134), £9,888; Cambrian (130), £2,413; South Devon (110), £7,485; London, Chatham and Dover (94), £268; Brecon and Merthyr (68), £50; Cornwall (66), £5,500; Taff Vale (63), £1,000; Shrewsbury and Hereford (51), £2,030; Llanelly (46), £39; Monmouthshire (44), £147; Birkenhead (43), £2,500; North Union (40), £4,878; Maryport and Carlisle (28), £841; West Cornwall (27), £1,500; Isle of Wight (12), £31; Whitehaven Junction (6½), £363. There were not any contracts in 1866 with the Furness Company (85), the Somerset and Dorset (66), nor with the Metropolitan Underground (4¾), but the Post Office has recently entered into contracts for the conveyance of mails on the first and the third of the three.

The foregoing, with some payments to minor companies, make the total which the English and Welsh Companies receive from the Post Office, £407,512. Some of these minor companies, however, are not over-handsomely paid; for instance, the Colne Valley, 6½ miles long, receives the modest sum of £15 a year; the Tenbury, 5¼ miles long, which nevertheless has a Board of Directors consisting of seven members, and is presided over by a noble Baron, receives[108] only £7. Never having heard of the Pontop and Jarrow Railway, we looked in all the usual sources of information without success, but we perceive by the Post Office estimates that the company earns £5 a-year for the services it renders to the department. If the amounts paid by the Post Office to English Railways be divided by its total mileage, it makes the average payment per mile per annum to them a little less than £58.

The Irish railways receive £84,508 per annum from the Post Office, of which the Great Southern and Western (420 miles), obtains £29,500; the Midland Great Western (261), £14,920; Irish North-Western (145), £1,540; Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford (107), £4,700; Ulster (106), £5,800; Belfast and Northern Counties (100), £2,950; Great Northern and Western (83), £2,349; Waterford and Limerick (77), £3,150; Dublin and Drogheda (75), £4,700; Dublin and Belfast Junction (63), £6,000; Londonderry and Enniskillen (60), £3,150; Belfast and County Down (44), £206; Londonderry and Coleraine (36), £1,300; Cork and Youghal (34), £1,150; Waterford and Kilkenny (31), £486; Cork and Limerick direct (25), £50; Cork and Bandon (20), £757. There are three companies that only receive £30 each, and two have twice as much as the Pontop and Jarrow. They have £10 each. The average Post Office payment per mile (assuming that the Post Office sent mails by all the railways in Ireland, which is not the case) is about £44. 10s.

The Scotch railways receive £78,482, of which the North British and Edinburgh and Glasgow (748) has £8,696; Caledonian (573), £29,101; Scottish Central and Scottish North-Eastern (459), £22,136; Great North of Scotland; (257), £3,830; Glasgow and South-Western (249), £3,436;[109] the Highland Railway (245), £10,454. The average per mile per annum paid to Scotch railways by the Post Office, assuming that it availed itself of the whole of them, is £36.

There is no branch of the connection between the railways and the Post Office in which the former has gained more conspicuously than in that of speed;[46] and precisely the same may also be said with respect to the general community.

As has already been stated, the average speed of mail coaches was a little under ten miles an hour in 1837, that of stage coaches under eight, that of waggons two; and that the latter were used in the middle of the last century, at all events, we have pictorial evidence, through the pencil of Hogarth, and written testimony from the writings of his contemporaries, as well as from those of subsequent men of letters.

The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, substituted between its two termini an average speed of 17 miles an hour. Speed has increased steadily year by year, as we shall now endeavour to make manifest.

In 1842 the night mail train left Euston Station at 8·30 p.m., and reached Lancaster (241 miles) at 7·0 a.m. Since the 1st of October, 1860, the Scotch Limited Mail leaves Euston Station every evening at 8·35 p.m., it arrives at Perth at 8·59 a.m. the next day; the distance is 449 miles, and it is performed, including ten stoppages, at the rate of 37½ miles an hour. There were more stoppages for mail trains in 1840 than since 1860, but, apart from this fact, the[110] time that the mail train required to complete 449 miles is the same as that which it required to complete only 15 miles more than half that distance, twenty years previously.

The Irish express mail completes the journey from London to Holyhead (263 miles), with three stoppages only, for passenger accommodation, in 6 hours 40 minutes, or at the rate of 38½ miles an hour.

For a short run, involving only one stoppage for the engine to take water, the most rapid on the narrow gauge[47] in England is between London and Dover, by the South-Eastern Railway, 88 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes, 42 miles an hour. But on Australian mail nights (the 26th of each month), the Post Office employs, in addition to the ordinary “down” mail, a special one for the conveyance of such bags and boxes as can be got ready by 7 p.m. This train travels between London and Dover in 1 hour and 45 minutes. There is one stop for water. The rate of speed, including the stop, is a little over 50 miles an hour, excluding it, the rate is 54.

There is a train on the Great Western, which although not carrying mails, is the fastest in England. It completes the distance from London to Exeter, 194 miles, with 4 stops, amounting to 20 minutes, in 4½ hours; or at the rate of 43 miles an hour. A little more than a quarter of the time occupied by the “Quicksilver” Mail in the olden days; but the “Quicksilver” only went over 160 miles, the roadway[111] distance between London and Exeter, or 24 miles less than by the Great Western and Bristol and Exeter Railways.

The grandest exceptional run ever made on railways was on the 5th January, 1862, the occasion being, when answers were brought to the despatches sent to Washington, requiring the surrender of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who had been taken out of the “Trent,” Royal West India Mail Steamer, by orders of Commodore Wilks. The steamer arrived at Queenstown at 10·5 p.m.: at 11·28 p.m., Irish time,[48] the special train started from Cork, and accomplished the journey to Dublin (166 miles) in four hours and three minutes; or at the rate of 41 miles an hour, including stoppages. The mail steamer “Ulster” arrived at Holyhead at 8·15 a.m. The special train started at 8·28, and it is from this point that the most remarkable part of the express journey was accomplished. The run from Holyhead to Stafford, 130½ miles, occupied only 145 minutes, being at the rate of 54 miles an hour, and although so high a rate of speed was not attempted over the more crowded parts of the line approaching London, the whole distance from Holyhead to Euston was performed by the London and North-Western Company in exactly five hours, or at a speed of 52¾ miles an hour—a speed unparalleled for so long a distance on a line crowded with traffic. By means of the invention for supplying the tender with water from a trough in transitu, respecting which details will be given in a subsequent page, the engine was enabled to run from Holyhead to Stafford without pulling-up to take water. This is the longest run[112] ever made by an engine without stopping; but the engines of the Irish Limited Mail Trains, owing to this trough, run twice a day in each direction without stopping, between Holyhead and Chester, 84½ miles. The weight of these trains, exclusive of the engine and tender, is fully 80 tons; but the weight of the American special express, exclusive of engine and tender, did not exceed 20.

A few words with respect to the fastest trains on the Continent. Previous to the 1st of April of this year, the mail trains between Calais and Paris completed 203 miles, with 15 minutes of stoppages for passenger accommodation, in 5 hours and 50 minutes, about 33¼ miles an hour. Since the opening of the railway between Calais and Boulogne, the mail trains go to and come from Paris viâ Boulogne. The distance is shortened to 186 miles, and the journey is performed, 15 minutes of stoppages for passenger accommodation being allowed, in 5½ hours, or at the rate of 34 miles an hour.

The “Rapide,” the night mail train from Paris to Marseilles, completes 537 miles in 15 hours 45 minutes, or at the rate, for this long journey, of 34 miles an hour. The day mail train from Paris to Bordeaux takes 10½ hours, a distance of 366 miles, or at the rate of 34¼ miles an hour. It is the fastest mail or express train in France that goes over a large extent of railway mileage, but its pace is 3¼ miles an hour less than the Scotch Limited Mail as far as Perth, 4¼ less than that of the Irish Express Mail, and 8¾ less than the express train of the Great Western from London to Exeter.

There is, however, one train in France that travels more rapidly for a short distance,—the 1·0 p.m. express from Paris to Rouen. It completes 85 miles without a stoppage[113] in 2 hours 22 minutes, or at the rate of 35½ miles an hour. Comparing this speed with that of the London and Dover express mail trains, it is less by 6½ miles an hour.

There are two express mail trains in Belgium analagous to those between London and Dover. They are the fastest in that kingdom. They complete the 78 miles between Brussels and Ostend in 2 hours and 17 minutes, with 3 short stoppages, or, at the rate of about 34¼ miles an hour.

There is a double daily postal service between Cologne and Berlin. The distance, 391 miles, is accomplished in 12½ hours, or at the rate of a little more than 31½ miles an hour, including stoppages for the refreshment of the passengers, amounting to nearly an hour on the whole journey.

It is a fact well known to railway officials of all grades, but not appreciated by the public, that it is much more difficult to keep time with trains stopping at many stations, than with express trains. Yet the explanation is very easy. People who travel by stopping trains are of totally different habits from those who travel by express. The greater part of the passengers of the former belong to the agricultural classes; and it is just this,—the farmer is not accustomed to be hurried, and he won’t be hurried, neither are the farmer’s wife, the farmer’s sons, the farmer’s daughters; the tradesman in farming towns and villages is like the farmer, he won’t be hurried, and it is the same with the tradesman’s wife, his sons and his daughters; neither will the workman, nor the workman’s wife, nor his sons, nor his daughters, be hurried and flurried. In fact, no one is ever in a hurry, except in large towns and cities. The country was not made for people who are always in a hurry, therefore it is impossible to get country people in and out of trains with the same speed as railway servants can manage with town and city people, and the effect of all this is, a stopping train is,[114] much more frequently than “fast” or express trains, unpunctual, and it is especially so when it exceeds very much its ordinary amount of traffic. It is then sure to be very late, solely from circumstances beyond the control of the company, but of course the company gets all the discredit of the delay. On the other hand, express trains call only at a few first-class stations, and all the passengers’ business can be satisfactorily and comfortably accomplished in the time that the train is compelled to stop while the engine is taking in fuel and water. Let it not be imagined that in this respect “they manage things better in France.” It has been occasionally our misfortune to travel by stopping trains, not only in France, but in other parts of Europe. There is one of two undeviating and unvarying rules with regard to them. Either they are unpunctual, or they are timed for so slow a speed, and with such delays at stations, that unpunctuality by them is impossible. There are many passenger trains on the continent that do not average a running speed of more than fourteen or fifteen miles an hour.

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CHAPTER V.

RAILWAYS AND THE POST OFFICE, CONTINUED.

We had written, in the previous chapter, all that relates to the Post Office, in the belief that the relations between that department and the railways had been, during recent years, of an amicable character. We regret however to find that, in this respect, we have been mistaken. The amicable relations exist, on the part of the Post Office, on the surface only, no deeper. The same antagonistic spirit flourishes, at all events in the minds of some of the officials, as resolutely as ever.

Our readers will perhaps remember that, on the 11th March, 1865, a Royal Commission was issued, nominating the Duke of Devonshire, the late Earl of Donoughmore, Lord Stanley, M.P., the Hon. E. F. Leverson Gower, M.P., the Right Hon. Robert Lowe, M.P., Sir Rowland Hill, Messrs. Roebuck, M.P., Dalglish, M.P., G. C. Glyn, M.P., Ayrton, M.P., Colonel Douglas Dalton, R.E., Mr. E. T. Hamilton, and Mr. J. R. McClean, C.E., to make various inquiries respecting railways.

On the 19th of December following, a new commission was issued in substitution of the previous one, Mr. Monsell, M.P., being added to the number of Commissioners. The Earl of Donoughmore died shortly after it was issued; and, in consequence of Lord Stanley having become Secretary of State for India, he did not act for more than a short time. The report, dated the 7th of May, 1867, is therefore not signed by His Lordship.

It will not be necessary to follow this report, or to refer to the general recommendations contained in it. Some are very[116] good, and would no doubt be readily agreed to by most railway companies, if they were to take the shape of legislative enactment. Others are impracticable (such as that suggested for ensuring punctuality of trains), and like impracticable notions and ideas at all times, they “fret their little hour on the stage,” and then cease to be heard of afterwards.

The evidence taken is voluminous; some of it is of a very desultory character, several of the witnesses having seized the occasion to vent their own peculiar theories, and, sicut eorum mos est, to inculcate the adoption of their specific or nostrum as the infallible remedy. The appendices, notwithstanding the introduction of much matter that is irrelevant for all large and practical purposes, contain a great deal of useful information.

The great and main recommendation in the report is contained in the 74th clause; it is therefore given in extenso. “On the various grounds we have mentioned, we cannot concur in the expediency of the purchase of the railways by the State, and we are of opinion that it is inexpedient at present to subvert the policy which has hitherto been adopted, of leaving the construction and management of railways to the free enterprise of the people, under such conditions as Parliament may think fit to impose for the general welfare of the public.”

“As regards the purchase of Irish railways,” the Commissioners add, at clause 80, “having come to the determination that it is inexpedient that the railways should be purchased by the State, we consider there is not sufficient reason for excepting Ireland from this general conclusion; but, as it has been the established policy to assist Irish railways and other public works in Ireland, we recommend that when Parliament thinks fit to make advances to Irish railway companies, the money should be lent for a fixed period of[117] considerable length, so as to enable the company to develop its resources before it is called on for repayment.”

The Commissioners add, that these advances or loans should never be made to Irish railway companies on condition that their rates and fares should be reduced, that being a matter, the decision upon which should rest exclusively with the executive of the company.

The two dissentients from the report were Mr. Monsell, M.P., and Sir Rowland Hill. Mr. Monsell being of opinion that the Irish railways should be purchased by the State, and to this extent agreeing with Sir Rowland Hill, whose opinion is that the railways of the whole kingdom should become, by purchase, the property of the nation.

Sir Rowland Hill gives various reasons in recommendation of this suggestion, and summarises in his report, written, as we learn by its first paragraph, “in a growing expectation of dissent,” his reasons with the following language:—

[118]

As Sir Rowland Hill was the only person of the fifteen Commissioners who subscribed to the doctrines advanced in the foregoing paragraph, it will be an unnecessary occupation of time to comment upon them.

The two chief witnesses upon whom Sir Rowland Hill relies are, his brother, Mr. Frederick Hill, an Assistant Secretary of the Post Office, and Mr. Edward J. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails. A considerable portion of Sir Rowland’s plan is quoted as forming part of the evidence of Mr. Hill, and we shall only say of that gentleman just at present, although we shall have much to say to him presently, that if he had even a tyro’s knowledge of the working of railways he would not have put forward the string of the assumed “benefits” which he asserts will be realised by his views being adopted.

To us, however, it appears very clearly, that if we lay aside all arguments, reasoning, plans, and suggestions but one, we will come to the real reason for Sir Rowland Hill recommending the purchase of railways by the State. It is that the Post Office may thereby acquire that complete control, and that complete mastery in respect of railways which the rights of property can alone give it over them. Mr. Page aids him by his evidence and assertions, in a manner that has compelled us to state in the opening paragraph of this chapter, that the friendly relations existing between the Post Office and the Railway, are, as regards the department, on the surface only. In its heart (if the Post Office have a heart) its feelings of rancour are just as uncompromising as ever they were.

But let us state, in the first instance, what are the opinions of the Royal Commissioners on the relations between the Post Office and the Railways. They are contained in the following extract from their report:—

[119]

It will thus be seen that ten of the Royal Commissioners—the members of the Commission who would not be likely to be influenced by what may be called a departmental view of the subject—whilst stating the case both for and against the railway companies, as well as for and against the Post Office, limit their recommendation to the passing of a general Act to define the points which have given rise to difficulties; to which, at page 59 of their report, they add that “in cases where the Postmaster-General fixes the time of starting or stopping, or requires an exclusive or limited train, the question of the proper remuneration for the service should still be left to arbitration.”

And the Commissioners, whilst very clearly denying the expediency of the Post Office becoming carriers of railway parcels, some of which “extend up to 112 lbs., and require therefore a different organisation for receipt, delivery, and forwarding,” confine themselves to recommending railways to “combine for devising some rapid and efficient system for the delivery of parcels.”

A correct view certainly. We are now desirous of offering some remarks upon the part of the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners which refers to a tariff being fixed by a general Act for the various classes of services required of railways by the Post Office. It would, we are convinced, be impossible to pass an Act of this class that would be of the slightest practical value, because the circumstances of every railway company, certainly of every district of country[123] through which a railway passes, are of constant variance. We need not go farther for evidence of this fact, than in the successive annual reports of Postmasters-General. Until 1862 each of them contained statements of the railway, horse, and foot mileage employed by the Post Office, and each item was subdivided into maximum, average, and minimum, not only for the United Kingdom, but for each component part of it. As may be imagined, the difference between maximum price and minimum on railways, were not only very striking, but they are also equally striking for the two other means of locomotion, especially so for foot messengers; these last varied—no doubt still continue to vary—from a farthing a mile (not enough we should have thought to pay for sole, to say nothing of upper-shoe-leather) to sixpence a mile. To this let be added what any person who reads Post Office documents will see constantly quoted, that before the opening of the railway from Carlisle to Glasgow, the proprietors of the coach that carried the mail between these two places, paid £200 a year for the privilege. It was because there was then a violent, and as it turned out to be, destructive competition on the road, but at the time it lasted, the Post Office was paying as high as, if we recollect correctly, 1s. 3d. a double mile for mail coach conveyance in another part of the country.

The Commissioners recommend arbitration in case of difference, when the Post Office requires an exclusive or limited train, and it seems that the extension of the principle to all matters of negotiation, when the parties cannot agree, affords the best means of arriving at a just and equitable solution. Arbitration, however, with the railways has always been the bête noire of the department.

Mr. Frederick Hill, having informed the Commissioners that he anticipates (“anticipations” to which Sir Rowland[124] Hill says, “I concur”) “greater securities against accidents, and also, against assaults and robberies on railways (query, in railway trains?), by the establishment of a uniform system of signals (!), and by clauses in the leases imposing penalties for unpunctuality and other irregularities (what?), and requiring that means should always be provided for enabling passengers to communicate readily with the guard,” winds up the list of “benefits” which the nation is to obtain from purchase as follows:—“Additional facilities for the conveyance of the mails, with a consequent increase in the number of posts, and in the celerity of communication, and the removal of the chief difficulty in the establishment of a parcels post.”

If the reader will please to refer ante to page 106, he will see the number of postal services there are daily only between London and other post towns. Their name is legion, and we are indebted for the information given upon this subject exclusively to Post Office documents. In Liverpool,[49] there are[125] either six or seven collections a day for Manchester,[50] and a like, or very nearly a like number at Manchester for Liverpool and intermediate towns, so that, for postal purposes, Liverpool and Manchester are practically the same town.[126] And so it is with the great net-work of towns in the north of England, as well as with towns in every other part of the country, north, south, east, or west. We confess to the weakness that if we are in a country town or village, we cannot[127] pass the post office without having a look at the notice in the window, telling for what places and at what hours mails are made up and despatched, and from what places and at what hours mails arrive for delivery: we are therefore in the[128] position of being able to state that despatches and deliveries are innumerable in the vicinity of railways; away from them, the collections and deliveries are at most twice a day, frequently not more than once.

[129]

“Celerity of communication.” If Mr. Hill will refer to page 58 of the Royal Commissioners’ Report, he will see that the average speed of the quickest trains in England (those by which the great mails are conveyed) is 36½ miles an hour;[130] the average for similar trains in France is 31 miles, and in other states of Europe it varies from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 30. The speed of our fastest trains is stated at page 109, et seq.

We must also request Mr. Hill to refer to the whole series of Postmaster-Generals’ Reports. Every one of them contains paragraphs under the heading “Accelerations,” but in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, there are no less than seven and a-half pages devoted exclusively to this one subject. In the Tenth Report (undated, but bearing internal evidence of its being intended for the year 1862), it is stated, “a statement of all the accelerations which have been effected within the last ten years, or even a list of all the places in the United Kingdom which have now an earlier arrival, or a later despatch of letters than were afforded to them in 1854, would show conclusively that the Post Office has, during that period, laboured strenuously and successfully to meet the demands of the public. But such statements would be confusing from the multiplicity of their details.” The Postmaster-General therefore confines himself to alluding “to the acceleration of the Scotch mails, which took place in 1859; to that of the Irish mails, which took place in 1860; and to that of the[131] French mails which also took place in the year 1860.” These accelerations are so great, and bear so importantly upon the correspondence of the whole kingdom, not only inter se, but with the whole continent of Europe, that each is very completely and elaborately described. In the report for 1864, the Postmaster-General, in addition to mentioning several important accelerations, refers, in a triumphant tone, to the advantages which have been gained to the public by the adoption of railways for conveyance of mails in various districts both of Scotland and Ireland; and in the report for 1865, equal satisfaction is expressed, because most important accelerations were made in the speed of all the main postal trains throughout Ireland. This part of the report concludes as follows. “Contracts for the general use of all ordinary trains were entered into with the Great Southern and Western, the Dublin and Drogheda, and the Dublin and Belfast Railway Companies; and the contract with the Ulster Railway Company was extended. It was chiefly by means of these contracts that the improvements effected in the mail service in Ireland during 1865, were greater than they had been in any previous year for a considerable time past.”

The foregoing is the language used in the three latest annual reports of the department, the last of which was written about the time that Mr. Hill must have been submitting to the Royal Commissioners his reasons why the nation would benefit by the purchase of the railways. And here let us mention a belief which exists in the Office, that for several years previous to the present year, the Postmaster-General’s Reports have been drafted by Mr. Hill. This belief, however, cannot be correct, as it is not to be supposed that Mr. Hill would blow hot and cold, and write white and black at one and the same time.

[132]

“Celerity of communication” (to again quote Mr. Hill’s words), “can only take place by increased celerity of trains.” We believe that in the present state of our knowledge we have acquired on railways in this country, the maximum that can be accomplished consistent with safety; and we say in all seriousness, that if Mr. Hill be not content with it, and that the Postal Department insist upon higher speed, he ought, in order to be consistent, also to insist upon being placed on the fore-buffer of the engine, and thus to substitute himself for the director, about whom the late Sydney Smith wrote so pleasantly some years ago. If a Postmaster-General were also required to travel in mail trains, Mr. Darby Griffiths would, we should suppose, no longer experience (at all events in the House of Lords) the fatal difficulties which led to the rejection some four years back, of his Bill to revive for Members of the House of Commons the right of holding the office of Postmaster-General. Nay, it is very probable that the most serious opposition would be found in the House, upon which, on the previous occasion, he was so anxious to confer the privilege.

Before quoting in full the recommendations of Sir Rowland Hill, as regards railways and the Post Office, it is desirable to draw attention to the fact, somewhat remarkable, that the only persons upon whom Sir Rowland Hill relies for proving his case as regards the Post Office, are his Brother, Mr. Edward J. Page, and our esteemed friend Mr. Charles Hutton Gregory, C.E., who is “the arbitrator (should not the word be ‘referee’?) for the Post Office.” It certainly appears strange, that official testimony of a somewhat more independent character should not have been produced. Assuming that the Duke of Montrose had not acquired sufficient knowledge of the working of the system, there is Lord Stanley of Alderley. His Lordship was Post-master-General[133] for six years, and only retired upon the present Government coming into office eighteen months ago. Mr. Tilley, the Chief Secretary, has been connected with the department for a great many years, so has Mr. Scudamore, admittedly the most distinguished man in the service. The evidence of several of the district surveyors would have been valuable; but not one of them was called to corroborate, or to add to the testimony of Messrs. Hill, Page, and Gregory, the spirit of which testimony is manifest, even in the Index of Evidence, as published in the Appendix.

Sir Rowland Hill proceeds thus:—

[137]

The recommendations of Sir Rowland Hill, as regards the Post Office and the railways, although drawn up with such elaborate and dogmatic precision, have not the slightest chance of ever being adopted; but as it is so unceasingly asserted and repeated, on Post Office authority, that railways are more costly to the department than the old road conveyances, and that it is a great hardship on the Post Office that it cannot get mails conveyed by ordinary trains, except at unreasonable rates, it is desirable to make an addition to what has been said in previous pages, on both these questions.

We must ask permission to go as far back as the year 1838. In that year, as we learn by a return laid before the Committee of the House of Commons which sat on Postal Reform, and which was presided over by the late Mr. Robert Wallis, M.P. for Glasgow, that the daily mileage of mail coaches in 1838 was 24,613, and the payments for this mileage were £84,103, being an average of 2¼d. per single mile. And we learn also, by an article that appeared in Fraser’s Magazine of September, 1862, written, as we understand, by Mr. M. D. Hill, Recorder of Birmingham, from information evidently supplied from official sources, that the weight of the letters carried throughout the kingdom in 1838, was 750 tons. We find likewise, by returns furnished to Mr. Wallis’s Committee, that letters formed 7 per cent. of the total weight of mails, consequently the weight of mails for the whole year 1838, was 10,500 tons. The latest dated Postmaster-General’s Report, which contains details of postal mileage is that of the 30th of April, 1863. It specifies that the mails travelled daily 49,782 miles by railway in 1862, at an average charge for the whole kingdom of 6¾d. per mile. In the same year “mails were conveyed by mail coaches, omnibuses, mail carts, &c., exclusive of conveyance of mail bags from one part of a town to another,” 33,371 miles each day, at an average cost of 2½d. a mile.

[138]

In 1866, the railway postal mileage, according to the evidence and statements furnished to the Royal Commissioners on Railways, was 60,000 miles a day, or, with deductions for greatly diminished mileage on Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day, about 18,780,000 miles per annum. The total amounts paid to railway companies by the Post Office was £570,502, or about 7½d. per single mile. The total weight of mails carried by railways is certainly not less than 110,000 tons, so that, whilst the payments to railway companies in 1866 were about seven times as much as they were to mail coaches in 1838, the weight of mails carried is nearly ten and a-half times as great. But the rate of speed has been quadrupled in the course of a few years. In the olden time, increase of speed of even half a mile an hour, always added considerably to mileage cost, but by railways, the old ten miles an hour are converted into forty, with much diminished cost,—weight for weight carried.

And, again, as regards the constantly reiterated Post Office grievance, that it is impossible to despatch mails by ordinary trains, except at a higher rate than is charged for the conveyance of ordinary parcels of similar weights, and that the department is in consequence deprived of the opportunity of sending mails as frequently as they otherwise would despatch them. This however, as has already been shown, is a grievance, almost imaginary, inasmuch as successive Postmaster-General’s Reports show (see ante page 106) that contracts have been entered into with almost every railway company—beyond all doubt with all the leading companies—by which the right of sending mails by any train, whether passenger or goods, it may choose to select from, has been acquired by the Post Office. In fact, out of 12,000 miles of railway which the department sends mails over, it has, as we believe, this right or privilege over 11,000 of them. But[139] all doubt on the matter can be removed by a return on the subject being laid before either House during the next session of Parliament.

But even supposing the Post Office had not the power it in reality possesses, of sending mail bags by whatever trains it pleases, let us consider for a moment upon what ground either of right or of equity, the department can claim the privilege of sending its mail bags at the same rates as the general public pays for its parcels, for the same distances. This question must be dealt with in two portions: transmission of mail bags with a Post Office mail guard, and transmission in charge of the guard of the railway. As regards the first. Why, in the first place, is the Post Office to have the privilege of sending a passenger in the shako and red coat of a mail guard, at a second-class fare, who is to have, free, the usual amount of luggage (not personal luggage, be it remembered) allowed to a passenger? This luggage, let it also be remembered, the mail guard is to have the right of taking along with himself into the compartment in which he is to travel, instead of its being deposited in the luggage van. There would, probably, not be any objection offered to this arrangement if the guard were to remain quietly and peaceably in the compartment with his luggage beside him, until the end of his journey. But this is not what is required or expected. As the train stops at each station, the guard is to get out of his compartment and then to hand certain portions of his mail bags to another servant of the Post Office who is on the platform waiting the arrival of the train. This person is to receive the bags handed to him by the mail guard, and this latter is to receive fresh mail bags, and then to return to his compartment. The same process is to be repeated on the platform of every station at which the train may stop, and during[140] the running of the train between station and station, the mail bags are to be continuously sorted and arranged, so as to ensure correct delivery throughout the entire journey. It is not the space of one second class passenger, but that of eight or ten, that would be required. Yet it is persistently contended that the proper remuneration for this service, conveyance, business, or whatever may be its appropriate name, is to be the single fare of a second class passenger—and no doubt, if the mail guard could travel within the limits of a return ticket, his employers would consider that that is the amount he should pay for the double journey—not a farthing beyond it.

But if the services of the mail guard are to be dispensed with, and the duties just described are to be performed by a Company’s guard, the Post Office considers that the ordinary parcels rate from end to end is what should be paid—nothing for intermediate changes and shiftings, for the coming in of new mail bags and the going out of old ones. Yet the Post Office itself considers that all these parcels are entitled to special attention and consideration, for before a railway servant is entrusted with the charge of them he takes an oath or makes a declaration—the same, we believe, as is taken by Post Office mail guards; and in order that they may be considered Post Office servants pro hac vice, they receive, if we recollect rightly, a gratuity of a few shillings per annum. If this be not so, it does not, in reality, affect the man’s responsibility: it is the oath or declaration that binds, not the gratuity.

It is impossible for any reasonable, unblassed, or practical man of business to assert that the railway companies would not be entitled to a somewhat higher rate of remuneration than second class fare, if bags are in charge of a mail guard, or that the rate for one from end-to-end parcel, is the proper[141] figure for mail bags placed in charge of a Company’s servant, to be worked by him as if he were a mail guard.

One more point on the subject of postal conveyance by railway. It shall be the last.

The Post Office discharges three functions in connection with letters and other postal documents. They are, collection, transmission, and delivery. The first and last are performed by Post Office servants; transmission, except for certain portions of foot rural transport, is invariably by contract. It is transmission alone that makes a letter of value as a means of intercommunication between persons residing, or situated, more or less distantly from one another. If, as traders, we purchased a ton of letter paper, its price would probably be about £62, or say 7d. a pound; and supposing it came some 80 to 100 miles, its cost would be increased by another twenty shillings, a sixty-second of the first cost of the article. Convert this pound, or this ton of paper into a ton of written letters, and, if we take each chargeable letter at a third of an ounce (the Post Office considers each to weigh a little more than a quarter of an ounce, but for the purposes of this calculation they are taken at the higher figure), a pound of letters, with a postage[51] stamp on each[142] letter, becomes worth four shillings to the Post Office, instead of sevenpence as a pound of paper; and, by the same process, a ton becomes changed from £63 to £448.

The total cost of the Post Office service for 1865 was[143] £2,941,086; the net revenue, £1,482,522, a little over 50 per cent.; consequently, a ton of letters, by no act of the Post Office, except by its monopoly, which recent criminal proceedings show that it is determined to interpret rigidly, is[144] worth £225 net to it. According to the ideas of Messrs. Hill (2), Page, and Gregory, the railway should carry the ton of paper, converted into letters, at a high rate of speed, and with numerous conditions of a penal character, at the same scale of payment, or, if possible, at a lower, than the price which was charged for the original ton of paper sent by ordinary goods train, at slow speed, and without any special conditions attached to its conveyance.

The railway companies are willing to carry letters and other postal matter at a rate not bearing any proportion or ratio whatever to the profit which the monopoly gets the benefit of by their conveyance, but at a fair and equitable scale of remuneration, which scale shall be decided, in case of difference, by two impartial men (Mr. Gregory, do you come quite within that definition?), and if they disagree, by an umpire who, at all events, is expected to be impartial.

But, before we conclude, we must again ask on what grounds, other than the hollow ones of pretence, can the Post Office claim special exemptions, as regards payments, as well as special rights and privileges, without adequate[145] remuneration for them? Neither the Post Office nor any other department of the State assisted railways during their inception, or during their construction; on the contrary, whenever they had the chance of raising their hands against or making exorbitant demands upon railways, they never failed to do so. Innumerable instances in proof could be cited, but one only must suffice “in this connection,” as our American cousins would say. When, in 1855, the Bill for the improved “passenger and postal communication between London and Dublin,” was in progress through the House of Commons, the late Mr. Wilson, then Secretary of the Treasury, gave notice of the introduction of clauses to exempt the Post Office from payment for this improved service. It was only on the strongly expressed determination of the promoters of the Bill, that if these clauses were persevered in, it would be withdrawn, that they were abandoned. Mr. Wilson excused himself—for he felt excuse was necessary—on the plea that he was forced to give notice of their proposed introduction, at the instance of the Post Office, and that he remonstrated, in vain, against them.

It is quite right, it is absolutely necessary in the interests of the community at large, that, inasmuch as railways are the public highways of the land, the right of postal transmission upon them shall be secured in the most complete, prompt, and absolute manner that law can enforce. There must be no doubt or hesitation upon this point; but that limit passed, the postal department is, notwithstanding that its officials are of “Her Majesty’s service,” nothing more than, as a whole, an extremely well-organised, efficient trading establishment, protected, as a monopoly, by many Acts of Parliament. The railways have never shown themselves otherwise than ready, it might rather be said anxious, to serve the Post Office; but in this land of trade and commerce, their[146] managers look for proper remuneration for services rendered. No more is asked, and no more is expected. The law and practice have very wisely instituted a distinction between the manner in which ocean and railway mail contracts shall be entered into. Because the ocean highway is open to all, tenders for conveyance upon it are invited from all; on the other hand, with railways it has been very properly decided that they shall convey the mails, whether they like to do so or not; but the same law that has enacted this compulsion, has also prescribed the manner by which a just and reasonable remuneration shall, in case of difference, be obtained. Others than the lawfully-constituted monopolists of St. Martin’s-le-Grand would long since have been satisfied. Unhappily, however, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra[52] have lashed them into furor. Cannot the crème? de la crème of the gods, the uppermost crust of society in Cælestia, invent or discover a Townsend’s Sarsaparilla to purify their bloods; a Soothing Syrup—a Dalby’s Carminative—a Balm of Gilead that can assuage their anguish? Or, if the gods fail, might not a dose or two of Holloway’s Ointment, taken internally, be tried? In former days, the Earl of Aldborough, then in the flesh, but now, alas, only of “glorious, pious,” and pillular memory, was wont to testify of it, as a wonderful remedy in the cure of ulcers.

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CHAPTER VI.

RAILWAY RECEIPTS, WORKING EXPENSES, AND PROFITS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM—DELAYS AND ACCIDENTS.

However vastly the United Kingdom has been benefited by railways, we shall show presently that it is far otherwise with those who have invested their money in their construction. Those first opened in England were, no doubt, profitable to their shareholders, because they were great arterial lines that connected the leading places of the Kingdom together. Along such lines there always had been large traffic, and it was no doubt greatly stimulated by the facilities which the new mode of locomotion afforded for its expansion. But as fresh railways were completed, and as the capital invested in them increased, the profits receded. Even at the present time, with larger receipts per mile than have ever been taken, the position of railway investment is almost from every point of view, unsatisfactory.

The tide of the early prosperity of railways began to turn in 1840.

Proceeding at once to the middle of 1843, we learn that at that date the amount of capital invested was £76,280,000, and the gross traffic receipts were only £4,535,189. If 45 per cent. be deducted for working expenses, the amount for division among investors was only £2,494,358. If one-third of the capital invested be considered debenture capital bearing an interest of not more than 4 per cent., it leaves only £1,391,360 for dividend upon £51,000,000, or a little more than 2½ per cent.

In 1848 the capital invested in British railways was[148] £152,640,000, the gross traffic receipts were £9,933,552. Deducting 45 per cent. for working expenses—amount £4,660,097,—a balance of £5,273,455 is available for division among investors. Taking one-third of the capital paid up as debenture capital, bearing interest at only 4 per cent., it leaves £3,021,455 for dividend upon £100,760,000 of share capital, or at the rate of less than 3 per cent.

At the end of 1853, the capital paid up was £273,324,514 and the traffic receipts had risen to £18,035,879. The working expenses, at 45 per cent. of the receipts, were £8,116,151, leaving £9,919,728 available for division, but between 1848 and 1853 the rate of interest upon debentures rose to fully 5 per cent. Taking, as before, one-third of the capital paid up, as debenture capital, it leaves £5,364,320 for dividend upon £182,216,343 of share capital, or at the rate of a little less than 3 per cent.

Five years later—at the end of 1858—the capital paid up was £325,375,507; the traffic receipts were £23,956,749; the working expenses, £11,668,225. Taking the debenture capital as one-third of the whole, it leaves £6,245,310 for dividend upon £216,917,205 share capital—or a very little less than 3 per cent. But as by 1858, fully 25 per cent. of the share capital was preferential, and bore a dividend on the average of 5 per cent., there remains, after payment of a dividend upon this capital of £2,711,450, only £3,533,860 for division upon the £162,687,905 “ordinary” or unguaranteed share capital, that was then invested in railways—not quite 2¼ per cent.

On the 31st December, 1863, the capital paid up was £404,215,802; the traffic receipts were £31,156,397; the working expenses, £15,027,234. The amount of debenture capital, taken as usual at a third of the total capital, was[149] £134,738,600, the interest upon it, at 5 per cent., £6,736,930. Deducted from £16,129,163, the amount of the total net receipts, £9,392,233 remains for dividend upon £269,477,202 share capital, or nearly 3½ per cent. This would be satisfactory, as compared with the amount divisible upon share capital in previous years; but, unfortunately, the amount of preferential, in proportion to total share capital, had not only increased considerably between 1853 and 1863, but the rate of dividend had also advanced. The London and North-Western issued some at 5, the Lancashire and Yorkshire at 6; so also the London, Brighton and South Coast, then one of the most highly thought of companies for investment; and the London and South-Western, a company established, apparently, upon a very solid basis, had to issue preference capital at as high as 7 per cent. Nevertheless, although for present calculation, and for that of 1865, next to follow, one-third of the share capital is considered as preference capital, the rate is taken as not raised higher than 5½ per cent. £4,940,414 must therefore be deducted as dividend on preference capital, leaving only £4,451,819 for division upon £179,651,468, or at the rate of just under 2½ per cent. But as several of the companies—many of them large ones—paid dividends of 4, 5, 5½, 6, 6½, and some few as high as 7 per cent., a considerable portion of ordinary share capital received at the rate of 1 and 1½ per cent., and an equally large portion did not receive, as is well known, any dividend at all.

We close our recapitulations with the year 1865, the latest to which the published returns of the Board of Trade extend. On the 31st of December of that year the total capital paid up was £455,478,143; the traffic receipts[53] were[150] £35,890,113; the working expenses, £17,149,073; the amount of the debenture capital, taken, as before, at a third of the whole, was £151,826,044, the interest upon it, at five per cent. was £7,591,302. Deducted from £18,602,582 the amount of the total net receipts, £11,011,280 remains for dividend upon the total share capital, which amounted to £303,652,099, equal to £3. 13s. per hundred pounds.[54] But deducting £5,566,900, dividend upon £101,218,000 as preference share capital, 5½ per cent., there remain only £5,444,380 for dividend upon £192,434,000, or at the rate of £2. 16s. 10d. for each £100 invested. What was stated at the conclusion of the calculations of 1863 applies with at least equal force to 1865, very small dividends for a very considerable portion of railway share capital, and none at all for at least an equal amount.

[151]

On the 31st of March, 1866, the National Debt of the United Kingdom was composed as follows: funded, £773,313,219; the estimated capital of terminable annuities £23,351,043; unfunded, £7,956,800; total, £804,842,949,[55] or only £349,364,806 more than the total of railway investments at that period. The “interest and management” of the national debt in the year ending the 31st March, 1866, was £26,233,288; but as the Banks of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland, are the chief managers of the debt, in exchange for privileges accorded to them, the item for management cannot be great—not sufficient to reduce the average rate of interest below £3. 5s. per £100 invested. The case, therefore, stands thus, if viewed as between the creditors of the British nation and the investors (apart from debenture and preference shareholders) in the railway capital of the United Kingdom: the former receive interest guaranteed on the faith, credit, and honour of the most powerful nation—at all events commercially—in the world, eight shillings per cent. per annum more than those who have embarked their money in commercial enterprises that, in our opinion at all events, have been second only to Free Trade[56] in achieving the present commercial grandeur of England.

[152]

There is not an article of commerce that the railway cannot move—does not move; there is not an article of commerce that the railway does not move at speed never less than eight and generally ten times as great as it was[153] by canal, until competition stimulated the pace of the latter. To what extent? From the once normal rate of two to that of three miles an hour—no more. But now, the merchant of London, who a few years ago could not have[154] what he required from the manufacturing towns of the north in less than ten days, receives in the morning, goods that were in the warehouses of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, or any other of such-like towns in the north of England on[155] the previous afternoon. The important consumers of timber, 150 to 180 miles from London attend sales there, in preference to places nearer home, and purchase largely, with such advantage that the difference of price pays the difference of railway carriage three and four times over. We once saw chests of tea, that on a fluctuation of markets to the extent of a half-penny a pound, passed twice from Liverpool[156] to London and twice back again. They were enabled to be moved about in this way because collection, carriage and delivery cost £1. 10s. a ton, or at the rate of a fourth of a half-penny a pound for 200 miles. Fish circulates through the small as well as the great arterial systems of the kingdom with the regularity and precision of the post, because it is unceasingly carried from the fishing ports inland by the fastest trains and by those that convey the mail bags. The Irish railways alone transported 1,092 tons of salmon last year—301 tons more than in 1865,—and now, with our protected fisheries, this amount will be rapidly added to. Ice, an article of modern commerce, is already beginning to find its way south by means of the railway, and there is not the slightest reason why elevated Northern Scotland should not grow the commodity, just as it has for many years been made to grow in Massachusetts, and more recently in Norway.[57] It is unnecessary[157] to pursue this subject, for we each of us see, know, and feel that the railway is the great and grand distributor of whatever we require for our wants, and of all that energy and enterprise require for the development of national industry.

And, as regards personal locomotion, how grand and sublime are the powers of the railway. We leave Edinburgh to-night. We travel warmly in the cold season; luxuriously at all seasons, and with complete unconsciousness of the fact that as each hour passes, we are nearly forty miles farther from our starting point. The break at London in the morning gives us the margin necessary for ablution and refreshment; that evening we are in Paris, in ample time, and some to spare, for starting by any of the rapid trains that convey passengers and mails east, south, and west. If our destination be the Mediterranean, we are at Marseilles at noon the next day, exactly 41 hours from the time we had left Edinburgh; yet, Edinburgh, by railway, combined with a short sea passage, and Marseilles, are exactly 1,239 miles apart. Our pace, including breaks and stops, has been over thirty miles an hour, whilst getting over the whole distance; excluding the breaks and stops, five and thirty. We can commence the ascent of an Alpine pass, or one across the Pyrenees, precisely at the same time as we should reach the Mediterranean, had our destination been in that direction.

In 1834, when the late Duke of Wellington despatched Mr. Hudson, belonging to one of the Government offices, to Rome, to inform Sir Robert Peel that he had been called upon by King William IV. to form a Ministry on the compulsive retirement of Lord Melbourne and his colleagues,[58][158] it was thought a marvel that the messenger was able to complete his journey on the twelfth day from that on which he left London. Bound on an analagous mission, a Mr. Hudson of the present day, would be a sluggard indeed, if he occupied even a quarter of twelve days. Without the superscription, such as our ancestors (who could write) put on their letters, “Haste! post haste!”[59] one put quietly into a London post office “receptacle” on a Monday morning, would, as the clock of St. Peter’s[60] was tolling 9·45 on Wednesday evening, be found within the precincts of the Eternal City. The distance? 1,355 miles.

But why need we multiply instances. Let us then pass to say a word or two about what railways have done for the humbler part of our population. Have they not attained facilities for their pursuits as well as for their enjoyments[159] that were not dreamt of thirty,—twenty years ago? How prosperous the working classes now are; their labour is at a premium, and in demand such as it has never before experienced. They have never been remunerated so handsomely, and they have earned their pay with shorter hours, better ventilation, better food and more of it, than they ever had before. Unions and combinations, however deplorable in their course of action, at all events, are signs and manifestations of power;[61] and, now-a-days, we find combinations and[160] strikes extended even to agricultural labourers. Why? Because they know—stupid, heavy, unintelligent, and unenlightened though they may be—that, thanks to the railway, they can get at least as good employment elsewhere as in[161] their own villages and hamlets. The farmer knows—feels—and, farmer-like, grumbles at this, but he also knows, that, thanks to free trade, and thanks to cheap railway conveyance, he is enabled to obtain, in the first instance, the highest[162] possible fertilisation for his land, and, in the second, when his crops are gathered, that he can dispose of them, notwithstanding immense cereal and other eatable imports, in markets far distant, and at prices which not only leave him[163] nothing to complain of, but much to be satisfied with. We no longer hear the old party cries, “Protection to native industry,” and such like. The modern cultivator does not[164] require the protection which the old law gave him. He finds he can protect himself in a far better manner without it.

Material prosperity is spread broad-cast over the land. It is true we have recently had a financial crash, and a financial crisis; but we have had no crush, nor are we going to have one. It is also true that our exports for the first six months of this year are, as a consequence of somewhat diminished trade, less than they were in the corresponding period of 1866. But, how much are they less? Not 7 per cent. of their gross aggregate. They are, however, 3 per cent. better than they were for the like time one year previously; and, note also,[165] that they are in those six months, £2,000,000 more than they were in the whole twelve months of fifteen years ago.

The twin sisters of progress in our day, are free trade and the railway. Both are universal as regards application; both are expansive and ever expanding. They always advance, they never recede. Free Trade, however, is, so to speak, national, or of the nation as an abstract. It requires for its world-spread development no more than that trade shall avail itself of the advantages which unfettered intercourse between nations imparts. The railway is the commercial reality of everyday life. Its existence cannot be started without aggregated capital. It then becomes the earnest, visible, and ever-working bee in the hive, and by the means which it places at the disposal of all, not only are intercourse and interchange facilitated between nations, but among ourselves movement is giant-like and unceasing, not only for ourselves actually, but for everything that pertains to us in our wants and necessities, no matter under what classification they may be placed. A grand prosperity has been achieved for the nation, but the gold to which much of its accomplishment is due has proved unfruitful. The fact, undoubted, need only thus be recorded. Others can say of it what they please as a grievance.

It may be said, and no doubt it is said, that want of success in railway investments has arisen from extravagance and mismanagement. Undoubtedly the assertion is in part correct as regards both the origination and the construction of most of our railways, but the incompetence of Parliament, its unfitness as a tribunal (notably so in the case of Lord Libeller), and the false system it has fostered, have contributed a much larger share than the other two elements to the present ill-favoured and unsatisfactory position of railways.

[166]

“Ah! but the working of railways! There, at all events, we have you.” “See how defective it is. See the innumerable complaints constantly appearing in the papers about want of punctuality. See the frightful accidents that are occurring.” “Yes; it is quite true that delays occur to trains. Nay, more, let it be granted that they are frequent—but frequent in proportion to what?—to the number of trains that are running night and day throughout every part of the kingdom?” “Yes.” But the answer to that is—in 1865 3,448,509 passenger trains ran in the United Kingdom, which is at the rate of 10,387 trains each week day, and half that number is assumed as the number on Sundays, and on Christmas Day and Good Friday. Fewer long trains travel on Sundays than on week days, but on short urban and suburban railways the trains are, except during the hours of divine service, as numerous as on week days. Besides the passenger trains there were, in 1865, 2,108,198 goods trains, heavily laden with merchandise and minerals, or at the rate of 6,060 trains on each week day, and half that number on Sundays, Christmas Day and Good Friday, making a total each day of 16,447. At the end of 1865 there were, as has been frequently stated in these pages, 13,289 miles of railway open for traffic; at present (October, 1867) the number of miles is fully 14,300, and there cannot be less than 13,000 passenger trains a day. The proportion of trains arriving late to trains arriving to time is not three per cent. throughout the whole kingdom, and of those, nine-tenths are not more than fifteen minutes behind time. The average number of persons travelling each week day throughout the year is nearly 800,000; of these the very utmost that are detained beyond fifteen minutes is 3,000; so that for every 300 persons who travel per diem one must expect, on the doctrine of averages, to be[167] over fifteen minutes late, and one out of every thirty-four passengers may be a few minutes over time. Judging by the tone and the language of many of the letters of complaint which appear in newspapers, if we could suppose such a person as one utterly ignorant of everything relating to railways, he would believe that the officials experience a special pleasure and enjoyment when trains are irregular. Let us, in reply, assure that excellent and ignorant person that there is nothing more abhorrent (with only one exception, to which we shall refer immediately) to railway nature than want of regularity and precision. They are to him precisely as the vacuum abhorendum of Nature, Pan-Anglican and Pan-Mundal.[62] In everyday life, if things go punctually and precisely[168] with us, the whole of our machinery, both corporeal and physical, works pleasantly, without trouble and without difficulty. And so it is on the railways—as long as there are punctuality and regularity all goes right. It is, therefore, the fact that the unceasing efforts of the staff of every railway company in the kingdom are unremittingly directed to ensuring punctuality to trains, as far as human nature can ensure it. It is the interest of the officials of every grade to have everything on the line working with the precision and fidelity of clockwork. The slightest irregularity at any part of a line at once brings an accession of labour and of responsibility upon the shoulders of every official, be he high or low, connected with it. But happily Englishmen, among whom, of course, we include Scotchmen and Irishmen, placed in[169] positions of trust and responsibility have always acted, and always will act, as Englishmen ought to act—from a consideration that influences them above all other considerations, a sense of duty. Hence no effort that railway officials can make is wanting when irregularities occur. But human means and human appliances break down at the moment least expected; no ingenuity, no foresight can prevent them. The weather, a slight shower of rain, which renders rails slippery at starting; a heated axle, caused by a few particles of grit getting into an axle box, notwithstanding the minute precautions taken to prevent such an incident; the delays, confusion, and blunders of passengers themselves,—an old lady insisting vehemently that she gave her little box with “my best bonnet in it,” to the guard, whilst she had taken[170] it into the compartment, and in her flurry, agitation, or absence of mind[63] at the prospect of her coming to her station,[171] had forgotten that she had at starting placed it on the seat beside her; at ticket collecting and ticket examining platform—for, alas! the prevalence of fraud and dishonesty among—we regret to say, and the remark only applies to a very few as compared with the general mass of travellers—all classes of ticket holders—renders occasional examination of them necessary;[64] but, of course, the most frequent cause of[172] delay on railways proceeds from—without which the railway would he nothing at all—the engines. As is well known, all engines are made of the best materials of every description; but it is not so generally known that—according to the testimony of Sir Francis Head in 1849, and of the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., in 1866—a locomotive consists of[173] 5,416 pieces, all of which, although indebted to machinery for a large portion of the work of their construction, have, nevertheless, each and every one of them, to pass through human hands, and they have to be fitted and put together as carefully as the machinery of a first-class watch. From the moment that a locomotive commences duty she is examined daily by competent and skilled men, whose object is to detect, not only the slightest flaw, but the slightest indication that may lead to one; and if either be detected, to substitute another locomotive which has successfully gone through the ordeal of rigid examination. The engine-driver and firemen are also on the alert, for they know what the consequences may be to them if a break down or accident take place. Yet, in spite of unceasing watchfulness, portions of the machinery of an engine will give way, at places, too, never expected. An engine may apparently be doing her duty admirably, when all of a sudden a tube—a great artery of her internal organisation—bursts. With us weak mortals an internal artery bursting lays us low for ever; and, although so dire a fate does not attend the engine, she is, for all the purposes that she was engaged upon at the moment of her disaster, as practically dead as if she had never been gifted with motive power. No human foresight can prevent these and similar, although minor, accidents to engines, no more than we can tell whether the apparently healthy and vigorous man of the morning may not be the cold and lifeless corpse of the afternoon.

Yes, as long as we are human, and must depend upon human means (no matter how apparently complete and perfect they may be) for the fulfilment of our purposes, unrehearsed and unexpected incidents, leading to disappointment, annoyance, and vexation, are alike inevitable and unceasing. And so it is we have not, and never can have, Perfection[174] on railways; but we have the nearest possible approach to it in all that relates to their working. This is a sentence that may possibly—nay, more probably will—excite the terrible susceptibility of the genus which, without being “of the poets,” is, nevertheless, vastly irritable—the great and magnificent British public. Why, the very losses of temper we display whilst we exact perfection in others, is proof that we are a long way from possessing it ourselves. Should we not remember one of the earliest lessons taught us by our Saviour, from whom nothing but goodness and wisdom could ever flow?—“He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone.” Cast the stone when you yourselves are perfect; without sin of thought or sin of action. But do we not witness daily, hourly, at each instant, that perfection does not belong to any of us? But let all men be assured of this—not on the testimony of quacks and nostrum-mongers, but on the undoubted evidence of fact—fact which is truth, pure, consistent, and unadulterated—that there does not exist in any one of the innumerable organisations, ramifications, aggregations, or embodiments throughout the empire a class of men that is more earnestly devoted to produce that near approach to perfection just referred to than among the well, yet often unjustly, abused humble servants of the railway community; for it is upon these men, in its last resource, that the public must depend for everything. At the stations of large towns and cities their individuality is naturally not so much noticed—or it might perhaps be more correctly stated, not so much known—as at smaller stations, being more completely mixed up in the immense human leaven of great populations. Still those of the public who frequent large stations know some of the men—inspectors, guards, and porters. They respect them; and if inquiry be made of the minister of the faith to which each[175] man belongs, he will be able to assert of more than nine-tenths of them, that each carries the moral discipline which he has learned on the railway into the transactions of his inner life. Besides attending at his place of worship, his little home is clean and respectable; his children are brought up—as they should be brought up—with respect for religion, with steady attendance at the school; and when the hours of play come round they are not the less ready, on occasion, to give or to receive the pummelling which every real English boy is ready to give or to receive, and is all the better therefor into the bargain.

Go to country stations; but before going there let one fact be stated, that the process of “winnowing” on railways, or separating the grist of the staff from the chaff, is always going on; that is, the men who do not come up to the standard—not of height, for on many railways this qualification is not regarded—but of moral and physical quality, are unceasingly being got rid of, or leaving the railway by discharging themselves.

At the country station is there a man of the district, of his sphere of life, that is more respected, or that enlists a larger amount of sympathy among all classes, than the station master? Cordial good feeling and considerate kindness are extended to every one of the persons that are subordinate to him. Why? There is not a man or woman of the land, high or low, rich or poor, “gentle or simple,” who has either visited or who resides adjacent to a country station, that cannot answer the question, in language of the heart, much warmer than any that it would be right for us to make use of.

But accidents? Yes, and let it here be stated broadly that when they do occur, they are, of course, harrowing to the minds of the public, but, it must be added, they are[176] infinitely more so to railway officials. They are of a fearful character when they do happen, but, happily, they are not very frequent.

We proceed to give an account of them for the years from 1861 to 1865, both inclusive.

In the first-named year there were (including the estimation of 100 journeys as taken by each periodical ticket-holder, and they are included in this proportion in the calculation for the subsequent years) 178,929,039[65] passengers, of whom 46, or one in every three and three-quarter millions carried, were killed, and 781, or one in every quarter of a million, were injured from causes beyond their own control; 33, or one for every five millions and a half carried, were killed from their own misconduct or want of caution.

In 1862, 186,094,671 passengers were carried, of whom 26, or one in every seven millions carried, were killed, and 536, or one in every 333,000 persons carried, were injured from causes beyond their own control; and 9, or one in every twenty millions and a quarter carried, from their own misconduct or want of caution.

In 1863, 211,074,175 passengers were carried, of whom 14, or one for every fifteen millions carried, were killed, and 400, or one for every 550,000 carried, were injured, from causes beyond their own control; and 21, or nearly one for every ten millions carried, from their own misconduct or want of caution.

In 1864, 236,922,065 passengers were carried, of whom 15, or one for every fifteen and three-quarter millions carried, were killed, and 698, or one for every 350,000 carried, were[177] injured from causes beyond their own control; and 21, or one for a little more than every eleven millions carried, from their own misconduct or want of caution.

In 1865, 261,577,415 passengers were carried, of whom 23, or 1 in every eleven and a half millions carried, were killed, and 698, or 1 in every 380,000 carried, were injured from causes beyond their own control; and 13, or 1 in every twenty millions carried, from misconduct, or want of caution.

If the several figures above stated be added together, it will be seen, that whilst 1,094,597,385 passengers were carried on English railways in five years, the number of persons killed from causes beyond their own control, that is, through some accident, neglect, omission, or commission on the part of the railway companies, was 124; and the number injured, in consequence of one of the foregoing reasons, was 3,449. Of these persons, although many were serious sufferers, the great bulk received injuries from the effects of which they were cured in a few weeks,—several in a few days. In the same five years, 97 passengers were killed from misconduct or imprudence.

In addition to the numbers enumerated in the foregoing statement, a great many persons, not passengers, are killed, either by trespassing on the railway, walking on it at forbidden places, or by suicide. In 1865, their numbers were—killed, 76; injured, 351. Many railway servants are killed or injured each year, mainly, we regret to say, through their own imprudence. In 1865, 122 were killed, and 83 injured.

The above catalogue is, undoubtedly, a melancholy one; one that it would, of course, have been all the better if it could have been avoided. But this, we say with deep sorrow and regret, is impossible. In the first place, as long as the working details of railways depend upon human hands and human heads, we shall have accidents. Some of the worst[178] accidents that have taken place on railways have been caused by the sudden failure, not of presence of mind, for there was no circumstance of a peculiar nature to require it, but by an utter failure, a total absence, as it were, of mind, just at the very moment that, by no means a great, but still some, mental exertion or exercise of mind was requisite. Signal-men, perhaps the most careful and cautious persons in railway service—men selected for the position, after much previous drill, in consequence of superior steadiness, sobriety, and good conduct—find, too late, from some cause utterly unexplainable, that the lever of “points,” or of a signal has been turned to the left when it should have been turned to the right, or vice versâ. Fearful accidents occur from the machinery of the engine suddenly giving way, in consequence of which it leaves the rails, and the carriages behind it follow, and pile themselves one above another in a manner that is incredible to those who have not seen them. Other accidents arise from a sudden failure of portions of the permanent way; yet, possibly, the same permanent way has been carefully looked at by completely competent men only half-an-hour previous to the accident; for it may be mentioned, that there is no part of a railway road-bed that is not thoroughly examined every morning. In a line that is well signalled—and it may be taken for fact that there is no railway in the kingdom upon which there are not at present efficient signals—accidents are not the result of delays, although there is a very general belief in the minds of the public that it is otherwise. In two recent instances, accidents of a calamitous nature have been the result of a rail being taken up and not replaced before a train has come upon the spot; this description of accident having been chiefly caused by permanent-way signal-men not going sufficiently far back with the flag danger-signal to enable a train to be[179] brought to a stand-still before arriving at the spot where the line is interrupted, other precautions have been added, which now render an accident from this cause nearly impossible. But many of the fearful collisions, the terrible accounts of which shock the public mind from time to time, are caused by combinations of circumstances and incidents so extraordinary and unusual, that it is hard to conceive, on the doctrine of combinations, how they could occur. They do occur, nevertheless; and all that can be said with respect of them is, that the circumstances of every railway accident are carefully read and studied by every traffic manager, and most station masters, in order that a lesson or a caution may be obtained for future guidance. But these accidents will continue to occur—there are, we fear, no real means yet discovered to prevent them—and all that can be hoped for as regards the future is, that as experience of what are in short almost impossible circumstances is accumulating, we may perhaps arrive at an epoch where no further incidents of this character can be combined together for human destruction on railways.

What has been already said with reference to the earnestness of railway officials to prevent delays, applies with tenfold additional force to their never-ceasing anxiety to avoid accidents. There is no possible precaution that can be taken, which is not taken to endeavour to prevent them. In every way they are disastrous; they not only create intense personal suffering and misery, they are not only a risk to employés, because at any moment, from an act of imprudence or forgetfulness, employés may be the cause of them, and thereby render themselves liable to punishments that extend even to penal servitude; but even after their occurrence they become to them a source of immediate and immense responsibility. The line must at once, quick almost[180] as the flash of lightning, be protected against trains coming in either direction; the killed and wounded must be removed, and those to whom life still belongs must be attended to with the most earnest solicitude; arrangements must be made, and carried into execution without a moment’s delay, so as to render the line fit for traffic again in the shortest period that human hands, aided with hearty good-will, can accomplish; all these duties must, nevertheless, be executed in the midst of scenes of havoc and misery that are enough to unnerve and prostrate most men, with as much coolness and sang froid as if the man’s services at the moment were not more important than attaching an additional carriage to a train, in consequence of an unusual accession of traffic at a station, or the performance of some other such like formal piece of everyday duty.

But beyond all these considerations, there is one that cannot, when referring to the subject of railway accidents, be overlooked, or passed by without comment—their cost. In 1865, no less than £333,533 were paid in compensation by railway companies, in consequence of railway accidents. If to this amount be added £200,000, for destruction of rolling stock and road, the heavy expense involved in their re-establishment or replacement, the enormous law costs to which the companies are subjected in settling claims or in defending actions, mounts up the total amount of actual expenditure, owing to these fearful occurrences, to upwards of half-a-million sterling, or nearly 1¼ per cent. on the total capital expended on railways. To this amount might also be added loss of receipts which always occur to a railway immediately after the occurrence of a serious accident. From the one cause of cost, without seeking to find any other reasons, railway companies have good reasons to dread railway accidents.

[181]

Yet considering the immense amount of persons carried, the numbers killed or wounded is small as compared with the numbers of those who are sufferers from accidents to which we are all liable all over the kingdom. Taking the metropolis only, there were 375 persons killed in the year 1862, of whom 171 came to sudden death within city limits, the remainder being the casualties of this description for all the other parts of London.[66] If we refer to the Wreck[182] Register of the Board of Trade, for 1866, we will see that, whilst the number of wrecks and casualties to ships[67] from all causes, on or near the coasts of the United Kingdom was 1,860 (just 251 more than the average of shipwrecks for the[183] last five years, and 322 more than the average for ten years), the number of the lives lost was 896.[68] It is estimated that 500,000 persons navigate the ships both foreign going and coasting, in which these lives were lost. Their number would have, beyond all doubt, been greatly added to, but for noble efforts that have been established, as well as increased within very recent years, for saving life from shipwreck. During the last year and the first-half of 1867, no less than 1,600 lives have been saved by means of the 153 boats of the National Life Boat Association. A large number of lives has also been saved by the rocket apparatus which is furnished to the Coast Guard by the Board of Trade, out of the Mercantile Marine Fund.

In 1864 there was one life lost for every 109,715 tons of coal raised in British collieries. In that proportion there would have been 903 persons killed in collieries in 1866.

Accidents by fire are awfully numerous, and no class or rank of life is exempt from them, but they are naturally more numerous among the children of the humbler classes than in the superior stations of life. From the nature of[184] female dress, the sex is not only more exposed to these accidents than men are, and the consequences are less fatal to males than they are to females. Fire-escapes have been a means, under Divine Providence, of saving many lives from destruction in houses on fire.[69]

Distressing and harassing as railway and other accidents are in this country, their number and frequency in the United States are utterly appalling. Of accidents to American railway trains in 1866, there were 82, by which 115 persons were killed and 607 were wounded. “This,” says the writer from whom the foregoing information is derived, “is an improvement over 1865, when there were 183 railroad accidents, killing 335 persons outright, and wounding 1,427 others.” It appears also that 1866 exhibits a better report in this respect than any year since 1861, but it must not be forgotten that in American accidents[185] “persons wounded” means only those who were not “killed outright” at the time of an accident. The great hulk of the wounded die subsequently, and should in reality be included among the killed. Persons who only suffer from minor wounds and injuries are not reported. It is only in England that the slightest injuries are reported and are included in the general account of persons injured. There were 23 steam-boat disasters on the various rivers and inland waters of the United States during 1866, by which 633 persons were killed and 156 wounded. In 1865, by 32 such accidents, 1,788 persons were killed and 265 were injured; but in 1865 a larger number of persons were killed in this way than in any previous year since 1854. What the numbers were in 1854 the writer who imparts the foregoing information does not mention; but he adds:—“These figures do not include any loss of life by disasters on the ocean.” As, until the outbreak of the war of 1862, the mercantile marine of the United States was equal to that of the United Kingdom, we may conclude, even making allowance for its recent diminution, that there must have been more lives lost on the sea than on the lakes, because American-built ships have always been notoriously less solidly built than British, and because the United States does not possess life-boats and other means of saving life such as we happily have in such abundance in this country.

We conclude this chapter by repeating the painful admission that railway accidents are inevitable. It must, however, be added, as an act of justice to railway officials, that their efforts are never-ceasing to prevent them. But, after all, how feeble and powerless is poor humanity!

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CHAPTER VII.

HORSES AND ENGINES—CREWE.

The locomotive is like the horse. The latter, with long thin legs and slight frame—at least made so by training—is the race horse. His pace for a length of not more than a mile and a half is at the rate of 25 to 31 miles an hour. The Derby race of 1867 was run by Hermit, the winner, at the rate of 31·4 miles an hour. It was won in three seconds less time, or at the rate of nearly thirty-two miles an hour, in 1866. Since the Derby, Hermit has been “nowhere” in all his races. A first-class hunter will go cross country occasionally at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. A first-class “roadster,” with a weight suitable for his strength, will do fifteen miles, and maintain the pace for an hour. In the latter days of the old mail coach, the four horses galloped nearly the whole of seven miles in about thirty-two minutes, but, as contractors used to say, ” the pace was killing.” On one occasion there was a race between two coaches from Maidstone to London; the distance—from Maidstone to the Bricklayers’ Arms, Dover Road, thirty-six miles—was accomplished by the winner in two hours and three-quarters. Perhaps there is no better road in all England to run a coach race upon—it is undulating slightly all the way; whereas a completely level road is fatiguing to horses. A fast gig-horse, with light weight behind him, will go twelve miles in an hour, and can maintain that pace for at least an hour; but there are many horses in England that, having only to draw “a sulky”—that is, a vehicle for but one person—would easily accomplish fourteen[187] and a half miles in an hour, and some are able to go fifteen. The old posters of former days could go eleven miles at the ordinary scale of pay for the post-boy. Properly “tipped,” he would get over the ground at the rate of twelve, or even thirteen, miles an hour. The Gretna Green pace was fifteen, and sometimes, for the last mile or two, nearly twenty; the object being to distance an enraged father, and to get within the toll-bar, closed against the pursuer at the instant the pursued had passed it. Put at this pace there was ever a risk of converting a marriage-feast into what Mr. Punch tells us all Scotchmen, with eye to main chance, prefer to all other meals—“a gude, mautter-of-fact funeral brickfeast, wie plenty of the whisky aut it.”

An ordinary gig horse will go at the rate of ten miles an hour, and maintain the speed for an hour and a half. Butcher-boys’ horses are wonderful at a spurt; but they could not maintain the pace for any distance. The stately carriage-horses—too highly fed, dressed, and cared for, to go at very high speed—can get over the ground at the rate of ten miles an hour; but they could not continue for any time at that speed. The ordinary carriage-horse, of less breed and mettle, will draw a heavier load, and can get over his nine miles an hour without distress. The large horses in the “unicorns”—the vans of Pickford’s and the other great establishments of the same character—being a cross between the cart and the carriage horse, can draw a less load than a cart horse, but at a speed that averages fully five miles an hour; whereas the cart horse, whilst easily drawing a load of upwards of a ton in weight, could not go any distance, without breaking down, at a higher rate than from three and a half to four miles an hour.

From the foregoing, it will be seen that there is a difference between the ordinary pace of the cart horse and[188] the pace that the race horse can go for a short distance, of twenty-seven miles an hour—that is, the latter can go nearly eight times as fast as the former; but the difference of weight is more striking. A completely exact comparison is not possible, because in one case it is weight carried, in the other weight drawn—say eight stone against one ton and a quarter; one to twenty-five. We believe that the highest speed at which an English horse can draw a vehicle—but then it must be feather-weight and very high wheels—is at the rate of about seventeen miles an hour. The late Mr. Osbaldiston, of sporting memory, had a horse that slightly exceeded it. The American trotting horses of greatest celebrity trot nearly eighteen miles in an hour, and they never break into a gallop. “They are,” said a sporting friend of ours, “taught only to trot; they don’t know how to gallop.”

The difference between the extremes of engines in different classes is not so great as it is with horses; it is, nevertheless, considerable. The express engine, with its driving-wheel of diameter varying from six feet and a half to eight feet, can carry a light load of seventy to ninety tons on a good—that is, a comparatively level—roadway, at the rate of fully fifty miles an hour, and can maintain this pace with perfect safety for a length of 90 to 100 miles, provided she can be supplied with water, as can now be done by means of the trough. Were she with a load behind her, not exceeding three or four carriages, she could, as a matter of performance, and without reference to the question of safety, maintain, without difficulty, a rate of sixty miles an hour. A four-wheeled coupled engine, each of the four wheels being of six feet diameter, and with appropriate dimensions of heating-surface, draws easily 120 to 150 tons, at a running speed of forty miles an hour. An engine, similar in other respects, but with wheels of five and a half[189] feet diameter, could run thirty-five miles an hour with an increase of load of from thirty to fifty tons. “Goods engines” of the most powerful class—that is, six wheels coupled—diameter of wheel four feet, can draw from 300 to 350 tons. This is also the diameter—in some instances it is even smaller—for the heavy engines used to ascend severe gradients.

In England we have no heavier goods engines on the narrow gauge than six-wheeled coupled. Their weight is about thirty-five tons. On the London and North-Western they are only thirty-one tons. Abroad, however, there are some few engines of much greater power. Thus, on the Orleans Railway, there is a ten-wheeled coupled tank locomotive with 19¾-inch cylinders, and 24 inches stroke. It is used principally to overcome a long and heavy gradient near Auvergne. The diameter of its wheels is three feet six inches. The “Steyerdorf,” an Austrian tank engine, which has run about 20,000 miles in the last four years, has ten wheels, six of which are coupled in one coupling, four others, being “bogie” wheels, are coupled together separately. There is also an extremely ingenious intermediate shaft by which the two separate couplings are connected together. All the wheels are of the same diameter—3 feet 3½ inches. The other principal dimensions are, cylinder 18¼ inches, length of stroke 25 inches. This locomotive is principally employed upon a line with very stiff gradients and sharp curves. Its maximum running speed does not exceed thirteen miles an hour.

The Northern of France Company has a few engines of immense power. Passengers between Calais and Paris may have observed them occasionally at stations. Their funnels lay horizontally on the upper surface of the boilers until near their extremities, when they bend upwards; their[190] mouths are thus perpendicular, like the funnels of ordinary engines. The weight of each of these locomotives is nearly forty-five tons, and it is said that they can easily draw loads of 600 tons; but their adoption is not likely to he general. They must be very injurious to the road and very destructive of couplings, &c.

Not content with this weight, the Northern of France Company exhibited in the Paris Exhibition a four-cylinder twelve-wheel tank engine, made by Messrs. Gouin & Co., the weight of which, fully loaded with fuel and water, is 58½ tons. It has 1,920 feet of heating surface.

In 1863, M. Thouvenot, a French engineer, proposed, in a pamphlet published at Lausanne, the construction of a colossal locomotive, the weight of which was to be 82 tons, horse power 582, heating surface 5,512 square feet, estimated consumption of fuel 250 lbs. per mile. This engine was proposed principally with the view to the ascent of mountains by railway; yet the weight of the train was to be less than the weight of the engine—only seventy-four tons. The speed estimated was twelve miles an hour. No such engine has as yet been, or is ever likely to be, constructed.

The earliest passenger locomotive engines were all made with “inside cylinders,” that is engines, the cylinders of which were within the framework. The late Mr. Joseph Locke we believe first introduced “outside” cylinder engines, that is, cylinders outside the framework, and at once visible to the eye. The “Crampton” engines—a great favourite in various parts of the continent, especially on the Northern of France Railway, but never in England—all have outside cylinders. The outside cylinder engine was very popular some twenty years ago, but the tendency of engineers, especially since the introduction of steel-cranks, is to revert to inside cylinders. Even at the Crewe manufacturing shops, where[191] formerly none but outside cylinder engines were built, engines with inside cylinders are now constructed. The same on the Great Eastern, and one or two other lines where outside cylinders were at one time exclusively adopted.

As regards locomotive makers—thirty-six years ago the trade did not exist in Great Britain. The following list comprises the names of about thirty firms and establishments, all actively engaged in the production of railway engines. Some can construct as many as 110 a year (Messrs. Sharp, Brothers, and Messrs. R. Stephenson & Co.), and there is none that cannot produce from twenty-five to thirty; their total capacity is about 1,500 engines per annum. Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co., and Beyer, Peacock & Co., of Manchester; Messrs. Robert Stephenson & Co., and R. & W. Hawthorn, at Newcastle; Messrs. Kitson & Co., Manning, Wardle & Co., Hudswell & Clarke, and the Hunslet Engine Company, Leeds; the Avonside Engine Company, at Bristol; Messrs. Hopkins, Gilkes & Co., Middlesboro’; the Canada Works, Birkenhead, now the property of Mr. Thomas Brassey; the Vulcan Foundry, Warrington; Messrs. George England & Co., New Cross, London; Messrs. James Cross & Co., St. Helen’s; Mr. R. Brotherhood, Chippenham; Messrs. Fletcher, Jennings & Co., Whitehaven; Messrs. Hughes & Co., Loughborough; the Yorkshire Engine Company, near Sheffield; the Worcester Engine Company, Worcester. The Steam-Plough Works at Leeds have recently commenced locomotive building, and have already despatched engines for Mexico. The Bridgewater Foundry, near Manchester, has resumed this class of work, and is now making engines for the Brighton Railway. Messrs. Ruston, Proctor & Co., of Lincoln, are now locomotive builders; also the Lilleshall Company. Besides these makers, the railway companies are themselves large constructors of locomotives.[192] The Crewe Works turns out 120 new engines yearly. The Great Western Company make large numbers of engines, both at Swindon and at Wolverhampton; the Midland Company produce many engines at Derby; the Brighton Company make locomotives at Brighton, as do also the South-Eastern at Ashford, the South-Western at Nine Elms, London, and the London, Chatham, and Dover at the Longhedge Works, Battersea. So also do the Caledonian Company at Glasgow, the North-London at Bow, and the Great Southern and Western Company at Inchicore, near Dublin.

The largest locomotive works in Scotland are those of Messrs. Neilson & Co., of Glasgow, and we know, from personal knowledge and experience, that they produce excellent work. The Glasgow Locomotive Works, Glasgow, is also a large establishment, with capacity for very extensive business.

There are no locomotive building firms in Ireland.

The money value of the new locomotives only, turned out each year by these establishments is close upon £4,000,000 sterling. Nearly a third of the locomotives built are sent abroad.

In 1864, the number of locomotives on the German railways was 4,768,574 of which were manufactured abroad; Germany now not only builds her own locomotives, but she sent 1,000 last year to other countries, such as Switzerland, Italy, France, and Russia. The number of engines now used on the railways of Germany is 5,250, of which 340 have to be replaced every year, it being calculated that a locomotive seldom lasts longer than fifteen or sixteen years. The largest of the German factories is that of Borsig, of Berlin, which has built more than 2,000 engines since it was first established in 1841; the two-thousandth engine being the[193] one that was sent to the Paris Exhibition of 1867. As the one-thousandth locomotive of this establishment was completed in 1859, it follows that its producing capacity is about 125 engines a year. Of the others, the principal are that of Maffei, in Bavaria; that of the Austrian railway companies at Vienna; Egerstorff’s, at Hanover; Henschl’s, at Cassel; and the Carlsruhe Factory, which sent its four hundred and fifty-ninth locomotive to the Paris Exhibition.

The great locomotive establishments of France are not more than six in number; those of Messrs. Schneider & Co., at the Creusot Iron Works, of Messrs. Cail & Co., Messrs. Gouin & Co., Messrs. Kœchlin & Co., of Mulhouse, the establishments at Five-Lilles, Graffenstadt, and Commentry. Each of the great French railway companies make locomotives. The capacity of construction of all the establishments in France does not exceed 450 engines per annum. Although France is very proud of having exported a dozen engines to England, she is herself a large importer of them, principally from Belgium; and she requires an expansion of at least 50 per cent. of her present locomotive production before she can be independent, for them, of other nations.

The largest locomotive constructing and engineering factory in Belgium is that of the “Societé, John Cockerill,” at Seraing, established in 1834, by our countryman of that name. Mr. Cockerill did not live to see the complete success of the establishment. The other leading locomotive constructing firms in Belgium are those of Messrs. Nicaise & Deleuwe, of Louvière; G. Raghens & Sons, of Malines; Messrs. Charles L. Cavels, of Ghent; “Compagnie Belge du Materiel des Chemins de Fer,” at Molenbeek Saint Jean; Thivenet, of Marchienne; Hanrez & Co., of Monceau-upon-Sambre; and A. Detombay & Co., of Marcinelle. The locomotive[194] producing capacity of Belgium is about 600 engines per annum, and it can be easily extended.

Switzerland has one locomotive building factory, which was recently opened at Zurich. Italy, Spain, Russia, and Holland are not locomotive producing countries. About 4,500 engines per annum are now constructed in Europe, but in case of demand at least 2,000 a year more could be produced. Canada and Australia are the only British colonies in which they are made; in the former their first manufacture dates back about twelve years, but it is only in the present year that a commencement has been made of building them in Australia. The first Australian engine was made at Sydney, and others are now in process of construction there.

There are, according to the last Post Office returns, 814 head postal towns in Great Britain, besides at least 4,000 sub-postal towns, boroughs, and villages, scattered all over the kingdom. There are in France no less than 4,361 “Bureaux de Poste et de Distribution,” both major and minor, and, as we have already said at page 144, Monsieur Vandal, in his Annuaire des Postes for 1866, enumerates about 19,000 postal towns in Europe and North America, exclusive of Schindermanderscheid, Oberschindermanderscheid, and Nederschindermanderscheid, which he has omitted to mention. With all these the French Post Office has correspondence more or less direct; so also has that of England. What the number of cities, towns, and villages, may be in the other parts of the world it is impossible to say; but this, at all events, is certain, that there is only one town, one great town, that has been conceived for the locomotive, born for the locomotive, wet-nursed for the locomotive, weaned for the locomotive, breeched for the locomotive, birched for the locomotive, apprenticed for the locomotive;[195] its prima lanugo was for the locomotive; and, finally, prima lanugo has since grown to manhood, and, by the usual metamorphosis, has been converted into bristles, through the locomotive.

Just thirty-three years ago, at the original planning of the Grand Junction Railway, Crewe, which otherwise might have never been more than a road-side station, was fixed upon as the site for the company’s locomotive and carriage establishments. Its locality was convenient, being 42½ miles from Liverpool, and 54½ from Birmingham. Besides, it was at a comparatively poor and unfrequented part of the railway, where land could be—and actually, in the first purchases, was—obtained cheaply. Well, the line was built, the station was opened, and the repairing shops were erected. They were (in the plural number) “parra metu primo,” for it was always the late Mr. Joseph Locke’s habit to build with as much cheapness and economy as were consistent with efficiency and good working. The locomotive and carriage requirements for 97½ miles of railway, with six trains a day in each direction on week days and four on Sundays, added to which were a couple or three goods trains each way on week days, were not great. Therefore, the first erections at Crewe were modest and unpretending.

In process of time Crewe grew, for not only was the Grand Junction married with the London and Birmingham, neither bride nor bridegroom, however, retaining its former name, but each becoming “London and North-Western.” A year or so after celebration of the marriage, Crewe became the junction point of the railway to Manchester; thence afterwards extended in a mystifying net-work of lines over all the manufacturing towns of Cheshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. On the left there was the line to Chester, one of the railways constructed by George Stephenson, which, in[196] 1849, was extended, by his son Robert, to Holyhead. The main arterial railway did not, in the first instance, extend farther north from London, than the point where the Liverpool and Manchester Railway bisected it at Newton Junction; but, by degrees, it stretched out to Preston, then to Lancaster, then to Carlisle, and therefrom all over western Scotland. So that the insignificant, almost unknown, Crewe of 1837 had not only become, in 1849, a great centre of traffic of every description, but it was also the workshop, the family residence, when in health, of upwards of 220 engines and tenders, as well as the hospital and place of receptacle for such of them as became sick, halt, or maimed, while working the traffic of what became, at the time of the amalgamation, the northern division of the London and North-Western Railway. The extreme southern point of this division was, and we believe still is, Stafford; at the commencement of the railway—very much like Crewe—an insignificant and unimportant road-side station. In the north, Crewe engines worked as far as Carlisle, westward to Holyhead, and eastward along the mystifying net-work of lines which fertilise Cheshire and its two adjacent manufacturing counties. Upwards of one hundred engines were at work every day; and besides keeping them all in perfect order, the establishment turned out a new engine and tender every Monday morning, commencing on the 1st of January, 1848.

In 1849 the number of men and boys employed in all the shops devoted to engines was 1,600; the weekly wages of each averaged just a pound a week—£1,600. “Close to the entrance of the locomotive department,” says Sir Francis Head, in his “Stokers and Pokers,” “stands, as its primum mobile, the tall chimney of a steam-pump, which, besides supplying the engine that propels the machinery of the[197] workshops, gives an abundance of water to the locomotives, and also to the new railway town of Crewe, containing at present about 8,000 inhabitants. This pump raises about eighty or ninety thousand gallons of water per day from a brook below into filtering-beds, whence it is again raised about forty feet into a large cistern, where it is a second time filtered through charcoal for the supply of the town.”

“After passing through a workshop,” continues Sir Francis, “containing thirty-four planing and slotting machines, in busy but almost silent operation, we entered a smiths’ shop, 260 feet long, containing forty forges all at work. At several of the anvils there were three, and sometimes four strikers, and the quantity of sparks that more or less were exploding from each, the number of sledge-hammers revolving in the air, with the sinewy frames, bare throats and arms of the fine hale men who wielded them, formed altogether a scene well worthy of a few moments’ contemplation. As the heavy work of the department is principally executed in this shop, in which iron is first enlisted and then rather roughly drilled into the service of the company, it might be conceived that the music of the forty anvils at work would altogether be rather noisy in concert. The grave itself, however, could scarcely be more silent than this workshop, in comparison with the one that adjoins it, in which the boilers of the locomotives are constructed. As for asking questions of, or receiving explanations from, the guide who, with motionless lips, conducts the stranger through this chamber, such an effort would be utterly hopeless; for the deafening noise proceeding from the riveting of the bolts and plates of so many boilers is distracting beyond description. We almost fancied that the workmen must be aware of this effect upon a stranger, and that on seeing us enter they welcomed our visit by a special[198] charivari sufficient to awaken the dead. As we hurried through the din, we could not, however, help pausing for a moment before a boiler of copper inside and iron outside, within which there sat crouched up, like a negro between the decks of a slave-ship, an intelligent-looking workman, holding with both hands a hammer against a bolt, on the upper end of which, within a few inches of his ears, two lusty comrades on the outside were hammering with surprising strength and quickness. The noise which reverberated within this boiler, in addition to that which was resounding without, formed altogether a dose which it is astonishing the tympanum of the human ear can receive uninjured; at all events we could not help thinking that if there should happen to exist on earth any man ungallant enough to complain of the occasional admonition of a female tongue, if he will only go by rail to Crewe, and sit in that boiler for half-an-hour, he will most surely never again complain of the chirping of that ‘cricket on his hearth,’ the whispering curtain lectures of his dulce domum.”

It is impossible to follow and narrate, in a work of this description, all the details of manufacture by which the rough masses of iron, steel, copper, and brass become converted into the perfect locomotive. We therefore close these extracts from Sir Francis’ pleasant book, by what he says of the erecting-shop at Crewe, it being remembered that production being now more than double what it was in 1849, the delivery of an engine every three days is its usual amount, and sixteen or eighteen times a-year there is an interval of only two working days between the births of two engines:—

“At the farther end of the line of rails close to the north wall, there appeared a long, low, tortuous mass of black iron-work, without superstructure or wheels, in which the form of an engine-bed in embryo could but very faintly be traced.[199] A little nearer was a similar mass, in which the outline appeared, from some cause or other, to be more distinctly marked; nearer still, the same outline appeared upon wheels. To the next there had been added a boiler and a fire-box, without dome, steam escape, or funnel-pipe. Nearer still, the locomotive engine, in its naked state, appeared in point of form complete, and workmen were here busily engaged in covering the boiler with a garment about half an-inch thick of hair-felt, upon which others were affixing a covering of inch deep plank, over which was to be tightly bound a tarpaulin, the whole to be secured by iron hoops. In the next case the dome of the engine was undergoing a similar toilette, excepting that, instead of a wooden upper garment, it was receiving one of copper. Lastly (it was on a Saturday that we chanced to visit the establishment), there stood, at the head of this list of recruits, a splendid bran-new locomotive engine, completely finished, painted bright green (the varnish was scarcely dry), and in every respect perfectly ready to be delivered over on Monday morning to run its gigantic course. On other rails within the building were tenders in similar states of progress; and, as the eye rapidly glanced down these iron rails, the finished engine and tender immediately before it seemed gradually and almost imperceptibly to dissolve in proportion to its distance, until nothing was left of each but an indistinct and almost unintelligible dreamy vision of black iron-work.”

In 1849 the coach repairing business of the northern division of the company, as well as the locomotive establishments, were at Crewe, but by a recent arrangement all the locomotive staff and material which existed at Wolverton (for it was, until the transfer, both the engine and the carriage repairing establishment of the southern division of the London and North-Western Company) have been removed[200] to Crewe. Wolverton has received the carriage repairing establishment of Crewe, and henceforward its duties will be limited to this service. As regards waggons and all the rolling stock relating to the goods department, a separate establishment has been formed at Earlestown, near the junction station of that name, 187 miles from London. By this arrangement Crewe will shortly be able to turn out some thirty or forty more engines a year, bringing the regular number of engines manufactured up to three a week,—of the money value of fully £7,000.

Let us now give some details of the growth of Crewe in the last nineteen years. In 1849, as has just been stated, 1,600 men and boys were employed there, averaging £1 a week each in wages. At present the number of workmen of all kinds employed, including the locomotive works, the steel works (of which anon), rail making, and “the steam shed,” is about 4,350. It is never at present under 4,300. The wages due to “the hands” each week is £5,050, so that the average per person employed has increased from £1 a week in 1849, to £1. 3s. 3d. at present. In 1849 there were 360 miles “worked” by Crewe. Now the number is 1,328. In 1849 there were about 100 “Crewe engines” in steam daily; now there are from 800 to 850, varying according to the amount of work that has to be gone through.

Among the additional buildings which have very recently been erected is a new repairing shop, capable of accommodating thirty-two engines. It is fitted up with travelling cranes, worked by cord, on the principle invented and employed by Mr. Ramsbottom. Full and interesting particulars of this, and the other machinery now adopted at Crewe, will be found in the Engineer newspaper of February 9th and 16th, 1866, and in Engineering of the 25th of October, 1867.

[201]

In addition to the cranes just referred to, one has recently been supplied to the new iron foundry, in which are placed two very large cupolas required for the heaviest castings. This crane is capable of sustaining a weight of thirty tons; a smaller one lifts ten tons. There are also two hydraulic cranes, similar to those invented by Bessemer, for hoisting ingots out of the converting pit at the steel works; also a hoist worked by hydraulic machinery for lifting metal, coke, &c., from the ground floor to the firing stage of the cupolas. In the same range are a brass foundry, millwrights’ shop, carpenters’ shop and saw-mill, the whole covering an area of about 112,000 superficial feet.

Before quitting the subject of locomotive repairs, it must be stated that there are—what on other railways would be called large shops—minor establishments at Carlisle, at Camden, at Edge Hill, near Liverpool, at Longsight, near Manchester, and at Preston. The very heavy repairs, however, which all engines require from time to time are done exclusively at Crewe.

But, besides locomotive work at Crewe on the foregoing gigantic scale, and in all its infinities, the London and North-Western Company decided in 1863 to commence the manufacture not only of rails on the ordinary system, but also upon the new and marvellous process known as the “Bessemer Process,” so called after the name of the distinguished gentleman who is its inventor. Thanks to this process, of which, owing to the scope and character of our work, we can only say a few words, a most important saving in the items of maintenance and renewals, is about to be effected on railways. The Bessemer works at Crewe were opened in September, 1864. The number of men exclusively employed at them is 378, and their wages are £444 a week. In the article of steel rails alone, the works turn out at the rate of[202] 6,000 tons a year, and this is exclusive of the number of steel tires, axles, &c., also manufactured there. This number is increasing daily, owing to the increased economy effected by their introduction.[70] The amount of iron rails also[203] manufactured is about 14,000 tons a year. As renewals of rails are required on those parts of the system where the traffic is heavy and the trains are frequent, iron will be superseded by steel rails. It is probable that, eventually, the latter only will be found on the London and North-Western system. This, however, is not likely to be the case for some years to come. In the meantime, the iron rails constructed at Crewe, being so much superior in quality to those manufactured by the iron masters, will[204] carry the traffic on the less frequented portions of the line, and will cost less for maintenance and renewal than steel rails at their present prices. The cost of their production will, however, no doubt, he greatly diminished in the course of the next three or four years. Mr. Bessemer’s royalties, unless he obtain renewal of his patents, will cease about that period.

But how are the 14,000 men, women, and children, who now constitute the population of modern Crewe, lodged and otherwise provided for? When, in 1849, they numbered 8,000 they were lodged in 514 houses, a number which we expect the Registrar-General would have put his finger upon and objected to—nearly 16 persons in each small habitation. Now, the number of houses is about 2,000, of which 720 belong to the company. They are built along commodious and pleasant streets; well lighted with gas; well Macadamised or paved. As signs of civilisation, there are gay and lively shops, brightly lighted up on winter evenings, replete with modern fashions for the ladies, and, for the rougher sex, there is everything at hand for everyday work, and for Sundays. All the usual signs of civilisation prevail within town boundaries. There are dancing masters and dancing mistresses, music masters, and music teachers of the gentler sex, barrel organs and German bands, occasional theatrical performances by the artistes of the “circuit,” balls, dances, flirtations, marriages and their usual consequences, and, to wind up, there are four lawyers, seven policemen, a weekly newspaper called the Crewe and Nantwich Guardian, and two undertakers! The gentleman who has so kindly furnished us with most of the information herein given respecting modern Crewe, wishes it specially to be noted, that “the undertakers do not make this their sole business, but are also drapers,” a request that we have great pleasure in complying[205] with, adding thereto a hope on our own parts, that the worthy drapers may long find it more profitable to wait upon Crewe living, than to follow it, when dead, to its last resting-place.

In a work published at the commencement of this year by Messrs. Tinsley Brothers, entitled “Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes, written by a Journeyman Engineer,” the writer alleges that working men cannot write letters for the reason that “they were very good scholars once, only they have forgotten all their education,”—hence it is, continues the author, “they usually regard letter writing as a soul-depressing business fit only for the gloom and involuntary confinement of a wet Sunday.” But this is not the case at Crewe, for we find, by a postal return presented to Parliament in August last, that the Post Office distributes 6,350 letters every week. Of course this number is exclusive of the legion beyond number that the locomotive department receives and sends out “on company’s service.” The service correspondence of the traffic and of the stores departments must also be very considerable. All these letters are conveyed solely by the company’s trains.

Crewe is now even better off, as regards its water supply, than it was in 1849. The whole of it comes, at present, from Whitmore, close by the station of that name, eleven miles from Crewe, where it is pumped out of the red sand-stone into a reservoir. Now, it happens, fortunately, that Whitmore is 580 feet higher than Crewe, so that the water gravitates in pipes laid along the railway, and it is so pure at its journey’s end that it requires no filtering whatever. The consequence is, that not only is there an abundant supply for Crewe Works, but every house in the town is also well furnished. Recently, considerable additional demand has been made on the water supply of the town, owing to the opening of some large and convenient modern baths. These[206] consist of a capacious swimming bath, the cost for which is 2d. each bather. A first-class warm bath at these baths costs sixpence, a second fourpence; but at the baths inferior in point of style and elegance, the price is only 1½d.

Formerly a medical man was appointed to attend the workmen and their families in sickness, or when accidents occurred. Of late years the doctor is no longer provided by the company, as far as sickness is concerned, as the system was found to cause much dissatisfaction, many of the workmen being connected with societies which provided special medical attendance for the members. For accidents, however, an hospital has been erected, the expenses of which are partly defrayed by the railway company, and the medical man appointed by the company still attends to the surgical cases of the men themselves, for which each man pays one half-penny a-week.

The town was governed in 1849 by a council of fifteen members, two-thirds of whom were nominated by the workmen, and one-third by the directors. Now the government is vested in a Local Board of Health consisting, as in the previous arrangement, of fifteen members, who are elected altogether by the ratepayers. The time has not yet arrived, in the opinion of the leading persons in the town, for applying for a Charter of Incorporation; at all events, nothing is thought about it at present.

We have left to the last a brief description of the arrangements which have been made for Divine service, religious instruction, and for moral cultivation and improvement. In 1849 there was only one church at Crewe. It was capable of accommodating about 800 persons. In 1867 the original church had been enlarged, and had become capable of receiving 1,200. In 1865 Mr. George Duncombe, of London, presented an iron church for the use of the inhabitants—a[207] noble act, for which God will for ever bless him and his. But the Parish Church and the iron church having proved inadequate for the number of members of the Established Church who present themselves to hear God’s word, the site for the construction of another church has been secured, and the work will be commenced before the close of the present year.

Besides the Episcopalian churches, there are fourteen places of worship for other denominations—equal to the accommodation of over 4,000 persons. The Town Hall and Mechanics’ Institution is supported by about 400 members. It contains a large reading room, a gymnasium, and a library, which now numbers upwards of 3,000 volumes. In addition, there are several commodious and well lighted class-rooms in which evening classes are held for the higher education of those pupils who are unable to attend the ordinary schools in the day time. The number of such pupils exceeds 150. The drawing class is a branch of the Chester School of Art. The pupils are examined annually by the Government Examiners. There is also a science and art class, a tributary of the South Kensington system.

The Mechanics’ Institution receives a free grant of patent specifications from Government. These are greatly esteemed by the pupils, who have made much use of them during the last few years.

The ordinary schools established by the company, and attached to the Episcopalian Church, have recently been enlarged. The daily attendance of children at them is about 700. The schools belonging to the other denominations of worship are attended daily by over a thousand children.

Crewe boasts of a handsome and substantial market hall, which covers an area of 14,000 superficial feet. Saturday is market day. There was no private manufactory of any description in the town until 1865, when Mr. Compton, of London, established a factory for making up the clothing[208] worn by the company’s servants. Upwards of 250 persons are now employed in it.

At the head of the mighty establishments at Crewe—establishments in which, including men and materials, there is a weekly expenditure of about £20,000—over a million a year—is one man who, if he had been in Egypt, with works not a quarter the size and not half so ably carried out, would have been at least a Bey, more probably a Pacha, in Austria a Count of the Holy Empire; in any other country in the world, except England, with crosses and decorations, the ribbons of which would easily make a charming bonnet of existing dimensions. But in England the earnest, persevering, never-tiring John Ramsbottom is John Ramsbottom—no more. It is true that he has European and Transatlantic reputation, and that he is Fellow and Honorary Fellow of innumerable societies, thus abnegating in his person the latter half of the aphorism that says:—

“Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow.”

For without the worth he never would have been the fellow. Probably had Mr. Ramsbottom been a Member of Parliament, he might have hereditary honours by this time. But ere long there will be fresh agitation for distribution of seats, notwithstanding the anger of the Quarterly Review of October, 1867, at the “Conservative Surrender.” Then will be the time for Crewe to put forward its claims to have its bone, its sinew, its muscle, its manly vigour, and Titanic power represented. Who more worthy to represent it than the present semi-sovereign prince who sways, with nearly omnipotent power, 157½ miles from the supreme and sovereign authority at Euston? Add Barrow-in-Furness, and then “King Iron” would make his thunder heard in St. Stephens!

Crewe, although pre-eminently the great locomotive city of the empire, is far from being the only one. Next in importance[209] to it is Swindon, at which are located all the great engineering works of the Great Western Company; it is seventy-eight miles from London, on the main line, which leads on the left to Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and the whole extreme South-Western parts of England; on the right to Gloucester, and thence to South Wales. The Great Eastern locomotive works are at Stratford, four miles from London; those of the Great Northern at Doncaster, 157 miles. The Midland, the latest addition to the number of railways having their termini in London, have their shops at Derby, 120 miles from London. Crossing the Thames, we find the South-Western locomotive shops at Nine Elms, within half-a-mile of those of the London, Chatham and Dover, at Long Hedge, Battersea. The London, Brighton and South Coast works are at Brighton, fifty-two miles from London. Finally, those of the South-Eastern are at Ashford, the junction point whence, besides the main line to Folkstone and Dover, one branch runs to the left to accommodate Canterbury, Deal, Margate, and Ramsgate, another to the right extends to St. Leonards and Hastings; Ashford is sixty-seven miles from London. The largest railway company in England, the terminus of which is not in London, is the North-Eastern; in mileage it ranks third, being only exceeded by the London and North-Western and the Great Western. Its locomotive shops are at York; those of the Caledonian Company are near Glasgow. The two railway companies of longest dimensions in Ireland, the Great Southern and Western and the Midland Great Western, have their workshops respectively at Inchicore and at Broadstone; both these places are suburbs of Dublin. There are more than 20,000 skilled workmen and their apprentices employed in the engine repairing and constructing factories belonging to the railway companies of the United Kingdom.

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CHAPTER VIII.

A JOURNEY ON THE LOCOMOTIVE.

Reader! have you ever travelled on a locomotive? We believe not; at least there have been very few of you of the male sex, none of you of the gentler—for there is a law on railways like that of masonry, railway engines are “tiled” against crinoline.[71] If one of you should, peradventure, ever succeed in bounding the barrier, you will, like Miss Aldworth[72][211] a hundred years ago, be sworn to keep the secret for life,—and we are sure you will keep it.

We, however, have been permitted to travel on the engine from London to Stafford and back again, and not having been sworn to secrecy, we venture to give a brief account of the journey.

It is not to be supposed that going through the air at the rate of between forty and fifty miles an hour is disagreeable. It is not so, unless the weather be severe and trying; but in fine, and especially warm weather, the rapid movement creates a feeling of much pleasure and enjoyment. It is only when amateurs do not travel on railway engines that the real hardships of locomotive driving can be appreciated; of late years, however, the little wooden fencing, with oval glass window on each side, the whole technically called a “cab,” gives an amount of protection which materially lessens hardship in inclement weather.

It may be considered, as a general rule, that there are on an average, twelve men employed on each mile of railway in the United Kingdom. Taking the present length of railways as 14,300 miles,[73] this would make the number about 172,000. Of course on many of the railways, especially on those opened in recent years, which are single lines, and run through districts where the population is sparse and the trains infrequent, there is nothing like that average number employed. But, on the other hand, the unceasing increase[212] of business, especially in goods and mineral traffic, on all the leading railways that connect important places together, necessitates continued increase of staff; hence it is that the number of men directly employed is very nearly the same per mile as it was seven or eight-and-twenty years ago.

The engine drivers and firemen constitute about a twelfth of the total staff of railway companies.

One of the oldest railways guide books published, gives exact directions how to arrive at Euston Station from other parts of the town, and we are told to take special notice of the “Grand Facade at Euston Grove.” The centre of it is the Doric portico built by Hardwich, used by nobody, which, however, cost shareholders no less than £40,000. No wonder, seeing that it contains not less than 75,000 cubic feet of Yorkshire freestone, several of the blocks of which, weighed upwards of thirteen tons each.

Passing by, but not through this massive portal, we arrive at the actual station, and thence at the platform, whence, in the magnificent language of penny-a-lining,[74] we are so shortly to be “hurled along through the atmosphere at singularly rapid—it might almost be said marvellously terrific speed of forty-five miles an hour.” Not being historiographers for Mr. Frith, R.A., we do not intend to give any account of the persons whom he truly, but not with such intense artistic effect as in the “Derby Day,” depicts, as those who fill a railway platform just before a train is starting. We must therefore not say anything of the unconscious or indifferent old gentleman, who so placidly reads his newspaper, within six inches of the two broad-brimmed detectives, one of whom dangles the “bracelets[213]” into the view of the foiled and agonised culprit, compelled to convert an intended migration into forced residence in Newgate. We must also leave unrecorded about heaving porters, rushing guards, precipitous newsboys, friends parting—some with lurking tears, some with tears more open—some with scarce suppressed pleasure and fervent hope, as they affectionately squeeze each other’s hands, that they may never meet again, at all events on this side of Jordan; all these must we pass by, that we may show to the engine driver and his “mate” the order, which gives us the privilege of placing ourselves, with them, on the footplate of the engine.

There she is—manacled with harness that Vulcan presided at the forging of—smoke-vomiting, steam-emitting, snorting, bubbling inside, grunting, growling—hissing too, with an intensity equal to the combined and concentrated hissing of ten thousand offended and irritated cats, additioned with the hissing of at least the like number of angry birds, the hissing of one of which was enough to save from capture Roman Capitol, ancient Rome’s strongest fortress, 365 years after Roman City had been created.

Every passenger is seated, the door of every carriage has received its last bang[75] at closing, even the inevitable last man[214] has rushed in, panting and breathless, and has been shoved with main force, by at least a dozen sturdy porters, into a compartment. This last man is as inevitable as the dog at Epsom Races on the Derby Day, or any other incident of life, the absence of which is so impossible, that life could not go on without it. There always is—there always must be—a last man; inexorable fate has so decided. Then it is that the gentleman in the braided green coat, with—as a further mark of distinction from other officials—a hat on, gracefully and graciously, with becoming dignity, yet withal not pompously, in short, exactly as befits a railway official of authority, weight, and consequence, waves a white flag which he has just received from an official of humbler grade standing beside him, once up, once down, and once more up again. He waves no more; the before-mentioned humbler official receiving the flag staff from his dignified chief, carefully folds it up, that it may be in readiness for precisely the same ceremony at the departure of each subsequent train; the chief (still dignified) gives a vade-valeque motion of his right hand, the guard sounds his whistle, and all the bustle, life, excitement, and animation of ten minutes by-gone have as completely vanished, as if they had never existed.

The engine has no sooner, by the slight movement of the[215] “regulator” which the driver gently handles, received a first injection of steam into her cylinders than she starts into motion as a thing of life, with a weight behind her of not less than from 100 to 150 tons. The slow pace at starting is gradually increased, but she has scarcely passed the limit of the station when she is taught the lesson of life, which even the most favoured learn—that it is with her as with man, it is uphill work, at all events in its early stages, for in the first mile and a quarter she has to ascend the stiffest hill in her whole journey, “1 in 80,” Camden being just a hundred feet higher than Euston. Bury’s “four-wheelers,” the dii maximi of railway engine power in 1810, were so weak that they could not bring a train, the weight of which was not a quarter of one of a modern date, up the “Euston incline” without the friendly aid of ropes worked by two fixed engines of high power, and two very high chimneys, at Camden. But the chimneys have long since disappeared, and the engines are doing good service in some other place belonging to the Company’s gigantic establishments. The engine and train emerge from the Primrose tunnel to hide themselves in a minute or two afterwards in that of Kilburn, and as they pass the station of that name, the reader may be reminded it was there that Dick Turpin began his ride to York, on Black Bess, 130 years ago[76]. Had it been mail[216] horses of the olden time their run to Wimbledon (seven miles from Euston) would have completed their present journey, and they would have rested until they were harnessed to the “up mail,” and having brought it to London, their work of twenty-four hours would have been completed. But at seven miles from its starting point the iron horse would not have been more than four or five minutes at full running pace; three minutes in time and two miles in distance bring time-honoured Harrow in sight, “on the hill,” for its church is noticable from every point of the compass, and it was of it that Charles II. said, during a theological discussion in his presence, “the true visible church, as it could be seen everywhere.” Of its school,[77][217] founded in 1571 by John of Lyon, but one momentary view is obtained, and that is only as a day train darts along the[218] valley that leads to Watford. The three most distinguished men of modern times who have received their education there have been Peel, Palmerston, and Byron.[78]

[219]

The northern extremity of the long Watford tunnel, twenty miles from London, is reached just thirty-three minutes from the time of starting; yet it has been climbing work all the while, and the climbing work continues still farther to Tring, eleven miles more distant from London; but the hill is not so steep as it was at starting. Long it is; but Tring is, nevertheless, only some 750 feet higher than Euston, and some 350 feet higher than the top of the cross of the noblest Protestant Church in the world—St. Paul’s. Has the engine felt it? Not she. She has only shown that she knows the difference between a gradient of 1 in 80 and 1 in 300, by the bound she made into higher speed, as, escaping from the stiffer incline, she dashed on to more level ground through the Points of Camden.

In the by-gone days of the early railway, the engine that could gain the heights of Tring without baiting on the way was a wonder. In 1844, when experiments were made preparatory to running express trains between London and Birmingham in three hours, the exultation was great when it was found that a tender could be constructed to hold water enough to convey a light train as far as Wolverton without stopping.

Finality is an unknown element on the railway: Progress is its only pass-word. The tender was no sooner found capable of carrying water to Wolverton, than it was determined to extend the distance to Blisworth. Not very long[220] afterwards the run was increased to Rugby, twenty miles farther. Engines and trains have for some years run these eighty-two miles without stoppage; but of late the water-crane has been supplemented by the water-trough, of which we shall take occasion to speak presently.

From Tring to Leighton the ground is gone over in nearly as few minutes as there are miles—one only conspicuous object being visible in the intervening distance—the noble house built, not ten years ago, for the great Rothschild, by the still greater Paxton.

As the train flies through Leighton Station, the engineman’s watch tells that he has completed his forty miles in his appointed time, fifty-six minutes from that at which he left London. Well that he is quick of glance, for before the watch is replaced in its pocket, the engine and train enter in the Linsdale Tunnel. It is the worst on the line, for though short—only 284 yards in length—you are half-way through it before the first gleam of daylight is caught streaming in at its opposite entrance. “I have got the distant signal all right, Jack, put some coal on”—says the engineman to his fireman, and the furnace door has scarcely been opened for three shovels full, before the iron-clad is dashing through Bletchley Station—46½ miles from London,—twenty years ago, a small road-side station; now, a first-class and intricate junction, whence a branch juts off to the right to Bedford, and thence to Cambridge; another on the left to Oxford. It is thus that the two Universities are brought into railway connection, and the rival seats of learning and of boat racing are only three-and-a-half hours apart from each other. Might not Cam do well by an occasional training visit to the banks and stream of Isis?

Bletchley is also intricate, because it is here that the third line of railway, ordered by the London and North-Western[221] Company in 1858, commences, and is continued except through the Watford Tunnel (at either end of which it is very ingeniously connected with the original up-line of railway) on to Camden Station. This third line is solely for up goods, cattle, and mineral traffic, and the relative speed of such trains and those for passengers can be seen and appreciated, as the latter pass alongside the former for a minute or two, and then leave them behind at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour—twenty versus forty-five.

Time was when Wolverton was looked upon as the most dangerous part of the whole line between London and Liverpool. It was, therefore, a halting place not only for all passenger trains, but goods trains came to a stand there also. At Wolverton likewise were the main locomotive repairing shops of the original London and Birmingham Company; and when the company was amalgamated with the Grand Junction and other companies, the locomotive establishment became that for the southern division of the London and North-Western Company, the two northern points of which are, Birmingham, looking westward, and Stafford, looking slightly to the eastward. In process of time the repairing shops have been doubled, trebled, nearly quadrupled. In 1840 Wolverton had a population of 2,000, all of whom were company’s servants or their families. In 1849 it was double that number, and now, in 1867, it is 6,000. But of this number about 1,700 are on the wing with their families. These are the men who have hitherto been employed in the locomotive works, which (as stated at page 199) have just been transferred to Crewe. These men and their families, however, will not leave a void in the population, as their places will be supplied from the carriage portion of the Crewe establishment, and from the carriage works of the company, until now located at Saltley, near Birmingham.

[222]

The chief owners of land at Wolverton are the trustees of the Radcliffe Library Estate at Oxford; and, although they have erected upon the property a church, to which is attached a churchyard (already beginning to show a great many mounds), they have always been unwilling to dispose of land for building purposes to the extent required by the company. The consequence has been that part of the town or village of Wolverton has had to be built nearly a mile away from it!—at a place called Stantonbury, to the great inconvenience and discomfort of all the men who have to take up their quarters in that locality.

Besides the Radcliffe Episcopalian Church, there is one built mainly by subscriptions from the shareholders of the company. Conjointly they are capable of seating about a thousand people, and the schools connected with them have nearly 600 children in daily attendance. Besides these two churches, there are other places of worship, equal to the accommodation of about 1,100 people.

Of the Infant School Sir Francis Head gives a description, which is as accurate for now as it was for eighteen years ago:—“At the western extremity of the building, on entering the infant-school, which is under the superintendence of an intelligent-looking young person of about nineteen years of age, we were struck by the regular segments in which the little creatures were standing in groups around a tiny monitor occupying the centre of each chord. We soon, however, detected that this regularity of their attitudes was caused by the insertion in the floor of various chords of hoop iron, the outer rims of which they all touched with their toes. A finer set of children we have seldom beheld; but what particularly attracted our attention was three rows of beautiful babies, sitting as solemn as judges on three steps one above another, the lowest being a step higher than the[223] floor of the room. They were learning the first hard lesson of this world—namely, to sit still; and certainly the occupation seemed to he particularly well adapted to their outlines; indeed, their pinafores were so round, and their cheeks so red, that altogether they resembled three rows of white dumplings, with a rosy-faced apple on each. The picture was most interesting; and we studied their cheerful features until we almost fancied that we could analyse and distinguish which were little fire-flies, which small stokers, which tiny pokers, infant artificers, &c.”

In the early days of Wolverton, a reading-room, and a library, containing some 700 volumes, supplied the mental occupation and recreation then afforded to its residents. Now there is a Science and Art Institute, an off-shoot from South Kensington, which contributed £500 towards the erection of the building. Its library possesses nearly 3,000 volumes, almost all of which are contributions. The chief person in this work of kindness and goodness is Miss Burdett Coutts, that pre-eminently good lady whose name has but to be mentioned to ensure for it universal respect and admiration.

The institute has an enrolment of 350 members, a large number of whom attend the evening class, and it is a pleasurable fact to state that the pupils have been successful, more than on the average, in the science examinations which are annually held there. As at Crewe, the Government makes it free grants of patent specifications; many of these are closely studied, and all are highly appreciated by the students.

The directors and principal officers of the company, always mindful of the best interests of its staff, and ever keeping a paternal, but not obtrusive eye upon it, have recently erected a model lodging-house, solely for the convenience of single young men. Fifty of them are now accommodated in it;[224] each has a separate bed-room, and the whole establishment is superintended by a very carefully selected manager, who is responsible, not only for the good conduct of the lodgers whilst under its roof, but also for their comfort. The system works well, and it will be extended.

In 1840, and for some few years afterwards, passengers ran a risk at Wolverton to which, happily, or, as we venture to think, very unhappily, they are no longer exposed—that is passengers who travelled chiefly in first-class carriages, and in the express trains of that period were accustomed to alight for ten railway minutes (anglice five) at the celebrated refreshment rooms, the fame of which was world-wide. It was not only that the soup was hot, and the coffee “super-heated,” but it was admitted by those who, by the process of blowing the former, and pouring the latter into saucers, were able to get a mouthful or two, it was admitted we say, that each of these beverages was excellent. But there was an attraction at these refreshment rooms that rose superior to all the hot soup, the hot coffee, the hot tea, the buns, the Banbury cakes, the pork pies, the brandy, whiskey, gin, and “rich compounds,” the ample statistics of which will be found in our foot-note.[79] Need we say that we refer to the[225] charming young ladies, in whom were concentrated all the beauty and grace that should be corporated in modern Hebes. Our excellent friends, Messrs. Spiers & Pond, of well-earned and well-deserved “Buffet” celebrity, have[226] worthily followed in the footsteps of the great inventress of the railway refreshment room, as it should be; and happy we are to record the fact, that go where we may, we are sure to see, under the magic words announcing that they are the[227] caterers, sweet faces, worthy types of English beauty, all the more worthy because with them is combined the modest demeanour, emblem of purity, without which all is absent that adorns woman and renders her enchanting. Messrs.[228] Spiers & Pond have—as the late Mrs. Hibbert had—but one rule for “tainted angels”—their expulsion.

At moments, however—they were only moments—female grace was at fault at the Wolverton refreshment rooms. The late Douglas Jerrold (father of one of the workman’s most real and truest friends—Blanchard by Christian name) had in his play of the “Housekeeper” one of the characters, a drunken wine-porter, who appears on the scene for only a few minutes, and all the language he gives utterance to is advice to his daughter and her companion, never to go anywhere without a cork-screw. No doubt this is good paternal advice, such as any good father of a family might give, but it is the use only of the instrument with which we are concerned. Wolverton had many stringent rules, and one of them was that “draught bitter” should not be “drunk on the premises”; pale ale, therefore, could only be furnished by means of the cork-screw. Now, we appeal to any father, husband, brother, cousin, or lover (the two latter often synonymous,—see all the dictionaries, classical and vulgate); Did you ever see a young lady draw, with grace, a cork out of a bottle in the old-fashioned way, that is, by placing it within the ample folds of her dress (all the more ample if crinoline were concealed behind it), and then tugging until the cork is extracted; if the cork be an easy, obedient, willing cork, the operation is not difficult, and woman’s want of grace is but for the moment, but it became momentous, to say nothing of bursting of tapes and wrenching of hooks and eyes, red face and perhaps disappointment, if main force must be resorted to. At all events, the late Mrs. Hibbert (known at Wolverton and elsewhere as Generalissima) appreciated the difficulty, and with woman’s tact transferred, by a wave of her sovereign sceptre, the beer bottle drawing department of the establishment[229] to the hands of the young gentlemen with all the buttons, and thus released the young ladies from the duty. She never, however, could, to the day of her death, make up her mind that the young ladies ought to be relieved from ginger beer and soda water.

But before we quit for ever (scriptorially) the subject of bitter beer—of Bass, Ind, and Allsopp; of immortal Burton, that squeezes quart bottles into pints, pints into thimblefuls, of which three-fourths are froth; and of tap-tub measurement that, by a talisman, converts an imperial pint of the amber fluid into four half-pint glasses, let us ask permission to philosophise for a moment—for a moment only. Woman! You are never more charming, more feminine, more enchanting than when you are domestic. A magic circle of fascination then surrounds you. You are in your real mission, and being real, you are angelic. But, woman, be true to yourself; be domestic to the fullest extent that brightest imagination can picture or truth realise. But, sex most dear, most loveable of all things human that can be loved, hear the advice of one who believes you were sent on earth for the holy purpose of refining man, and of purifying him—never, oh, never be seen using a cork-screw!

Sir Francis Head, in a passage which we purposely omit because we want to have our own say, in our own way, on the subject, informs us that by 1849 four of the young ladies had managed to make excellent marriages. Sir Francis has greatly understated the number. It is quite true that the daily occupations of the young ladies, even without drawing the corks of beer bottles, were arduous and unceasing. Nevertheless, as with all busily occupied people, a time can be found for everything. Not four, but four times four of them found sixteen eligible husbands, and at the present time we know two of them, one not fat, but “fair and forty,” the[230] other with slight disadvantage in point of age—forty-four (she confesses to forty[80])—but in every other respect at least as eligible, who have had each to exhibit the sable signs of sorrow, void, and bereavement, within the last eighteen months. Let us just pause for a moment, to shed a “pensive tear” to the memory of the two dear departed, just as in the days of our boyhood our sympathies were requested in memory of the celebrated bonnie lassie of “Kelvin Grove,” by the father of a lady of present times, who is worshipped by millions, and has been possessed of only by four. (May he of the strong shield endure for ever!) Our tear is shed; and now, like the military bands that accompany the remains of a departed comrade to the grave with the Dead March in Saul, and return to barracks with joyous and festive music, do we proclaim, by sound of wedding trumpet and cornet-à-piston, the probability that, ere long, each of the charming widows will make a second matrimonial venture. We can, in fact, go one step farther. One of the ladies has already purchased the grey silk dress, absolutely necessary on such occasion; the second has not gone so far as actual[231] purchase, but she knows where to put her hand upon one at a moment’s notice. The dress-maker has already been consulted about the trimmings.[81]

It may probably be observed by any person who has been so venturous as to read the first hundred or so of our pages, that we are given to statistics. This is so, and it has also been alleged of us that we readily detect errors in them when prepared by others. Without taking to ourselves more than a decorous quantity of flattering unction, we believe we shall be able to show, in a work preparing for early publication, that, as regards Post Office statistics, at all events, none have been issued by the department for the last fifteen years that are not abounding in most egregious blunders, and that the logical dogmas of “contrariety, sub-contrariety, and contradiction” were never carried to greater extent than in these documents. Our statistics and contradictions are, at the present moment, however, of a different character. They refer to what, in the palmy days of Wolverton as a seat of learning and refreshment, formed an important part of the population of the colony; at least they are described as so being, both in an article of the Quarterly Review upon the London and North-Western Railway of 1849, and in Sir Francis Head’s “Stokers and Pokers,” published in the identical same year, and almost in the identical same month. Nevertheless the former names seventy-five pigs and piglings as members of the refreshment establishment; but Sir Francis disputes the figures, raises it ten higher, and not only insists that they were eighty-five in number, but that each was converted, in his or her turn every year, into pork pies and sausage roly-polies. But whichever amount be the[232] correct one, let the pork pies and sausage roly-polies rest in peace. The indigestions of which they were, in their day, the teterimæ causæ, have long since passed away. Let no rude attempt be made to re-produce them.

Thanks to increased lines of railway at Wolverton, both “main” and “siding,” thanks also to signalling so improved in principle, and so minute in action—signalling which embraces the visible “arm” by day, the visible tri-coloured lamp at night, the audible “fog,” and never-failing, ever truthful Electricity—express and other trains can, and do dart past the fifty-two mile post placed at the eastern extremity of the station with celerity and certainty, the same as at any other part of the system.

Still the engine speeds onwards, untired, at undiminished pace. She and her train are near to Blisworth, 62½ miles from London, and it is four miles south of this station that she is allowed her first draught of water. Of solid food she has still enough, for of the four to five tons of coal with which she started on her journey, she has not consumed more than a ton and a-half. Not far from Roade Station, on each side of the railway, is a reservoir of pure water, and at this part of the line the gradient is as nearly as possible level. Within the rails, both “down” and “up” sides, are placed two narrow troughs, each about a quarter of a mile long. By means of syphons the water is conveyed from the reservoirs to the troughs, and just as the engine approaches, a small inclined plane with wooden sides, such as the inclines by which luggage is dashed from packet-piers to steamers, is lowered from the front of the engine. The inclined plane brought in contact with the water compels it, contrary to all hydraulic principles, to ascend along it, until the water is deposited in the tank of the tender. As the engine approaches the end of the trough, the inclined plane[233] is, by the simplest possible means, drawn up, and the engine has a fresh supply of water that would enable her to go fully as long again as the distance she has already completed.

These reservoirs are now found so useful that there is a pair of them on the London side of Watford, another between Warrington and Newton Junction, and a third on the London side of Conway, as near as can be half-way between Holyhead and Chester.

Four miles from Blisworth, on the right, stands Northampton, famed for its production of shoes, unequalled, as regards numbers, in any other part of the kingdom, and for its obstinate persistence (in the blind and unenlightened period of railway history) in refusing to allow the London and Birmingham Line to come within a less distance than 25,000 yards between it and its shoddy-shoebility. Independently of the injury which this obstinacy has ever since inflicted upon the town, it cost the railway company a loss in money of more than a million sterling, a lengthened and inferior section of railway, a tunnel 2,423 yards long (only 217 less than a mile and a-half), which, during its construction, ruined four contractors and caused the deaths of upwards of a hundred working men. Finally, the obstinacy of Northampton delayed the opening through of the railway from London to Birmingham for fully two years. No wonder, then, that its present generation of men is ashamed of the deed. Some go so far as to deny it altogether; others are more scrupulous, and only palliate it with excuses of which quibbling and petty ingenuity are the joint parents. “There is nothing like leather;” the only question is—its application.

In the centre of circulate movement there is one mathematical point which, although not absolutely still, approaches a state more akin to quiescence than to motion. Such is[234] Weedon, not absolutely dead, but next door to it—“deadly lively”—sixty-nine miles from London. It is considered the centre spot of England, and it was, apparently for this reason, seriously suggested in the time of the great war, “when George III. was king,” that His Majesty should take up his residence at this tranquil spot, to be out of harm’s way, in case of invasion. The intention, however, was not carried out, and Weedon has ever since been lost to a fame and importance which even the passage of the London and North-Western line has failed to give it. It is almost the only town in the civilised world which the presence of the railway has failed to render even lively. No need then, for our engine and train to stop there, so they proceed on with undiminished speed through the rich pastures and glowing corn-fields of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.

Arrived at Crick, seventy-five miles from London, they are within a mile of the great Kilsby Tunnel just referred to; and its northern extremity has not been left behind more than a mile and a-half, when the elaborate system of signals necessary for the protection of the next station comes in sight. The first of them is passed at speed; but gradually, as the engine and train approach the second, the driver slightly lowers his regulator, and the guards, both at the fore and hinder parts of the train, take their breaks in hand; so does the fireman, at his powerful break on the engine. The second signal is passed; white takes the place of green at the third, if all be right; but if not, and there be any sudden obstruction at or near the station, vivid red lamps by night, bright red arms by day, appear from half a dozen places almost with the electric flash and speed of lightning. Two sharp, shrill, and sudden whistles from the engine tell the guards that danger is a-head—that is, should they not themselves have seen it; an unlikely circumstance,[235] for they are as keenly alert in their break-vans as driver and fireman are on their engine. In a moment three powerful men are applying, with utmost energy, the immense break-power at their command—so powerful that the passengers often feel a concussion that awakes the dormant, and almost hurls them against their opposite neighbours, and the train is pulled up within a space varying from 200 to 400 yards.

But if “red upon green” be not the order, steam is gradually shut off before the third signal is passed, the breaks are applied gradually and steadily, the train comes to walking pace, and, as the engine glides into the station, the driver looks at his watch, and sees by it that it is exactly two hours, less one minute, since he quitted London. He is correct to time to the moment; but if he were not so, he would, even if he were blameless, hear of it from two sources certainly—his own foreman and the railway guard; and if it were a postal train, through the inspector of that department. To the first-named official, at all events, he would have to give ample explanations.

At Rugby, driver and fireman are allowed four minutes to “water the engine,” which means, giving her a fresh supply of that most precious aliment, going carefully round and under her to see and to feel that no part is unusually heated, and to supply with oil, from cans with the stork-like necks we see in the hands of all drivers and firemen, those parts of the engine and machinery which cannot be supplied during transit. In the course of these four minutes, if the train carry the mails, a postal operation is manifested which suddenly converts the platform, previously comparatively tranquil, into a scene of intense animation. Piles of mail-bags are hurled out from the vans and travelling post offices with indescribable celerity. The guards and porters[236] of the department perform this part of the business, but from the moment the bags are on the platform post office drudgery in respect of them ceases, and it then becomes the duty of the railway porters to attend to their further manipulation. This duty, however, is deferred until the bags awaiting on the platform the arrival of the train are lodged, by post office mandate, in van or sorting office; a sharp “All right” is heard to issue from the inside of the latter, the railway passengers who have left their carriages have returned to them, the porters have ceased crying, “Take your seats for north,” and have replaced it by, “Any more passengers for the Scotch express?” all doors are closed—banged,—“Are you all right behind?” The wave of a white flag by day, a white lamp by night, is railway language for “Yes,”—a sharp decisive whistle from the foremost guard,—whether the sound be heard above the hissing of the escaping steam or the motion only be perceived it matters not, the engine driver understands it,—up goes his regulator, on goes his steam, the fireman (who has freed his break as soon as the engine is ready for starting) looks to the rear of the train as it begins to move from the station. If the engine don’t “slip,” the regulator, further raised, admits more steam to the cylinder; should it slip, steam is altogether shut off for a moment, and then let on again. The engine has got over the slippery point on the rails,—slippery either from the ordinary foulness of the atmosphere, or more probably, from some of the oil which has fallen from the engine to the rails. She is now getting to her speed; the guards, who have not jumped from the platform until after the train is in motion, shut themselves within their vans, they see that their breaks are all right and begin arranging their parcels; the sisyphi of the sorting post fall to again at their always-beginning and never-ending labours; such passengers as can sleep, sleep, such as can’t[237] don’t. And so the engine and her train, leaving the railway to Coventry, Birmingham, and the “Black Country” to the left, and that to Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, and all the east coast cities of northern England, to the right, pass onwards towards and through Nuneaton, a junction station which sends a branch to the left towards Coventry, and thence to Leamington, and one to the right to Leicester, where it connects with the system of the Midland Railway Company; a halt at Tamworth (necessary because it is a great postal centre, although of comparative insignificance as regards the railway) takes place thirty-three minutes after departure from Rugby, the intervening distance being twenty-four miles,—thence to Stafford, 133½ miles from London, accomplished in three hours fifteen minutes, entitles not only the engine, but those who are placed to control her, to rest and repose for a certain period.

A sister engine, which has been all ready-coaled and watered fully half an hour before the time appointed for the train’s arrival, is attached thereto, and she proceeds onwards, reaching (if it be the Limited Mail) Crewe, 25 miles distant, in 30 minutes; Carlisle, 299 miles from London, in 9 hours; Edinburgh, 401 miles, in 10½ hours; Perth, 449 miles, in 12 hours 20 minutes. Here begins the beautiful and picturesque Highland railway[82], the most northern of all our railways at[238] the present time. Of it a few words. Its main line, extending from Perth through Inverness to Bonar Bridge, is of the total length of 204 miles. Thus London and the northern extremity of the Highland Railway are 653 miles apart, and the whole distance is accomplished by the Limited Mail in 22 hours and 20 minutes. Including branches, the Highland Railway is 250 miles in extent. Between Inverness and Perth it passes over several summits of considerable height, the highest, 1,500 feet above the level of the sea, being on the borders of Inverness and Perthshire. The next highest is at Dana, where the level is 1,000 above that of the sea, and about 40 miles to the south of this, and again at Dunkeld, the elevations are 400 feet each. The summits are gained by the line winding in and out amongst the hills, and by gradients of 1 in 70 (75 feet to the mile) and 1 in 80 (66 feet in the mile). At Speyside, near Keith, there is a rise for three miles of 1 in 60 (88 feet in the mile). The cuttings and embankments are, of course, on a large scale, and owing to the great elevation and exposed position of the line, the strong winds in the winter time sweep the snow from the hills and deposit it in the cuttings, thus making very heavy drifts. The snow ploughs invented by Mr. William Strandley, the Locomotive Superintendent of the company, are said to be very successful in removing these drifts from off the railway.

But, although the Highland Railway is now the most[239] northern[83] in the United Kingdom, it will probably cease to be entitled to be so called before the end of the present year, for it is expected that by that time the “Sutherland Railway” will be opened for traffic. This line is to extend from Bonar Bridge to Golspie, a distance of twenty-seven miles; not all northwards, for, for the first three miles, it goes westward, and enters the county of Sutherland by crossing the river Oykel, which is spanned by an elegant iron-girder viaduct. It then turns northward to Lairg, where it inclines to the east, and continues in that direction until it reaches Golspie. The whole of the land occupied by the line from the river Oykel to Golspie is owned by His[240] Grace the Duke of Sutherland, whose magnificent Highland residence, Dunrobin Castle, stands on the sea-shore, within a short distance of the latter place. The gradients are somewhat severe. From the Oykel there is an ascent of 1 in 72 to 75 for about eight miles to the summit, which is upwards of 500 feet above the sea-level. There are several heavy rock-cuttings. The scenery at some parts of the line is almost equal to the finest of the many picturesque views on the Highland Railway, by which company its traffic is to be worked. When completed, a passenger landing at Dover can go a distance of 768 miles to Golspie without even leaving the railway; or if he come upon English land, close to its end in Cornwall, he can go by rail from Penzance to within fifty of John of Groat’s land. If he will insist upon coming through London, his distance will be 1,007 miles; but if he leave the line towards the Metropolis, at Bristol, and go from there through Birmingham, he will shorten the journey by 130 miles. He will save some money, but not much time, by changing.

M. Vandal, the Directeur Général des Postes Françaises, says, in his Annuaire for the current year, that there is not a railway run from Dover to any part of the United Kingdom equal to the railway run from Calais to Nice, 863 miles. That is true at the present time to the extent of 122 miles. In a couple of months—that is when the Sutherland line is opened—it will be true to the extent of ninety-five miles; and, even if, as is expected, a railway be constructed which is to extend both to Wick and to sleepy[84][241] Thurso[85], the tables will not be turned. The route from Calais to Nice will still be sixty-five miles longer than from Dover to John o’ Groat’s Land.

[242]

The engine of the down trains from London, having rested at Stafford its appointed time, is again coaled and watered, and if she have brought the Scotch Mail, she takes her place at the head of the up-train, at 1·18 a.m., or an hour and[243] twenty minutes after she had finished her downward journey. In precisely eight hours from the time she has left Euston she has completed her day’s work, and in doing so she has gone over 267 miles of ground, and has conveyed some 120 tons dead weight of matter, besides her own weight, at a running speed of nearly forty-five miles an hour. She will perform the same double journey on the morrow, and then she will rest for a “shed-day;” out again for duty on the following day. She will work that and the succeeding day, then a rest as before, then work again for two days, and so on, taking shed-days, and times required for slight repairs, and occasionally for heavy ones and renewals. An engine is considered to do good service that is actually running on 250 days in a year. Quite enough, when it is remembered that she consists of 5,416 pieces, which must be put together like watch-work.

The watch, however, is not exposed to rough usage, fly-away speed, and exposure to weather the intensity of which[244] may vary from 40 degrees below freezing point to 120 degrees of heat in the sun. We have seen the same engine at work in Canada at these identical temperatures within an interval of four months only. No wonder then that when her day’s work is done she requires repose, quite as much as it is necessary for the horse of every day life. Her joints have become relaxed with labour, her bolts have become loosened, her rubbing surfaces, notwithstanding the oil the engine driver poured upon them, have become heated and are often unequally expanded, strained, and twisted; her grate bars and fire-box have become choked with clinkers, and her tubes charged with coke. Hey presto! the engine cleaners—the groom and hostlers of the iron horse—take her in hand, they clean out her fire-box, they scrape its grate bars; and, under the superintendence of superior workmen, they tighten all bolts and rivets, grease all moving parts, thoroughly cleanse her outside as well as in,—and the engine, thus washed, cooled down, refreshed, and purified, is, after an interval of five or six hours, again ready (if required) for whatever giant duty it maybe necessary to employ her upon. But, let it always be remembered and borne in mind, she must not be over worked; she is infinitely more delicate and sensitive in this respect than the horse is.

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CHAPTER IX.

INDIAN RAILWAYS.

England is naturally in advance of all other countries as regards railways in her possessions and colonies. There is not one of them in which the system has not made some advance, but in two of them it has become of magnificent proportions. First as regards India.

Although the question of Indian Railways was first agitated as far back as 1840, it was not until 1846 that the British Parliament began seriously to occupy itself about them. In February and March 1847, the House of Commons ordered a vast amount of information, both official and unofficial, that had been collected from various sources, to be printed, and it may be said that the reports and documents then circulated, have formed the basis upon which the legislation for Indian railways has been framed. By the Act of the 12th and 13th Victoria, cap. 93. (1849), the construction of a line from “Calcutta towards the Northern Provinces,” by the East Indian Railway Company, was authorised. The first divisions of the line, that is, from Howrah, opposite Calcutta, to Pundoah, 37½ miles, was not opened for traffic until September 1854; and by the 3rd of February, 1855, a further length of 92 miles to Raneegunge was completed. At the present time, the total length of the East Indian Railway is 1,354 miles. In mileage therefore it exceeds the London and North-Western Company of England by twenty-six miles, eight miles having been added to the latter company’s lines since page 23 of this book was printed. The following is a brief sketch of the Great Railway as it now exists. At Burdwan (about ninety-two miles from Calcutta),[246] the separation between what is called the “Chord Line” (to be finished throughout in 1869) and the main line takes place. The latter runs due north to Rajinabad, thus connecting Calcutta with the Ganges, and enabling traders to avoid the navigation of 250 miles of one of the most dangerous parts of the river. At Rajinabad, the railway turns westward, and proceeds up the right bank of the Ganges, past Monghyr, where it is carried through the only tunnel in its course, 300 yards long, to Patna, Benares, and Allahabad. Shortly beyond Patna, it is carried across the River Soane, by a magnificent bridge, said to be the second longest in the world; it is therefore next in length to the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, to which reference is made hereafter. At Allahabad the line crosses the Jumna, by a bridge nearly as great as that over the Soane. In the crossings of these rivers, and of two others, the railway is carried at the top, with a roadway underneath for the ordinary traffic, in a somewhat similar way to the High-Level Bridge at Newcastle. These four bridges are constructed upon the wrought-iron lattice principle. That over the Soane consists of twenty-eight openings, with spans of 150 feet; that over the Jumna of fifteen openings, of which each span is 205 feet. The bridge over the Adjai consists of thirty-two openings, with spans of 50 feet; that over the Keeul, of nine openings, with spans of 150 feet; a smaller bridge over the Touse consists of seven openings, each with a span of 150 feet.

From Allahabad the East Indian Railway extends through Cawnpore to the heart of the upper Provinces, and at Ghazecabad it meets the Punjaub Railway, whence it is carried to the Great City of Delhi.

At Allahabad it branches off to Jubbulpore, where the line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway is to come from Bombay to meet it. The gap to be filled up is 225 miles,[247] and according to the interesting and instructive report of Mr. Juland Danvers, the Government Director of the Indian Railway Companies, issued in May last, it is fully expected that this gap will be completed for traffic, notwithstanding the difficult and costly character of several of the works upon it, by October or November of next year. Then railway transit from Bombay to Calcutta will be accomplished in forty-four hours;[86] and it is not too much to hope that in two, at all events three years, the present contract time of mails from London to Calcutta, viâ Marseilles, will be reduced from 34 days to 23½ days. If the speed of the steamers which are to carry the Mails between Brindisi and Alexandria were to be twelve knots an hour, and not ten as specified in the invitations for tenders sent out by the Post Office, at the early part of the present year, and the speed of the steamers between Suez and the port of Bombay were increased from 9½ to 10½ knots an hour, a further acceleration of nearly two days to Calcutta would be gained, thereby reducing the time to 21½ days, or 2½ days less than the present contract time between London and Bombay, viâ Marseilles. Two to three hours would also be gained by the construction of a great bridge over the Hooghly, thereby extending the East Indian Railway, from its present terminus at Howrah, into[248] Calcutta. Such a work is stated by Mr. Juland Danvers to be, “in the opinion of those best able to judge, imperatively required, in the interests both of the railway company and of the public.” No decision, however, has as yet been come to with reference to its construction being commenced at an early period.

The average cost of the upper portion of the East Indian Railway has been about £15,000 a mile. The lower, or Bengal portion, has been, at least, half as much again. It is expected that the Jubbulpore extension will come to £15,000 a mile, including rolling stock and maintenance of the line and works for a year after opening. The gross traffic earnings[87] during 1866 were £2,012,680, showing an increase of £338,239 as compared with 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865 were 7s. 9d., in 1866, 8s. The[249]
[250]
[251] expenditure per train mile in 1865 was 3s. 8d., in 1866 a farthing a mile less. The train mileage in the year ending 30th June, 1866, was 4,625,705 miles.[88]

[252]

The Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company was incorporated in 1849. It is to be the great line which is to unite Bombay with Madras, and also with Calcutta. From Bombay to Callian may be considered the parent line, as it is at this point it becomes divided, one branch going south-east in the direction towards Madras, and the other north-east towards Calcutta. The south-eastern branch is carried over the Bhore Ghaut by an incline nearly sixteen miles long, with a total elevation of 1,381 feet. The foot of the mountain is 196 feet above high water mark at Bombay. Its average gradient is 1 in 48. The steepest gradients are 1 in 37 and 1 in 40, for a total length of 9 miles and 44 chains; 1 in 37 extends in one length for 1 mile 10 chains, and 1 in 40 for 5 miles 6 chains. Short lengths of level gradients and of 1 in 330 are introduced into this incline to facilitate the ascent of the engine. The radii of the curves upon it range from 15 chains to 80 chains; but as much as 12 miles 45 chains have a radius of more than 30 chains, and 5 miles 33 chains are straight. It comprises twenty-five tunnels of a total length of 3,585 yards. The longest is 437 yards; and the longest without a shaft, which is carried through a mountain of basalt, is 346 yards. There are eight viaducts of a total length of 987 yards. The two largest are 168 yards long, and respectively 163 and 160 feet above the foundations. The total quantity of cutting, chiefly rock, amounts to 1,263,102 cubic yards. The maximum depth of cutting is 70 feet, and the greatest contents 75,000 cubic yards of trap rock. The embankments amount to 1,849,934 cubic yards, the maximum height being 74 feet; and the greatest contents are 209,000 and 263,000 cubic yards. The slopes average about 1½ to 1. There are twenty-three bridges of various spans, from 7 feet to 30 feet, and sixty culverts from 2 feet to 6 feet wide. The rails weigh 85 lbs.[253] per yard. The cost of the incline has been nearly £800,000; at one time there were no less than 42,000 men (natives of India) employed upon its construction.

At the eleventh mile the incline is divided into two banks by what is called a reversing station. This subdivision, however, was not adopted for the purpose of making two banks of the incline, but of increasing the length of the base, in order to flatten the gradient and to reach a higher level, where it encountered the great features of the Ghaut margin, near Khandalla. Without the necessary expedient of the reversing station, the practicability of changing the direction of the line would have been confined to making curves of small radius; but with the device of the reversing station the direction was altered at a very acute angle, by means of points and crossings. In consequence of its adoption, the length of the line has necessarily been considerably extended.

The Bhore Ghaut is unquestionably a stupendous mass of works, unsurpassed by any others in the world; and probably the nearest rivals to them in magnitude and grandeur are those of the Thull Ghaut.

This incline extends from the village of Kussarah to Egutpoora. It is 9½ miles in length, and has a total ascent of 972 feet. At the end of 3¾ miles there is a reversing station, similar to that upon the Bhore Ghaut Incline, by which the base is lengthened, the gradient flattened, and the incline divided into two banks. The steepest gradient is 1 in 37, for a length of 4 miles 30 chains; and the same introduction of a level portion is adopted here as on the Bhore Ghaut. The radius of the curves ranges from 17 chains to 100 chains; but of 7 miles 12 chains the radius exceeds 30 chains, and 3 miles 28 chains are straight. There are thirteen tunnels of a total length of 2,652 yards.[254] The longest are, one of 474 yards in black basalt with two shafts, and another of 483 yards without a shaft, in green-stone. There are six viaducts, of a total length of 741 yards, the largest of which are respectively 144 yards and 250 yards long and 83 feet and 182 feet high. The latter is of three spans with triangular iron girders measuring 150 feet, with a pair of semi-circular abutment arches measuring 40 feet at each end. There are fifteen bridges of which the span varies from 7 feet to 30 feet, and sixty-two culverts. The cost of the incline is about £500,000.

The Thull overcome, a branch line, runs south-eastward through the great cotton district of Oomrawattee to Nagpore, but the main line continues its course eastward to Jubbulpore, where it meets the East India Railway which comes to join it from Calcutta. From Bombay to Jubbulpore the distance is 615 miles, and from Bombay to Raichore, the point of junction with the Madras Railway, the distance is 441 miles. As soon as the whole system of the East Indian Peninsular Railway is completed it will consist of 1,267 miles.

Its train mileage in the year ending the 30th June, 1866, was 2,259,881 miles. The gross receipts for the year ending the 31st December were £1,252,962, showing an increase of £77,872 over 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865, were 10s. 5d.; in 1866, 10s. 11d. The expenditure per train mile in 1865, was 6s. 2d.; in 1866, 6s. 4½d. For the half-year ending the 30th of June, 1867, the net receipts amounted to £530,568, being at the rate of £6. 9s. per cent. per annum on the whole of the paid-up capital of the company. As the guaranteed interest of the half-year advanced by the Government amounted to £398,452, the surplus profit was £132,116; but, in consequence of the[255] accidents that had occurred to the works, it has been decided by the shareholders that no more than at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, shall be divided among them for the present. The Great Indian Peninsular Railway must always be liable to heavy cost, and occasional interruptions to its traffic, in consequence of several of the districts through which it passes being subjected to severe and sudden floods. At Bombay, the annual rainfall is about 85 inches (more than three and a-half times the rainfall of London), and although at other places on the line it is considerably less, it is nevertheless as high as 255 inches at Matheran, and as high as 265 inches at Mohableshwar. It may be that the works on the railway, as a whole, have not been constructed sufficiently with a view to this fact, but, from whatever cause proceeding, several serious disasters to viaducts and bridges have recently taken place; and, we regret to perceive, by a minute of the Governor-General in Council, that these disasters are attributed to original defective construction. It also appears, by the latest reports from India, that as many as seventeen bridges on the unopened portions of the Nagpore Extension have been condemned by the company’s engineers. But might not this fact have been avoided if they had done their duty in the first instance?

It was not until the year 1852 that the Madras Railway was incorporated. The object of the company was to construct a railway from Madras to the western coast. The difficulties of construction of this railway have not been great, the only ones that presented themselves being the way in which several rivers should be crossed. By means of this line, railway communication with the important military station of Bangalore is obtained. It also passes through the cotton fields of Combatoore, and it finds its way through a passage in the Ghauts to the Port of Beypoor, on the coast[256] of Malabar. From Madras to Beypoor, the distance is 406 miles. The Bangalore Branch is 86 miles, and it attains a height of 3,000 feet on the Mysore Table-land. The north-west line, leaving the main line at Arconum, 42 miles from Madras, proceeds through Cudapah, crosses the River Pennar to Gooty, to which place the line is expected to be opened in January next. Near Gooty, a branch is given off to Bellary. The main line crosses the Toongabruda, and runs to Raichore, the point of union with the Great Indian Peninsular Railway from Bombay. This portion of the railway, when completed, will be 338 miles, thus making the distance from Bombay to Madras 821 miles, 160 miles more than by the ordinary road. The connection between the Bombay and Madras Railways is expected to be complete in 1869. When the whole main line and branches are completed, the length of the Madras Railway will be 825 miles. Of these, 645 are at present open.

The traffic of the line has been injuriously affected in 1866 by the failure of the Monsoon rains, the consequent scarcity and famine, and the state of trade. But good service was rendered by it during the famine, in conveying to the districts so lamentably affected by it nearly 23,000 tons of food, an amount which Mr. Danvers says would have employed 17,000 carts every day for three months. The gross traffic receipts of 1866 were £438,787, showing an increase of £33,787 over 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865 were 6s. 1d.; in 1866, 6s. 7¾d. The expenditure per train mile in 1865 was 2s. 10¾d.; in 1866, 3s. 2d. The train mileage for the year ending 30th June, 1866, was 1,306,998 miles.

Beypoor has for some time been felt as an unsuitable terminus, on the western coast, for the Madras Railway. It provides the conveniences neither of a harbour nor of a port,[257] and the advantages of the railway to the western side of India are, in consequence, greatly diminished. Proposals have, accordingly, been made to extend it northwards to Calicut, or southwards to Cochin, sixty miles from Beypoor. The former would hardly be much better than Beypoor, but Cochin appears to offer considerable advantages. Independently of possessing a fine harbour, there is close by, the remarkable roadstead of Narrakal, accessible to ships at all seasons. The only drawback is, that the line would pass through a foreign territory; but this would be slight if the Rajah of Cochin would support the project. The matter is now under the consideration of both the Supreme and the Madras Governments.

It is expected that by means of the Madras Railway the French East Indian settlement of Pondicherry,[89] situated not far from the south-eastern extremity of the continent, will eventually be linked by the railway system with all the chief cities of British India. The French Government has just decided upon granting a subsidy for the construction of a line that, in the first instance, is to be carried between the City of Pondicherry and Conjeveram, and subsequently to some point on the Anglo-Indian system. Such a connection will materially improve postal and passenger communication between France and its dependency. At present there is only direct intercourse between them once a month, through the medium of the steamers of the Messageries Impériales—a company that is largely subsidised by the French Imperial Government.

[258]

The Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway was formed to connect Bombay with the Cotton districts of Guzzerat and Central India. The works were commenced in 1856. Taking a northward direction along the coast from Bombay, it passes Damaun and Surat. Here it crosses the River Taptee by an iron bridge 2,000 feet long. But at the Nezbudda River the bridge is nearly double that length, being 3,800 feet. This has been the most formidable work of construction on this railway. The line then continues its course to Ahmedabad, which is 310 miles distant from Bombay.

This line, when completed, will prove to be the most expensive in India. Its cost will be more than £20,000 a mile. To cover the interest a large traffic will be required, and such may be reasonably expected. But its capabilities are at present cramped by the want of a good terminal station at the Port of Bombay,[90] and by the imperfect road communications[259] with the stations. This last is a complaint that can truly be made by all the railway companies of India. The railway sustained very serious damage by floods during[260] the Monsoons of 1866. Their destructive character is said to have been unprecedented, and for upwards of a month the traffic was totally suspended on about thirty miles of the line. Nevertheless the growth of the traffic is not unsatisfactory. In 1866 the gross receipts were £407,688, being £85,872 more than in 1865. The gross receipts per train mile in 1865, were 12s. 6¾d. (the highest in India), but the working expenses were also the highest—8s. 1¾d. a mile. The train mileage for the year ending the 30th June, 1866, was 745,961 miles.

Very considerable desire exists in India to extend this railway from Baroda, across central India to Delhi, nearly parallel (but at a distance of from 350 to 500 miles during two-thirds of its course) to the main line of the Great Indian Peninsula to Jubbulpore, and thence to Allahabad. The length of this line would be about 570 miles, and surveys are already being carried on with the view of ascertaining the best route and making complete estimates of cost. At present it is assumed that the line will cost about £12,000 a mile, or £6,850,000. If the results of the surveys be satisfactory, arrangements will probably be made for constructing this railway. A main difficulty is that it will, for the most part, be carried through the territories of native princes; negotiations must, therefore, before the works can be commenced, be entered into for the abolition, at all events the relaxation, of the existing onerous transit dues.

The tendency of the construction of this extension would be to still further concentrate European traffic at Bombay, as by means of it not only would Delhi and the north-western provinces be accommodated, but there would be a second route from Bombay to Calcutta, a roundabout one to be sure,—but a second route notwithstanding.

The next railway we have to refer to is the Scinde Railway,[261] which was incorporated in its present shape in 1857. “Although,” says the editor of Engineering, “the affairs of this company are under a single board, the operations of the company, in reality, embrace four separate concerns.” The object of the combined undertaking is to establish railway communication between the port of Kurrachee and the Punjaub, and to connect the chief cities of that province with the East Indian Railway, which has already been mentioned as extending to Delhi.

The first portion of this great connection is a most important section of 109 miles in length, crossing the rivers Bahrun and Mulleer, and through the Karatolla Hills to Kotree on the Indus, opposite Hyderabad. It has since its opening in May, 1861, developed a considerable trade in cotton, which had not been previously seen on the Indus, as well as Indigo, grain, wool, and other products.

Usually, the violence of the monsoons does not extend on the western side of India, so far to the north as Scinde, but, in August, 1866, it was not less destructive to the works of the Scinde Railway than to those of the Bombay and Baroda. In two days, forty inches of rain fell, and the floods produced by this sudden down-pour were such that they as completely swept away a viaduct as if it had never existed. Iron girders, sixty tons in weight, were hurled along for a distance of half-a-mile, and rails were carried away 300 feet from the line. The traffic was, in consequence, interrupted for several weeks. As in the case of the Bombay and Baroda Line, the cost of repairing the damage will, in consideration of the exceptional circumstances which caused it, be allowed as a charge against capital. In 1865, the gross receipts of the Scinde Railway were £82,493, and the net, £3,507; in 1866, although the gross receipts had fallen to £53,166, the net earnings were £10,083. The train miles in 1866 were 283,062.

[262]

The second portion of the system connected with the Scinde Railway as it now exists, is for the navigation of the Indus from Kootree to Moultan, eventually to be superseded by what is designated the Indus Valley Railway. The Indus Steam Flotilla consists of thirteen steamers, three tugs, and twenty-six barges. The vessels which formed the early portion of the company’s fleet did not turn out satisfactorily, but now the service is efficiently carried on. The gross receipts of the company for the year ending the 30th of June, 1865, were £73,958, and the net, £16,400; for the year ending the 30th of June, 1866, they were respectively, £80,640, and £22,283.

As regards the Indus Valley Railway, the object of its projection is to unite by means of a line that would be about 500 miles long, the existing Scinde and Punjaub Railways, and thus to provide a continuous line of railway communication, about 2,200 miles long, from the Port of Kurrachee to Calcutta, viâ Hyderabad, Moultan, Lahore, Delhi, and Allahabad.

The project is indeed a grand one, and its effect would be (assuming that the line be made between Baroda and Delhi) to give a third line of communication between the western coast of India and Calcutta, and also three lines of communication between that coast and the North-Western Provinces, of which two (one, however, circuitous) would be from Bombay, and one from Kurrachee.

When we have, as we shall undoubtedly have, sooner or later, the Euphrates Valley Railway,[91] it will, in the first[263] instance, be carried from the ancient Port of Seleucia, on the Mediterranean, to Ja’bar-Castle, on the Euphrates, below[264] which point there is water communication by the Euphrates and Tigris to the Persian Gulf.[92] Kurrachee[93] will then be the port of call between Europe and India. At whatever[265] time these eighty miles shall be constructed, and proper lines of steamers established in connection with them, there will be a gain of fully four, if not five days over the existing Red Sea Route.

But will progress in shortening time between England and India stop at the construction of only eighty more miles of railway?[94] It would be out of reason to suppose that such[266] will be the fact. It may therefore be taken for granted that continuation of the whole 800 miles of Euphrates Valley line will be accomplished somehow or other. Whenever that time comes,—and every day is accelerating its advent,—the gain will be at least two days, possibly even a little more on the homeward journey. Then, India—the India of England—will, at its nearest point, be under fourteen days from England. Then the postal communication between the two empires will not be as it is now, forty-eight times a year; it will not be the two and fifty, so long proposed, so long and so miserably resisted by Post Office narrow sight and want of appreciation of imperial grandeur and importance.[95] No![267] It requires no great foresight, or fore-reading of events to feel conviction that the service will be daily, and that despatch will succeed despatch on each of the working days of the year, as well from west to east, as from east to westward.[268] Even now, the postal service of England with the east is the grandest combined land and ocean communication of the world.[96] No other maritime service approaches it. It is five times as great as that of the Cunard Company. It is more[269] than double that of the two great routes of the Royal West India Mail Company. Notwithstanding that its ramifications extend thousands of miles, the component parts of it fit in so harmoniously, and work together in such complete and accurate accordance, the one with the other, that whether we take the outward journeys with their divergent fragments, or the homeward journeys, continuously aggregating and[270] increasing as they approach completion—the mails arrive almost with the rarely failing fidelity of clockwork—punctuality the rule, absence of it the rare exception.

But shall we always be satisfied, even when we have achieved communication by railway from the Mediterranean to the head of the Persian Gulf, and thence by water to English India? There can be but one answer to the question—It would be contrary to all human progress if we were to be so. Only in the summer of the present year, France and England were each honoured with a visit from the Sultan, and it is said there was nothing which struck His Majesty during his short residence in Western Europe as of more importance to the well-being of a state than the construction of railways. It is therefore not surprising that he has already given the subject attention for his own country, and that concessions have been granted for several important lines. Even now the break which separates the railways that extend continuously from Calais to Basiach, on the Danube, 419 miles to the south-east of Vienna (accomplished by the express train in seventeen hours), are only separated from Rustuch by less than 300 miles, and, as the railway—138 miles long—from Rustuch to Varna is open, there is in fact only the Basiach-Rustuch break in a complete railway communication from Calais to the Black Sea. Before ten years from this time, not only will this gap be filled up, but the City of the Golden Horn will be equally put into connection with the whole of the European system of railways. The Queen’s messenger, and the mails now go from London to Constantinople,[97] viâ Marseilles, in about[271] eleven days. When the Brindisi route is established, the time will be diminished some three days, and on the completion of the railways to Constantinople, the interval in time between it and London will not exceed five days.

So far with regard to a railway journey, the accomplishment of which, within ten years, is certain. Nothing, except the coming of chaos, can prevent it.

But when the railway has arrived as far east as the City of the Golden Crescent, will it stop and end there? In one sense it must, unless indeed some of the engineers who are now competing for the honour of tunnelling under, or placing tubes upon the bed of the ocean between Dover and Calais, shall suggest a scheme for tunnelling under the Hellespont, and their proposals shall be accepted. At all events, even if a railway were only to extend a hundred or so of miles eastward in Asia Minor, one will certainly be made for that distance, and opened for traffic by the time the line, coming from the far west to its terminus at Constantinople, shall be completed. It will go through a country rich and productive, as well as covered by a prosperous and money-making population. Fact and reality ended, we approach a “dream of the future.” A dream not new to us, for we have often dreamt of it, and occasionally discussed it with others, whom the reader will probably feel disposed to consider as dreamy as ourselves. And yet the time will come—possibly even a few of those now grown to manhood may see its fulfilment before they die; the Long Railway will first traverse Turkey in Asia, anciently the seat of the kingdoms of Troy and of Lydia; the birth-land, possibly of Homer and Herodotus, certainly of Thales, Pythagoras, and others hardly less distinguished. From classic land it will cross to Persia, and from Persia it will pass to Afghanistan, the grandest in physical aspect, and perhaps for 600 miles, the most difficult[272] country in the whole world for railway construction. When it has gone beyond those kingdoms, it will be on British soil. There it will attach itself to the then Great Indian Railway, the unbroken course of which will be from the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Ganges.

When the now far distant day of accomplishment has arrived, how will Calcutta and London be to one another in point of postal distance? Possibly, fifteen; certainly, not more than seventeen days asunder!

The third portion of the Scinde connection is the Punjaub Railway, 253 miles long. Its present western terminus is at Moultan, where eventually it will be united to the Indus Valley Railway. From Moultan the line follows nearly a straight course up the left bank of the Ravee to Lahore; whence it proceeds, taking a westerly course until it reaches Umritser. But surely the statements recently made respecting wholesale corruption, both in England and in India, on the Punjaub Railway cannot be true. It can hardly be possible that, but for the interference of the Governor-General, Sir John Lawrence, the contract price for the construction of the line would have been £5,000 a mile higher than it now is; neither is it to be believed, although so broadly asserted, that the iron-masters have to pay “the usual commission” of from five to ten per cent. for orders given to them by the officials of Indian Railways. However, the Government of India has very properly appointed a Commission to inquire into these allegations, and the facts must shortly come to light in their reality. It is evident, from a passage in Mr. Juland Danver’s Report, that he has had, for some time, serious doubts as to the efficient character of the traffic management of this railway.

In the year 1865 the gross earnings of the Punjaub Railway were £25,250; and if the traffic accounts be correct, the[273] net receipts were £6,009. In 1866 the gross receipts were £90,269; the net £25,395. The number of train miles for the year ending the 30th of June, 1866, were 354,239. The Punjaub, while rich in agricultural produce, is a comparatively new and uncivilised province of British India; and the benefits which the railway is destined to confer upon it cannot be shown until proper access is obtained by the construction of roads leading to it from the neighbouring districts.

The Delhi Railway will, when completed, be 320 miles long, and it forms a link in India pretty much as the Lancaster and Carlisle does in England in connecting English and Scotch railways together. By means of the Delhi Railway a junction will be effected with the Punjaub Railway, the North-Western Provinces, the Indus Valley, and the Scinde Railways. 87 miles of line are now opened; 117 will be opened next year, leaving 116 to be finished in 1869. As the line crosses several important rivers, the bridges at them constitute the measure of time for the completion of the railway. It is, therefore, satisfactory to know that the piers and abutments of all the large bridges have been successfully got in.

The Eastern Bengal Railway Company was formed to give accommodation to the densely populated and prolific districts lying north and east of Calcutta. Its length is 114 miles; but in August, 1865, it was determined to extend the line forty-five miles farther, to Goalundo, at the confluence of the Bramapootra and the Ganges, with the view of intercepting the traffic from Assam, Bhotan, and the more distant north-eastern countries.

The Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway Company was established in 1857 for the construction of a line, twenty-nine miles long, in a south-eastern direction, to a town and[274] harbour which it was determined to establish on the Mutlah estuary, the object being to avoid the dangerous navigation of the Hooghly. The necessary wharves and jetties required at “Canning Town” have been constructed; but unfortunately, just as the traffic was beginning to make progress, the bed of the river shifted, in consequence, it is supposed, of certain operations on the shore close by, and it was partly carried away. The “Port Canning Company,” which has already expended £600,000 at the place, is re-establishing the jetty. A new town is now gradually rising at the place; “so that,” says Mr. Juland Danvers, “when the dangers and difficulties of its infancy are passed, the whole scheme of establishing a port on the Mutlah will be in a more promising condition. Upon the whole, we may look with hope, if not with confidence, to the future.”[98] The Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway exhibits a deficit in its revenue accounts.

The Great Southern of India Railway was constituted in 1857, its objects being to construct railways in the southern provinces of India. The line runs from the east coast of the Great Indian Continent, by Tanjore to Trichinopoly, through a country extensively cultivated with rice and cotton crops. Seventy-nine miles were opened in 1862. An extension of eighty-seven miles has been since authorised, by which a junction will be effected with the Madras Railway at Errode.

With the exception of the Indus Valley and the Rajpootana Railways, all the lines above enumerated are entitled to[275] the payment of interest from the Government of India, at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, on all capital, the expenditure of which is duly sanctioned by the Government. At the close of 1865, the number of miles thus guaranteed was 4,944, and the amount of the guarantee would be about £81,000,000, when all lines are completed. This year, the guarantee has been extended to 700 more miles, making the total now sanctioned for guarantee 5,644 miles, and the total capital £88,000,000. By means of it, the Indian Branch Railway undertakes to construct a system of railways through Oude and Rohilcund, with branches to various places on the East Indian Railway. These districts are populous, and highly productive, and have obtained the name of the Garden of India. There are no engineering difficulties on the lines, and very few works of great magnitude, except some bridges over the Ganges, which will have to be made, if the full benefits of the lines are to be secured. The form of guarantee to the Indian Branch Railways differs in some details from the form originally adopted, but in the main the terms are the same. In the old contracts, the guarantee is given for ninety-nine years, and at the end of that period the railway lapses to the Government; but these provisions are practically annulled by the power which each company has of surrendering the railway to the Government at any time before the expiration of the ninety-ninth year (at the ninety-eight year for example), and receiving back from the Government the capital expended. In the new arrangements, no period is fixed for the termination of the guarantee, but the Government has the power of taking possession of the line after the first twenty years, or at the expiration of any ten years afterwards. If it exercise this power within a hundred years, it will have to pay a sum equivalent to the average value of the stock during the three preceding years.[276] If the power be not exercised until after a hundred years, it then has only to pay back the capital expended. Per contra, the company has the power of surrendering the railway to the Government any time after the line has been opened six months. In this event, the Government is not to pay back more than the capital actually expended.

The amount of guaranteed capital raised up to the 1st of April, 1867, has been £67,254,802, of which £51,800,377 consists of share capital, and £15,454,425 of debentures. It may here be observed, that it has been determined, as a rule, henceforth to restrict, as far as possible, the issue of debenture capital, especially such as is not convertible into stock. Perpetual debenture stock has, however, been sanctioned, to some extent, in the case of the Great Indian Peninsular Company, and its issue will, probably, under certain circumstances, be permitted to be made by other companies.

The Indian railway capital is well diffused all over Great Britain, as, on the 31st December, 1866, there were 34,849 shareholders, and 8,170 debenture holders. In India, there were at that date 816 shareholders, of which 396 were Europeans, and 420 natives. Neither Europeans in, nor natives of India were debenture holders at that date.

The total amount of guaranteed interest on railways which has been paid by the Government of India from the year 1849, to the 31st of December, 1866, has been £18,929,576; of course during the early period of the Indian railways, it was all expenditure and no profit, for, although guaranteed interest commenced in 1849, the first length of Indian railways was not opened for traffic until 1853, and then the length was only 22 miles. In 1854, the miles opened were 55; in 1855, 98; in 1856, 102; in 1857, 145; in 1858, 145; in 1859, 75; in 1860, 208. In 1861, 759, which is the[277] largest number of miles opened in any one year; the following year, 1862, was nearly as much, being 747. Since then, the amount has been increased at the average annual rate of about 300 miles, and the total mileage now is 4,070.

The companies have repaid to the Government, out of net earnings, about £7,000,000; making the present debt of the railways to the Government nearly £12,000,000. Their net earnings for 1865 were £1,341,550, and for 1866 they were about £2,170,000. The amount paid by the Government for guaranteed interest during 1865 was £2,796,676, consequently the net amount of money which the Government had to find, and to debit against the companies was £1,455,126; but, in 1866, whilst the amount paid in guaranteed interest was £2,964,073, as the net earnings were £2,170,000, the Government had only to debit the companies with about £800,000. It is expected that the sum deficient this year will not be more than £600,000, notwithstanding that the amount of interest for which the Government is responsible will be about £3,300,000.

In 1866, for the first time, the net receipts of the East Indian, and of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Companies exceeded the 5 per cent. guarantee. The excess of the first named was £108,073; of the second, £75,878. In accordance with agreement, half these amounts, or £91,976, were retained by the Government towards repayment of guaranteed interest which it has already advanced. Mr. Juland Danvers notices, as a very satisfactory circumstance, that “the guaranteed interest which was exceeded by the receipts, was paid on account of capital greater than that which produced those receipts, a large portion having been expended upon unfinished works or lines not opened for traffic, and consequently unprofitable.” How long it will take to extinguish the debt against the companies on this[278] account is difficult to say. Some no doubt will be able to do so in the course of the next twenty to twenty-five years, some very probably never. It will be seen, by referring to page 255, that the surplus profits of the Great Indian Peninsular Company, for the first half-year of 1867, were £132,116; half of this will go in diminution of its interest debt due to the Government.

It is quite clear that the guarantee system—without which experience has shown it is impossible to obtain the construction of railways in India—is not to stop at 5,644 miles, involving an expenditure of £88,000,000 sterling. We have already referred to the extension of the line proposed from Baroda to Delhi, called the Rajpootana Line, and that of the Indus Valley. Their lengths (jointly) are about 1,070 miles, and the capital required for their construction—the works for them being, on the whole, not of a difficult character—would be under £13,000,000, or about £12,000 a mile. The construction of these lines, with the guarantee on the capital, will, no doubt, be commenced before long; and there is a third, the capital for which, whenever constructed, can only be raised on the same system—the line to connect Lahore and Peshawer together. This railway has been the subject of a great deal of discussion and debate, both within the walls of the British Parliament, and outside them. Whenever made, it can hardly be looked upon other than as a military and political line, for its commercial importance is very trifling indeed. It will also be very expensive in its construction. Besides the Indus,[99] there are three rivers, the[279] Ravee, the Chenab, and the Shelum, great hurling and devastating torrents at the period when the rains set in, and when the Himalayan snows are melting; but with almost dry beds for at least six months every year. These three rivers must each be transversed by a long and costly bridge. The length of the line would be about 250 miles, and the cost about £20,000 a mile, or a total of £5,000,000. It has been decided that, at all events for the present, the construction of this line shall not take place, and that the two other railways seeking the guarantee shall have precedence over it. Mr. Ayrton, M.P., whose opinion is entitled to much consideration, from his knowledge of India, is decidedly adverse to its construction at all; whilst, on the other hand, Mr. Laing, M.P., laments that the Governor in Council has come to the determination of not recommending the work to be proceeded with at once. As these three railways progress, they will add to the guaranteed capital about £18,000,000, making its total £106,000,000, and the amount of interest for which the Government of India will be annually responsible, £5,300,000, against which will be the net incomes of the railway companies up to 5 per cent. on the capital invested in each. We have just seen, that even with increased responsibility in the shape of guaranteed interest for the present year, the net amount will be less by £200,000 than it was last year. Nevertheless, on the £88,000,000 guarantee, when it shall have all been expended, the Government may,[280] we think, look to being liable on balance for at least a million per annum for some years to come, and to still more during the construction, and subsequent to the opening of the lines likely to obtain the guarantee that is to raise its total amount to about £106,000,000.

We now come to speak of the very important subject of working expenses. On these working expenses depends, in fact, the fate of the Indian railway system, and in considering them we must bear in mind that there are three elements of outlay of a character to which railways are, at most, very partially subjected in England—terrific inundations, destruction of materials, and cost of fuel. As regards the first, it would almost seem as if scarcely any provision that the engineer may make is sufficient to counteract their devastating effects upon the railway. Nor can this be wondered at when we read of rivers rising twenty—thirty—fifty feet in a few hours, as also that in places where there was a dry river bed one afternoon there is an impetuous torrent, hurling villages along in its devastating course next morning. On the Indus at Attock, on the high road between Lahore and Peshawer, the floods of 1858 appear to have risen 80 feet above the usual cold weather level of the river. In 1841 they were 92 feet above it, and from the nature of the river at this time it is possible that they may rise even higher. It is the same, though not to the same degree, at other places, and even if railway bridges and viaducts be not carried away, the ordinary permanent road suffers to an extent such as we know nothing of in this country.[100] No doubt experience[281] will in process of time suggest means of protection as regards both construction and maintenance. Still, let man do[282] what he may, there is no foe that he has ever faced on earth, or that he is likely to face, equal to the elements in anger. It is God’s will that they should be so, and although He places in our hands means to resist them, He has never given, and for His own wise purposes probably never will give us complete power to control and subdue them.

No matter how highly timber used for sleepers on Indian railways may be saturated with creosote, or any other analogous preparation, they are all powerless to resist the ravages of the red ant. Iron “pot” sleepers have therefore been generally adopted, and they have been found very serviceable, especially on lines where the speed is not high. Some of the engineers are in their favour, even where trains are run at high velocities. Thus the District Engineer and the Locomotive Superintendent of the Punjaub Railway report strongly in recommendation of them. “I have never,” says the latter, “travelled over a finer piece of road, than the seventy to eighty miles of pot sleepers road laid between Montgomery and Mooltan. Our speed does not exceed thirty-five miles per hour, and I have never heard of breakages to permanent way resulting from this rate.” The agent to the Madras Railway Company says, “I have all along strongly advocated the use of cast-iron pot sleepers upon our lines of railway, believing that a road laid with iron was more easily and economically maintained, insured greater safety from accidents, and from its smoothness of surface, less prejudicial in its effects upon our rolling stock than any other form of roadway.”

In 1862 Mr. Henry Rouse, the Chief Resident Engineer to the Egyptian Railway, in the course of a report upon the use of these sleepers, says, “I may assert with unerring confidence, that after ten years’ use of them, had a system of permanent way to be again selected for adoption on the fine[283] alluvial soil of Egypt, no more fitting choice could be made than was, in fact, made by Mr. Robert Stephenson in 1851, when he determined on the adoption of Greaves’s cast-iron pot sleeper road.”

Captain Sherard Osborn, R.N., the late agent to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, quotes the report of Mr. Rouse, and confirms it with the recommendations of Mr. Hardcastle, Mr. Perry, and Abul Meyd Effendi, Civil Engineers, each in charge of portions of the Egyptian Railway. On the other hand, the Chief Engineer of the East India Line says, “I do not consider these sleepers would be suitable for the through roads of this railway, although they might be used with advantage on sidings and in station yards. From general knowledge I am of opinion that, with small ballast, iron pot sleepers would answer well in countries where rainfall is not excessive, and is evenly distributed over many months in every year, but that they are not adapted to large ballast under any circumstances, more particularly when the road is liable to much periodical injury from rain. They might be used with advantage on long lengths of bank in dry districts with very considerable economy in ballast. In rock cuttings, however, where the jar is at all times great, iron pot sleepers would be liable to much damage from trains at high speed.” It may here perhaps be incidentally noticed that the use of cast-iron sleepers has not been adopted in the construction of Peruvian railways. In Brazil, with one exception, they have been used on all the railways in that country. The running speed of the trains there is, however, not more than twenty miles an hour. They have also been adopted in the construction of the railways of the Argentine Republic.

Upon the whole, the balance of opinion seems decidedly in favour of the general adoption of iron sleepers. They are[284] certainly preferable to stone blocks; and timber is impossible[101] upon Indian Railways.

Several miles of steel rails have been sent from England during 1866. Their first cost is, of course, much greater than that of iron; but, irrespective of any other advantages, if we take into consideration the cost that is always incurred in sending materials from Great Britain—a cost which, in some cases, where the inland carriage is of considerable length, almost doubles the original price of the rails—it is certainly worth while, within certain limits, to ship steel rails in the first instance.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the fuel question.[102] Cheap or dear fuel may, in many instances,[285] on Indian railways, be translated into complete success or very nearly total failure. Even at the commencement of[286] the present year, before freights had risen so much in consequence of the Abyssinian expedition, the value of coal and[287] coke before it was landed in India was about 50s. a ton. When the landing charges and the cost of conveyance along the lines are added, the average price of coal for the railways on the western and southern sides of India becomes about 60s. a ton. It is a fortunate circumstance for the East India Railway that its line runs through the finest portion of the Raneegunge coal-field,[103] thereby reducing its cost of fuel to 3¼d. per ton, and also affording it the opportunity of having a large coal traffic. Nor will this be the only source from which the railway can be supplied with coal, for the chord line between Raneegunge and Luckieserai passes through another coal bed, that of Kurhurbali. The coal of this field[288] is described as excellent, although it does not exist in as large quantity as at Raneegunge. On the other hand, the Great Indian Peninsular Company, not having entered into arrangements with the Nerbudda Coal Company, its fuel cost was 1s. 6¼d. per train mile in 1866, the estimated average cost of coal over the whole line being £3 per ton, of coke £3. 12s., and of “Patent Fuel” £3. 8s.

Mr. Oldham, Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, does not speak encouragingly as regards the prospect of coal being found in parts of India where it would be of great value to the railways. “Extensive coal-fields do occur,” says Mr. Oldham; “but they are not distributed generally over the districts of the Indian empire, but are almost entirely concentrated in one (a double) band of coal yielding deposits which, with large interruptions, extends more than half across India, from near Calcutta towards Bombay.” He, however, adds, that much still remains to be surveyed, and, until careful mapping has been carried out, of all the fields, any estimate of the coal resources of British India must be defective.

In the meantime coal from Labuan and from Australia are in course of being tried. Much must not be expected from the former; but there are great hopes that the latter will be largely available for India. But all persons who have written upon, or are interested in, the subject, come to the same conclusion, which is that the railways must mainly look to wood for their fuel. We are happy to perceive that the subject is engaging the most serious attention of the Governments both at home and in India; and there is no doubt but that an extensive system of planting timber suitable for fuel purposes will be immediately carried into operation, all the more necessary when it is borne in mind that a plantation of twenty acres will be[289] the average proportion necessary for the requirements of every mile of railway.

The working expenses of the railways exhibit very great differences both as respects actual amounts and their per centage proportions to traffic. Thus, for instance, on the Great Southern of India Line they were for the year 1865 2s. 7½d. a mile, and only 2s. 3d. a mile in 1866; yet the fuel cost was £2. 18s. a ton; exactly the same price as on the Bombay and Baroda line, the working expenses of which were 8s. 1¾d. in 1865 per train mile. In 1866 they had fallen to 6s. 8d.; so that the difference between these two amounts is exactly two-thirds of the total working cost per train mile of the Great Southern Company. The East Indian was 3s. 8d. per train mile in both 1865 and 1866. But the Madras cost was only 2s. 10¾d. per train mile in 1865. It went up, however, 3¼d. in 1866, being 3s. 2d. Yet the average price it pays for coal is the same as that paid by the Great Indian Peninsular, the cost per train mile of which in 1865 was 6s. 2d., in 1866, 6s. 4½d. No doubt the two Ghaut inclines add heavily both to locomotive and to permanent way charges, but they do not explain why the working cost per train mile should be double that on the Madras Line. It is a remarkable fact also, and it is one which should be recorded to the honour of the Madras management, that, although its traffic receipts per mile are almost the lowest on the whole system of East Indian railways—£13 a mile a week—its per centage of working expenses is actually the lowest, 43½.[104] The per centage of[290] the East Indian, with a weekly mileage receipt of £43, is 44½. The Great Indian Peninsular, the weekly receipt per mile of which is £48, is 59¾; and on the Bombay and Baroda the weekly receipt per mile is £29, the working expenses being 64½ per cent. The Scinde working expenses were 85½ per cent. of the receipts; but the unlucky Calcutta and South-Eastern spends £109. 10s. for every £100 it earns.

Accidents have hitherto been rather numerous on Indian railways. The returns for 1866 were not complete at the time of Mr. Juland Danvers’ last report. In 1864 there were 345 accidents on an average of 2,699 miles of railway open, and the number had fallen to 284 on an average of 3,153 miles open in 1865. The Madras line, on the whole, has had fewer accidents than any other company—only five in 1865. Accidents by fire are rather numerous, especially in those districts where wood is used as fuel. This is, perhaps, also to be expected, in consequence of the conveyance of cotton forming so important a portion of the business of the two companies having their termini at Bombay. Accidents from fire, however, sensibly diminished[291] in 1865, which is ascribed to the extended introduction of covered waggons for carrying cotton, to the greatly increased use of coke, which gives out less sparks, and to the custom that prevails now of invariably placing several waggons (even running empties for the purpose, if none others are available) between the engine and cotton waggons.

But although the number of accidents was less in 1865 than in 1864, they were more destructive in their character in the former year, 316 persons having been killed or injured in 1865, as against 256 in 1864. But in these numbers are included the persons injured through their own fault or imprudence. It deserves to be recorded that in eleven years the Madras Railway has carried nearly twelve millions of passengers, hitherto without a case of injury to any of them. But, on the other hand, owing to two serious collisions on the line, a large number of the company’s servants have been fatally or seriously injured. Native passengers are reckless; but native servants are especially so, for out of 49,398 employed on all lines in 1865, 96 were killed and 97 injured, or 193 in all, against 147 in 1864, with about the same number of servants. Of these casualties, 136, or 1 in 363, occurred in 1865 through incaution or misconduct; 42 were killed or injured in attempting to get upon or off, or falling from, engines or carriages in motion; and 52 were run over or struck whilst incautiously crossing, standing, or walking upon the line.

Reference to page 176 will enable the reader to compare the number and character of Indian railway accidents with those on the railways of the United Kingdom.

There is one more subject connected with the working expenses of railways in India to which reference must be made—the staff. It is quite evident that on railways, as in every other department of Anglo-Indian service, whether it[292] be governmental or corporate, all the persons in leading positions—not only those to direct and command, but those in the scale some degrees subordinate to them—must be European British subjects; not merely of European descent, but of actual birth as such. Without them the great railway system of India can never be efficiently worked. The returns of persons employed on the lines in 1866 show this fact very clearly, for whilst “native” servants were (excluding the Southern of India, which has not sent in any return of its staff) 30,838, the Europeans and East Indians were only 2,736. All the highest appointments were filled by Europeans. East Indians could rise to the class of station-masters; so could the natives, in an inferior degree, but these last constituted the whole of the humblest classes of servants. On the East Indian Railway the comparative estimation of the three nativities for the appointments of station-masters was thus shown:—Out of 114, 35 are Europeans, who receive salaries the lowest of which (irrespective of ample lodging accommodation) is £180, and they range up to £420 a year. Five East Indians, very choice and exceptionally superior men, have from £180 to £300 a year; whilst the salaries of the 74 natives vary from a minimum of £25 to a maximum of £250 a year.

It will always he necessary to recruit the upper ranks of railway officials in India from amongst the railway officials of Great Britain; and up to now, as far as our knowledge and acquaintance extend, no gentleman has left this country to fill a railway appointment in India at much less increase than three times his English emoluments. It is possible that efficient gentlemen may henceforth be obtained at smaller comparative salaries; but we doubt that such will be the fact. The character of the climate of India, so telling, as a rule, upon Europeans, but especially[293] upon those who do not go to it when very young, and who are liable to exposure out of doors in the broiling hours of the day, and during the down-pours of the deluging rain torrents every year, and the necessary separation of a man and his wife from their children during the period of their education, must naturally deter officials from leaving comfortable appointments in England, except under the influence of strong pecuniary temptations. The risk of health-failure is also accompanied by knowledge of the fact that men cannot insure their lives, except upon payment of very high annual premiums.

The manner in which the East Indian Railway Company proposes to meet this last difficulty is by the establishment of a Provident Fund, the principles of which are explained by the following extract from the last Report of the Directors:—

Although the Secretary of State for India has sanctioned the arrangement, and the shareholders of the company, at their meeting held on the 2nd of July last, approved of, and agreed to its adoption, we doubt whether it is one that is likely to prove satisfactory to the officials, especially to those from Europe. The practical operation of the scheme is this. Henceforth, the Europeans are, from the moment of their appointments, to he subjected to a deduction of 5 per cent. from the nominal amount of their salaries, but the company is not to contribute to the fund until after the net earnings have amounted to 6 per cent. and upwards; thus, if these earnings were declared at the rate of £5. 19s. 11d. per annum, the shareholders would receive, firstly, 5 per cent., and secondly, the half of 19s. 11d., under the contract[295] between the Government and the company; the Government would receive the second half of the 19s. 11d., and the Provident Fund nil. This scheme should be altered. The deduction of 5 per cent. from salaries is too high, and the contributions of the shareholders and of the Government should commence at a much earlier step in the scale of net earnings.

The rolling stock provided for Indian railways is miserably insufficient. The number of locomotives possessed by all the companies on the 1st of January, 1867, was only 795, not quite one engine for every five miles. The other descriptions of plant are equally defective in point of numbers. The East Indian Company announced, in its report of January last, that it intended to make up its rolling stock for a traffic of £60 a mile, at a cost of about £300,000. The other companies will have to outlay at least half-a-million on rolling stock almost immediately.

Apart from every consideration purely political, the railways of India have been the means of rendering the greatest service to England, at a moment of greatest peril. Through them she has received supplies of cotton that otherwise could never have got even as far as a port of shipment. There are seven districts from which these supplies come. By far the largest and most important is the Oomrawattee Cotton District, which both the main line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and its Nagpoor Extension pass through. When the extension line of this company to Jubbulpore is completed, it will, jointly with the East Indian Railway, open up the Sassegur District, and, on the opening of the Madras Connection, it will touch upon a fourth. The Bombay and Baroda goes into the midst of the great Guzzerat Cotton Fields; the Madras Line through that of Combatore. There is a comparatively small one at nearly the[296] extreme south of the continent; and the smallest of all is in the Punjaub, between, and to the northward both of Delhi and Lahore. Of the production of these cotton districts, we shall speak presently.

If England have found almost exclusively the capital for the construction of Indian railways, she has not only made a safe—or, it might rather be said, a first class—investment, but she has also benefited largely in her manufactures and commerce through their construction. The amount of capital expended in the United Kingdom in consequence of Indian railways between 1851 and 1866 has been as follows:—In 1851 it was £154,212; in 1852 it was £174,920; in 1853, £252,484; 1854, £960,878; 1855, £1,939,101; 1856, £1,752,813; 1857, £1,324,873; 1858, £1,940,052; 1859, £2,507,949; 1860, £2,396,924; 1861, £1,596,010; 1862, £1,854,289; 1863, £1,411,661; 1864, £1,387,699; 1865, £2,192,090; 1866, £3,942,598. It is expected that the amount expended in England during 1867 will be about £2,457,250. The industry of the mother country has thus been greatly assisted by the valuable orders represented by these figures. If all these amounts be added together, it will be found that they are nearly £26,500,000, or between a third and a half of the £67,932,550 that have been expended up to April last on account of Indian railways. The tons weight of goods despatched have been 3,195,862; and as the number of ships they were conveyed in was 4,827, it followed that the average load which each carried was 662 tons.

We have dwelt upon Indian railways at greater length than we had originally intended, but the subject is a great one; for it must not be forgotten that the capital expended upon them at this date is a seventh of that to the same account in the United Kingdom. Presently it will be a[297] sixth, and hereafter it will he a fifth; because also the mileage of these railways is, even now, nearly a third of the railways of Great Britain; presently it will he more than a third. On the 1st of January, 1867, it was nearly half that of France; only 1,413 miles less than that of Prussia, 1,138 less than that of Bavaria, 69 more than that of the Austrian dominions, 1,030 more than that of Italy, 854 more than that of Spain, 2,160 more than that of Belgium; 2,177 more than that of both Russia in Europe and Russia in Asia; and 1,574 more than that of Canada.[105] On the 3,638 miles which, towards the close of 1866, constituted the length of Indian railways, the train miles run amounted to 10,120,920. The gross receipts earned by those trains were £4,537,235, just 1,425,000 more than in 1865; of these gross earnings, £1,278,580 were received from passenger traffic, and £3,091,723 from that of merchandise. The number of passengers carried in 1866 was 12,867,000, being 367,000 more than in 1865. This, of course, in no way represents the proportion due to population in British India, for in 1861 that population was 143,271,210, dwelling on 956,436 square miles of land.

Let us proceed some few steps farther with reference to the development of India. Its revenue has increased from £27,832,237 in 1852, to £45,652,897 in 1865. But on the the other hand, the expenditure, which was £27,098,462, or £750,000 within its income, in 1852, was £46,450,920, or[298] £800,000 in excess of income in 1865. Then, us a further but doubtful proof of prosperity, the public debt of India had risen from £55,114,693 in 1852, to 98,518,145 in 1865.[106] The tonnage of vessels entered and cleared in India during 1852 was (exclusive of coasting trade) 1,591,937; in 1865 it was 4,268,666. The value of imports (including bullion and specie) into India in 1840 was £8,415,940; in 1852 they were of the value of £17,292,549; and in 1865 they had increased to £49,514,275. The value of its exports rose in fifteen years from £20,798,342 to £69,471,791.[107] In[299] 1852 the total amount of cotton which British India sent to the United Kingdom was only 84,922,432 lbs., just a ninth of that received from the United States, which was 765,630,544 lbs. In 1866 the amount of cotton imported from India was 615,302,240 lbs.,[108] exactly 95,244,840 lbs. more than from the United States, and not far from one half of the total amount imported from all places, namely, 1,377,129,936 lbs. Thanks to India, the total quantity of cotton imported in 1866 is only 13,000,000 lbs. less than it was in 1860, the year of our greatest cotton importation. In that year the quantity received from India was little more than a seventh of the importations from all sources. It is, therefore, not to be wondered that Manchester has altered its cotton machinery, and has rendered it suited for working the cotton, the importation of which will, thanks to Indian railways, soon make England, as regards supplies, independent of all other countries in the world.[109]

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Let us say, finally, that if we have dwelt at such length upon the yet infant railway system of the Indian Empire, it is because India is a land that has a well-recorded history dating back nearly 4,000 years, with national monuments and buildings still existing, and in comparatively sound preservation, that were erected 400 years before Rome was created; and, last of all, BECAUSE of the now standing army of India, numbering 190,195 men, 71,880 first saw the light from Heaven in the United Kingdom. It is at that number our reinforcements will have to be never-failingly kept up, if we wish to avoid the dangers and horrors of a second Indian mutiny.

Postscript.—Immediately after page 271 was printed, we met a gentleman who, in consequence of his professional connection with Persia, has, for several years, made the subject of a communication from the north-western side of Asia Minor, through Persia and Affghanistan to India, his constant study. He takes a different view from us as to the starting point of the Long Railway, but in many other respects our opinions are identical. It is probable that they may be brought jointly before the public in a more detailed and substantive form, in the course of a few months. We may here mention that, as early as 1847, Mr. Austin H. Layard, M.P., was alive to the importance of this communication, for in his work on the “Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon” (London, Murray, 1853), he says, that the route of the Euphrates, the adoption of which he urgently recommends “must be the second Indian route until civilisation and Christianity afford a reasonable basis for those gigantic schemes which would carry a line of iron through countries almost unknown, and scarcely yet visited by a solitary European traveller.”

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CHAPTER X.

CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN RAILWAYS—THE RAILWAYS OF OTHER BRITISH COLONIES.

The progress of Canada—we speak of the whole dominion recently created by the confederation of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick[110]—has been marvellous, and in no respect, perhaps, has the growth of the country shown itself in a more marked manner than in the development of its railway system. It was in 1848, or almost immediately after the completion of the magnificent canal system of Canada proper, and by which vessels of 800 tons could pass from the ocean to Lake Ontario, and vice versâ, that the Canadians discovered it was necessary, notwithstanding their unrivalled inland navigation, to combine with it an equally good railway communication—that was if they were to continue to be the carriers of the products of the western states through the valley of the St. Lawrence. They found that their neighbours to the south had commenced their railways in all directions, but more particularly[302] to connect the cities on the Atlantic Coast with the Western Lakes, and accordingly in 1849 an Act was passed by the Canadian Government pledging a 6 per cent. guarantee on one-half the cost of all railways made under its provisions. Under this Act, the Northern Railway, which runs from Toronto to Collingwood, the Great Western Railway, which runs from Windsor on the Detroit River (opposite Detroit) to the Niagara River, and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, now forming part of the Grand Trunk line, running from Montreal to Portland, were commenced. In 1852, however, the Government, fearing the effect of an indiscriminate guarantee, repealed the law of 1849, and passed an Act guaranteeing one-half of the cost of one main trunk line of railway throughout the province, and it was under this Act that the Grand Trunk Railway was projected. These terms were subsequently modified by granting a fixed sum of £3,000 per mile of railway forming part of the main trunk line. It is true that prior to these dates railways existed in Canada. There was, for example, the horse railway from La Prairie, nine miles above Montreal, to St. John’s, on the Richelieu River, which was opened in July, 1836, and was first worked with locomotives in 1837. There was also the horse railway between Queenstown and Chippewa, which was opened in 1839; but with these exceptions and the length of the Lachine Railway, a line running from Montreal for seven miles to the westward, the railway system of Canada cannot be said to have commenced until after the passing of the Railway Act in 1849, and even then it was not for about a year that any substantial progress was made. But after that date the works of the several lines were pushed forward rapidly, and in 1853 the lines from Montreal to Sherbrooke, from Toronto to Bradford, and from Hamilton to Suspension Bridge were opened. In 1854 the line between Montreal[303] and Quebec was opened, the first train having carried Lord Elgin, who was then en route to England. In the same year the Great Western Railway[111] was finished to Windsor, and in the two following years the whole line from Montreal to Toronto, and thence to London was constructed, and in 1859 the entire Canadian Railway system was completed, including the keystone of its arch, the Victoria Bridge, the details of the construction of which will he found in a subsequent page.

[304]

Whilst, as has been already explained, the Government of Canada owns no portion of the 2,148 miles of railroad now constructed, although the moneys granted in their aid amount to upwards of £6,000,000, Nova Scotia has built and owns all the railways constructed in that province. They consist of a trunk line from Halifax on the Atlantic, by way of Truro, to Pictou, in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, with a branch line to Windsor, in the Bay of Fundy. The distance from Halifax to Truro is sixty miles, and from the main line to Windsor thirty-three miles. From Truro to Pictou the distance is also about sixty miles. The railways to both these points were completed in 1858; the total cost of construction, including the extension to Pictou, being a little over £8,000,000. The line from Halifax to Pictou was originally intended to form part of the European and British North American Railway, running from Halifax to the Great Lakes through British territory, and this has now all been accomplished, with the exception of the intermediate link through New Brunswick, from the St. Lawrence River to the Bay of Fundy. This incompleted section, the projected Intercolonial Railway will now fill in, so that within three years from the present time the dominion of Canada will have direct railway communication between its extreme limits—that is to say, the iron road will be laid between the ocean and the Great Lakes.

New Brunswick, like her sister maritime province, also owns a railway, being the line from St. John to Shediac—a distance of 108 miles. It is called the European and North American, and it is intended to extend the line westwards from St. John to the boundary line of the State of Maine, the present railways of that State being in like manner extended until a junction is effected between the two systems. With the completion of these extensions and[305] the construction of the Intercolonial Railway, a passenger landing at Halifax will be able to take his train to any city in the States or in the Dominions. In addition to the European and North American Railway, New Brunswick possesses two other lines—the New Brunswick and Canada, eighty-eight miles long, running from St. Andrews to Woodstock, and the St. Stephen’s branch railway, a short line of eighteen miles in length. It is not unlikely that some portion of the Woodstock line may be utilised as part of the Intercolonial Railway; but, until the route of the latter is finally settled, it is impossible to say whether this will be so or not.

From the foregoing figures it will be seen that, whilst in 1852 Canada could only boast of thirty miles of railway, she has now, including the railways of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 2,495 miles. The population of the dominion is estimated at 4,000,000, so that, with the exception of the United States, which possess a little more than a mile of railway for about every thousand inhabitants, the rate of Canada, which is nearly five-eighths of a mile for the same proportion of population, shows a greater mileage system per head of population than any other country.

The following is the length and cost of the several railways in the dominion:—

Name.	Length in miles.	Cost.
Grand Trunk	1,377	£16,583,033
Great Western	345	4,901,892
Northern	97	1,121,462
Brockville and Ottawa	86½	534,657
Prescott and Ottawa	54	412,808
Port Hope, Lindsay, and Beaverton	43	327,437
Port Hope and Peterboro’[306]	13	82,191
Cobourg and Peterboro’	14	184,931
London and Port Stanley	24½	212,229
Welland	25½	333,460
Carillon and Grenville	13	19,536
St. Lawrence and Industrie	12	11,116
Stanstead, Shefford, and Chambly	44	249,862
Nova Scotia	133	1,300,000
New Brunswick	214	1,700,000
	———	————–
	2,495½	£27,974,614

The magnificent harbour of Halifax—than which there is none finer in the world—will, on the completion of the Intercolonial Railway, be the Atlantic terminus of the Canadian system of railways—a system that will yet extend across the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia; and there, ere long, will be seen the lumber from New Brunswick, Maine, and Canada, the beef, pork, wheat, flour, and corn of Western Canada and the Western States, with the other products—

From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fenlands,

all being transhipped for consumption in our Cis-Atlantic markets.

Australia has not made as rapid progress in respect of the construction of railways as might perhaps be expected. She has not, however, been altogether unmindful of her interests in this respect. Of the four great modern divisions[307] of the Australian Continent, New South Wales had, at the commencement of the present year, 263 miles, and the expenditure upon them had been £2,746,373; Victoria, 272, with an expenditure of £9,905,634; Queensland, 78, with an expenditure of £617,658; and South Australia, 56. The expenditure for railways in this last-named colony is not stated in the returns before us. It will thus be seen that the aggregate length of the Australian railways is 669 miles.

In the New South Wales Province there are three main lines, all of which commence at Sydney—the Great Southern, the Great Western, and the Great Northern. The first is to extend through Goulburn to the Murray River at Albury. Although some of the works on this line are very heavy, and there is a long tunnel to complete through the Gibraltar Mountains, it is, nevertheless, expected that the line will be completed in 1868. The Great Northern will extend to Muswell Brook on the Hunter River, sixty miles north-west of Maitland, and 153 miles from Sydney. The third, or Great Western Line, is to extend to Bathurst on the Macquarie River, 122 miles from Sydney. New South Wales has its Windsor and its Richmond, and these places are accommodated with railway communication from Sydney. When the several lines now open, and those now in process of construction, are completed, the Colony will have 500 miles of railway within its limits.[112]

[308]

The Victorian railways consist of two main lines, one from Melboure to Castlemain (Mount Alexander Goldfields) and Sandhurst (Bendigo Goldfields), 101 miles long, and the other from Melbourne to Geelong and Ballarat, with a branch to Williamstown (the Port of Melbourne). The total length of this second line is ninety-six miles. The Geelong and Melbourne Railway was purchased from the shareholders by the Government in 1860. An extension from Sandhurst to the Murray River at Echuca, fifty-six miles long, is in progress, and will be opened next year. Echuca is 150 miles distant from Albury, the terminus on the Murray River of the intended southern extension of the New South Wales Railways. There will, therefore, not be direct railway communication between Sydney and Melbourne, at all events for the present. The gauge of the New South Wales and Victorian Railways is 5 feet 3 inches.

The railways of Queensland consist of two main trunk lines, one for the southern districts from Brisbane, at the head of the Moreton Bay Navigation, and one for the northern districts from Rockhampton, at the head of the navigation at Keppel Bay, running nearly due west into the interior, passing through Westwood and other townships, and traversing the extensive Leichhardt district, whence it will be eventually extended to Claremont, a township of the Peak Downs, distant 220 miles from Rockhampton. This extension, when completed, will open out a vast territory, and will give the same facilities for the inhabitants of the province to transport their enormous yields of wool to the sea-board as India now possesses for its cotton. The first section of this railway from Rockhampton is on the eve of completion.

As regards the Southern line, it has been open more than[309] a year from Brisbane to Ipswich. Its extension to Toowoomba (sixty-two miles) will, it is expected, be ready for traffic early next year; and later, two forks, one extending north-west towards Dalby, and the other south-west to Warwick, in the direction of Dumaresq River, which forms the boundary between the southern inhabited portion of Queensland and the northern of New South Wales, will be completed.

The gauge of the Queensland railways is 3 feet 6 inches, and the reason for its adoption in these narrow proportions was to save the great additional cost which construction on a wider gauge would have entailed in passing through the extremely difficult country between Ipswich and Toowoomba. Two ridges of hills have to be crossed, one 700 feet and the other 1,400 feet above the level of the land at their bases. The main range incline is sixteen miles long, and upon it there are eleven tunnels, the longest of which is over three-quarters of a mile, all of which require lining with stone or brick. The total number of bridges is 47; their total length is 5,196 feet, or 84 feet less than a mile. In one locality they are so crowded together, that there are eight in three-quarters of a mile. The longest is 535 feet, the greatest in height is 73 feet over the rails. The steepest gradient is 1 in 50; the longest at that rate of inclination is 1,820 yards; the total length of 1 in 50 is 4 miles 280 yards. The average gradient of both inclines is 1 in 70.

On the lesser range there are two tunnels, one of 586 yards, and the other 120 yards, on a curve of 120 yards, or five chains radius. The low-lying country at the base of these two mountain ranges is intersected by streams and water-courses, which in the wet season become roaring torrents, overflowing their banks, and thus necessitating an amount of bridging and water-ways as great as, for a like distance, in any other country of the world. Notwithstanding these heavy works, the passages through the mountain have been constructed[310] at a cost of about £15,000 a mile. On the lengths presenting only ordinary difficulties they have been made at about £6,000 a mile.

The South Australian Railway extends from Adelaide in the direction towards Murray River, not far from where it flows into Lake Alexandra.

The number of passengers conveyed on Victorian lines in 1866 was very great—3,361,312. They also transported 482,314 tons of goods. The number of passengers carried on the New South Wales railways was 751,587; but the amount of goods was nearly equal to that on the Victorian lines—416,707. The South Australian carried on its fifty-six miles of railway 402,550 passengers and 261,183 tons of goods.[113] Owing to the failure of the harvest, there has been a considerable falling off in the business of the South Australian railways in 1866.

New Zealand opened its first railway—from Christchurch[311] to Lyttelton—six miles in length, in the summer of 1867. Further reference will be made to this railway in a subsequent page. Tasmania is also becoming alive to the importance of its having railways running from its sea-boards to the interior.

Railways have made progress in some of the other colonies of great Britain. The oldest British railway, out of the United Kingdom, is the Demerara Railway. The company was constituted so far back as 1844 for the construction of various lines, including one from George Town to Mahaica, a length of twenty miles. This is the only railway as yet open in the colony. It is, however, prospering, the receipts having increased very much during late years. Its total cost has been about £320,000; £115,000 is 6 per cent. preference capital. The ordinary capital now earns a dividend of 3 per cent.

The Jamaica Railway Company is entitled to be spoken of with respect, for it stands in the unique position of having “its capital closed, no money has been borrowed, and the railway is entirely free from debt.” The capital upon which dividend is payable is £150,000; but, owing to the discount at which nearly half the share capital was issued, the actual money received was only £96,675. The railway was opened for traffic in 1850. Its length is sixteen miles. It runs from Kingston to Spanish Town, the seat of the Colonial Government, and thence to the Angels. At Kingston the company possesses a wharf suitable for receiving the largest vessels alongside it. The dividends have never exceeded £1. 10s. per cent. per annum; they are usually not more than half that amount.

Notwithstanding that the Secretary of State for the Colonies has sanctioned a guarantee of 6 per cent. on £300,000 by the Colonial Government for the construction[312] of a railway through the isle of Trinidad, no progress has been made with the works, and the line is in abeyance for the present.

Central American Honduras—not a British Colony, notwithstanding that its imports and exports appear in the statistical abstract of the Board of Trade “for the several Colonies and other Possessions of the United Kingdom”—is about to have a railway constructed immediately across its territory, from the Carribean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. For this purpose the Honduras Government has recently introduced with success on the London and Paris markets a loan for £1,000,000 sterling, under special treaties between England, France, and the United States. The line (about 150 miles long) has been surveyed, on the part of the British Government, by Colonel Stanton and a detachment of the Royal Engineers, sent out from England for the purpose. As regards interoceanic communication, the line will be of great importance, as it will effect a saving of 1,300 miles, or five days, between the Atlantic and Pacific ports, as compared with the Panama route. The harbours at the respective termini—viz., Puerto Caballos on the Carribean Sea, and the Bay of Fonseca on the Pacific, are capacious and safe, affording every facility for direct embarkation and disembarkation.

Proceeding to Africa, we have the Cape Railway, the terminus of which is at Cape Town. The total length of its lines in operation is sixty-three miles. The Cape of Good Hope Government guarantees 6 per cent. upon a sum not exceeding £500,000, and “it is to be considered as a rate in aid towards making a dividend of 6 per cent.” The net dividend and the guarantee combined only yield 4 per cent. on the gross capital, which, at the date of the last report issued by the company in October, 1867, was £746,722. This railway[313] has suffered severely in its traffic, in consequence of the great commercial depression in the colony during the last two years, but its prospects are now reviving. The Directors have recently completed arrangements with the Colonial Government for the construction of further extensions.

The young and enterprising colony of Natal contemplates (as yet it has done nothing more) two lines of railway, one from Durban to Maritzburg, which will be about sixty-nine miles long, and a mineral line from Durban to Zuguela. Its length would be sixty-nine miles, and it would run through districts said to abound in fine coal, limestone, and iron.

The Island of Mauritius has a railway consisting of two portions, each having its terminus in common at Port Louis. The northern line is 36½ miles long, and the Midland 34 miles. They are now both open in their entire lengths. The traffic is reported to be highly satisfactory, and in advance of the expectations which had been formed of it. The cost of the whole 70½ miles has been about £1,300,000, of which the Government advanced £300,000 out of its accumulated surplus revenue. The balance of the capital has been principally found in England.

Shortly after the British Government took possession of Ceylon, at the invitations of the native chiefs, the formation of a large system of roads through the principal parts of the island was decided upon. These, as well as several canals, were constructed at heavy cost, for the country is extremely difficult and mountainous in several parts. Now the railway is beginning to supersede the old roads, and in a few years more there will be a tolerably comprehensive net-work throughout the island. From Colombo, its capital, situated on the west-coast of the island, to the foot of the incline over the Allagalla Mountain, the peak of which is 8,400 feet above the level of the sea, the line has been opened since[314] the early part of 1867. Its length is fifty-three miles, and it is expected that before the close of the year the whole line to Candy will be completed. The railway will subsequently be extended from Candy to Trincomalee.

Of the small islands in the vicinity of the British coast, the only one which as yet has railways, is the beautiful little Isle of Wight, the climate of which is said to be the most salubrious of any part of Great Britain. It is, at its nearest point, about 85 miles from London, and, thanks to express trains and rapid steamboats, it is not farther in time than three hours, viâ Portsmouth or Stokes Bay, to Ryde, or viâ Southampton and the Solent, to Cowes. For an island, the length of which is only 22 miles, and the extreme breadth (as nearly as possible at its centre) 13 miles, the whole of which is necessarily, from its picturesque character, extremely undulating, it is very abundantly supplied with railways. The most important, and the most costly is the Isle of Wight Railway, running from Ryde to Ventnor, with its long tunnel near the latter place. The length of this railway is 12 miles, and the last section (through the tunnel) was opened for traffic in October 1866. By recent enactments, the company has obtained powers to construct 26 miles of extensions, so as, by means of them, to connect with the Newport and Cowes Line (5¼ miles long), and thus to establish a sufficient net-work of railways over the frequented portions of the island.

The Isle of Man is about to construct a railway, which is to run from Douglas, its capital, into the interior of the island.

There are no railways in Jersey or Guernsey, although possibly one may be soon made in the former island, from St. Helier’s to St. Aubin’s. Its length would be five or six miles, and, from a cursory inspection of it on the occasion[315] of a visit we made to the island a couple of years ago, there appear to be abundant elements for traffic, if the line were cheaply constructed. The expense of carrying it farther from the capital would not be justifiable, both on account of the expensive works that would be necessary, and the comparatively small traffic, except during the tourist season. Then it is very considerable.

We have now brought our Rambles on British Railways to a conclusion.

---

CHAPTER XI.

PARIS TO ST. MICHEL—“ABOVE SEA-LEVEL”—THE HOLBORN VIADUCT—THE MONT CENIS RAILWAY.

If the reader will refer to page 16 ante, he will see that we left an imaginary travelling companion of ours, to refresh himself at one of the innumerable restaurants of Paris, whilst we were to employ the time in giving some account of the four greatest existing railways in Europe, and of the Pacific Union Railroad, now constructing across the continent of North America. But one thing has led to another, and descriptions which we had originally intended should only occupy some fifty or sixty pages, have grown to more than 200. We now revert to our original plan, which is, to take the reader, in the shape of an imaginary traveller, to the Mont Cenis Railway, and having given the best explanation of it in our power, to impart (apropos of the Tunnel of the Alps) the information we have recently collected about tunnels, ancient and modern, canal and railway, in Great Britain, and in other parts of the world. From the Alps, we shall proceed, by means of the existing railways, to the extreme south-eastern end of Italy, whence we shall cross over to Sicily, the most southern part of Europe to which railways extend. In this manner we propose to bring the present volume to a conclusion.

Taking place in the train of the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway, at the Mazas Station, built nearly opposite to Paris’s great prison of the same name, we travel on the main line, 275 miles, as far as Lamartine’s birthplace, Macon, forty-four miles short of Lyons, and 262 short of[317] Marseilles, which is 537 miles from Paris. We must leave the detailed description of the route to Murray’s Hand Books, of which Hand Hooks in general we have recently said, and now repeat, that an experience of upwards of thirty years’ very frequent travelling in many parts of the continent enables us to state that, for lucid description, accuracy, and impartiality, they are the only English ones that completely merit the confidence of the public. Per contra, the omissions and inaccuracies met with in other so-called “Guides” are a source of continual annoyance and disappointment to the inexperienced continental traveller. To mention only one instance, a Hand Book which we were assured, at the office of its publication, was published in June 1866 (of course there is no date of publication on the title-page), is, with a few trifling alterations, a reprint of pages in stereotype published twelve or thirteen years previously, and the routes given to reach the country which it professes to describe are those that were in use, by ordinary road and by steam-boat, until railways, opened now between six and ten years, superseded them.

At Macon we turn off from the main line of railway to the left, and pass successively Bourg and Culoz, near to which was the boundary between France and Italy, until the “rectification of frontier” in 1859 transferred the line of demarcation to the summit of the Alps, and converted Niceois and Savoyards into Frenchmen. At Culoz there is a further separation of railway—one branch turns north-east to Geneva 45 miles—the other, formerly the Victor Emanuel Railway, but lately swallowed up by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company, continues direct into the Savoie Propre, and after passing Aix les Bains and Chambery, runs up the Valley of the Arq to St. Michel, at present the terminus of the lines in this direction. When the stupendous[318] task of piercing the Alps is achieved, this line will be continued to Modane, twelve miles farther up the valley, where it will enter the great tunnel. The works on this length, as will be explained hereafter, will be exceedingly difficult and costly.

At St. Michel, the traveller at the present time has to exchange from the luxurious first-class carriage to the jolting, crowded, slow diligence. But very shortly he will only be called upon to move from the first-class carriage of the Mediterranean Company into the equally comfortable one of the Mont Cenis Railway, a specimen of which was exhibited at the recent Paris Exhibition. In this he will travel from St. Michel to Susa in less than half the time, and at a little more than half the expense of the journey en Diligence.

St. Michel is 146 English miles from Macon, 421 from Paris, 717 from London. The traveller who leaves London any morning of the week, at twenty-five minutes past seven, will (with a break of two hours in Paris) find himself at St. Michel at noon the following day, notwithstanding the fact, that the railway from Macon onwards is far from being a first-class one; its gradients are steep, its curves numerous and abrupt. Between Calais and St. Michel, including various ups and downs (for railways are subject to the fluctuations physically that man experiences bodily), the traveller has risen 2,493 English feet, but principally in the seventy-two miles and a-half from Culoz onwards. He has, in fact, completed more than a third of the total elevation he has to conquer, in order to be at the summit of the Mont Cenis Pass. This summit is 6,658 feet above the sea level at Calais and elsewhere.

“Above sea level!” What does this mean? We shall endeavour to illustrate; we shall therefore ask our reader to[319] be so good as, in the first instance, to place himself, either in imagination or reality, exactly parallel with those at-one-time-considered impregnable fortresses at Albert Gate Knightsbridge, Malta, and Gibraltar, so called, because, for a long time, no one could be found to take them. The ice, however, was broken as regards one of them, Malta, by a monarch of former days—for the most part wrongly accused and unfairly deposed—the Railway King. He sold it to our “natural enemy;” it has, therefore, for many years, been in possession of France, as the residence of the French ambassador, and let us en passant express a fervent hope—long may it continue to be so. Gibraltar, less dignified, has, probably, not been less useful; it fell, however, through the fatal influence of gold; it has long been a tributary or branch of one of our leading joint stock banking establishments.

So much for our starting point, and now for the ground to be got over. It has just been stated that the summit of the Mont Cenis Pass is 6,658 feet above sea level.[114] Converted[320] into terms which we can more readily appreciate for such lengths, it means one mile and a quarter with fifty-eight feet over for good measurement. Placing this distance on the flat instead of the perpendicular it represents the whole of the ground that intervenes between the whilom fortresses and the corner of Coventry Street and the Haymarket; that is, a person wanting to walk 6,658 feet on or nearly the level, must go over ground equal to that which we have named as between these two points of measurement. But when we come to ascend a height, be it great or small, only a few feet or a mountain, we know by a universal law that we cannot mount exactly perpendicularly. Even in the nearest approach to the upright straight rise—the ladder—we are obliged to have some slope in it. We therefore, in all ascents by steps must mount gradually, so gradually in fact that the place for placing the human foot is usually greater than the rise made at each step it takes forward. In ordinarily built houses of the usual proportions, the rise of a step in a staircase is seven inches, but what the foot steps on is eleven inches wide; consequently, for every seven inches that we rise we must go forward eleven inches. But this is[321] not all: at every twelve or fourteen feet we must have breaks in the ascent—landings; therefore, for any height above twenty feet or so, the proportion between elevation and step forward is, as near as can be, one to three. Taken by this standard, a person wanting to rise 6,658 feet by means of staircases or steps, must be continually ascending for a length that measures not only from Albert Gate to the Haymarket; but a farther distance represented by Leicester Square, Cranbourne Street, Long Acre, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn, Newgate Street, Cheapside, and to the Bank of England.

Let us look at “above the level of the sea” in another light. The staircase height of each of the houses we have referred to is about sixty feet, a fatiguing ascension even for the lightest of us. The summit of the Mont Cenis Pass is exactly 111 times 60. The top of St. Paul’s Cathedral is 404 feet from the ground at St. Paul’s Churchyard. The summit of the Mont Cenis Pass is sixteen and a half times higher.

Elevation by steps is only available for man, and for man’s ever faithful, as well as for man’s doubtfully faithful, companions, the dog and the cat. They therefore are able to ascend and descend a staircase gradient of 1 in 2; not so all other useful and domestic animals—the horse, the mule, the sheep, and the cow can only go along a continuous roadway; the mountain goat can skip occasionally from rock to rock, but its normal step is that of the other animals we have just enumerated. Were the steps of a staircase covered over, say with boards, and the ascent made uniform, man could not ascend or descend a gradient of 1 in 2, 1 in 3, 1 in 4, and scarcely 1 in 5. He could not, in fact, ascend or descend the last-named gradient without having something beside him to hold on by. But the muscles of man’s legs, and the organisation of his feet, enable him, by one of the innumerable[322] and beautiful arrangements of the all-provident Creator, to ascend elevations by steps with complete facility, and at any moment. The steepest gradient that a horse can ascend or descend for any distance with a load is 1 in 10; occasionally there are short slopes in roads, especially old ones, of 1 in 6 or 7, but they overtax muscular strength in which ever direction an animal is going. It is a good mountain road the gradient of which does not exceed 1 in 15, or 352 feet in a mile, excellent, if it be anything like 1 in 20, or 264 feet in a mile. A strong, well-fed English horse with a moderate load behind him, could trot up this latter gradient for a short distance, and then he would fall into a walking pace, but he would draw a heavier load and with less distress to himself if he be started at a walk and be never pressed out of it.

Being anxious to show by an illustration, which would be familiar to most persons, who are either resident in, or have visited London, what is a gradient, we applied for information to Mr. Wm. Haywood, the engineer of the Corporation of London, under whose direction the Holborn Viaduct and Embankment are now in course of construction. He has kindly and courteously furnished a diagram—a copy of which is annexed at the end of the volume, showing in minute detail the variations of gradient, from Staples Inn to opposite the Old Bailey and Giltspur Street. The total length from point to point is 2,202 feet, a little more than two-fifths of a mile. The steepest gradient is 1 in 15 (352 feet in the mile) for 86 feet, the next 1 in 18 (293 feet in the mile) for 257 feet, and 1 in 19 (278 feet in the mile) for 113 feet. These gradients are all on Holborn Hill, between Hatton Garden and Shoe Lane. The steepest on Snow Hill is 1 in 21 (251 feet in the mile) for 87 feet, and 1 in 24 (220 feet in the mile) for 312 feet. All these gradients will, however, in a year or so, be matters of history, for it is hoped that the Holborn Viaduct will be opened for traffic at the beginning of 1869.[115]

p322

[323]
[324]

It is, however, a misnomer to call it a viaduct. It is true that, by means of a massive construction, the opposite sides[325] of a valley—at their summits more than two-fifths of a mile apart—are connected together on the level. But, in reality,[326] the viaduct is a great metropolitan work, worthy of the Corporation of the City of London, which, although well abused by persons who do not understand its operations, is never-ceasing, to the extent of its means, in carrying out improvements within its limits. A list of the works and changes effected by the Corporation in the last thirty years would show that it has expended millions in altering the face of the City,[116] and in increasing facilities for traffic,[327] especially at points of aggregation. The manner in which the new street that is to run from the Mansion House to Blackfriars Bridge, within City boundaries, is advancing, contrasts markedly with what is doing beyond them. According to present appearances, the City will have completed its work and opened its portion of the street for traffic about the time that the Metropolitan Board of Works will have made a fair start upon what it has to accomplish.

The next great work that the Corporation has to take in hand is the widening of the Poultry, infinitely more important, and more absolutely required, in the opinion of all people who frequent the City, than the widening of Newgate Street, upon which the Corporation is now engaged. The expense, of course, will be enormous, but it must be met—somehow: land to be paid for by the square inch; splendid constructions to come down; historic Bucklersbury to disappear; even the Mansion House will stop the way, and His Lordship will have to find residence either at the rear of Guildhall, as was suggested some short time ago, or elsewhere. Metropolitan fellow residents, metropolitan suburbanists, and inhabitants who dwell to the extent of six miles outside the Post-Master General’s twelve mile postal circle, you may all rest assured that the granite pillars you see at the eighteen mile distance post from London, on railway and[328] roadway, on river bank and canal tow-path—the columns of Luxor of the Corporation—with inscriptions on them destined, in remote future times, to represent the hieroglyphics of ancient Anglia—will remain and be found among the few signs then extant, of the by-gone civilisation which the prophesied New Zealander is to make his musings upon. Of the London coal tax as of the river:—

“Rusticus expectat dum defluit amnis; at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.”[117]

The tax exists ex necessitate rerum, and must continue notwithstanding fervescence frequent—always at boiling point—in Parochial Parliaments, with echoes occasional in that of St. Stephens.

By means of the Viaduct, as already said, the two summits of the valley will be connected together almost on the level. The roadway will be 80 feet wide. Commencing at the western end of Newgate Street, it will be carried in a straight line to Farringdon Street, occupying the whole of the space which recently formed Skinner Street, as well as the sites of[329] several of the houses on that thoroughfare. It will include also a portion of the church of St. Sepulchre, the dismal bell of which tolls “the knell of parting day” to those miserable beings upon whom the law enacts terrible and life-destroying vengeance. From Farringdon Street the Viaduct is carried by a gentle curve to Hatton Garden, occupying the present roadway and the sites of the houses which formerly stood on the southern side of Holborn Hill. It will also occupy part of the churchyard of St. Andrew’s, Holborn.

At the entrance to St. Sepulchre’s Church a street from Farringdon Road will join the Viaduct on its northern side, and it is at this point that whatever little gradient there is on the Viaduct may be said to commence. From there to Farringdon Street it will be 1 in 153, or at the rate of 34 feet in the mile; from Farringdon Street to Hatton Garden, 1 in 143, or at the rate of 35 feet in the mile. For all purposes of traffic the Viaduct may therefore be said to be level.

The Viaduct in its formation will include vaultage beneath each footway for the accommodation of the future houses on either side of the roadway; outside these vaults will be a subway for the gas and water pipes, and between each subway, and forming the centre of the Viaduct, the roadway will be carried on a series of arches.

The general height of the subways will be about 11 feet 6 inches and their width 7 feet; they will be of brickwork, excepting where they are carried over the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway; there they will be of iron. In each subway provision is made for water, gas, and telegraph pipes, all of which will be so placed that their joints can be inspected, and repairs made without difficulty.

The mode of construction of sewers, drains, and street gullies is such that it will never be necessary to break up the surface of the Viaduct to repair or cleanse them.

[330]

Farringdon Street will be crossed by a cast-iron bridge of an ornamental character. It will be in three spans, supported by piers, one row being on the outer edge of each footway. These piers, as well as the outer abutment piers, are to be formed of polished granite. The height of the bridge next to the curb stones will be 16 feet, and in the centre the minimum height will be 21 feet, considerably more than sufficient for the traffic. At each corner of this bridge flights of steps will be constructed for pedestrians to pass between the upper and the lower levels. These will be enclosed in stone structures, ample light and ventilation being given to them.

Shoe Lane, now at its northern end but 14 feet wide, is to be increased to 30 feet in width, and to be continued northwards, under the Viaduct, to a new street which is to be formed from the corner of Hatton Garden to Farringdon Road. A complete net-work of streets is to extend from the Viaduct to all the existing adjacent streets, and as at the place at which Holborn ends and the Viaduct commences several of these streets concentrate, with the view to remedying the inconvenience which would arise from a too limited area for traffic; and to add to the character of the work in an architectural point of view, Mr. Haywood has formed at this point a large circus 180 feet in diameter. This open space will, in addition to its other advantages, afford an opportunity for architectural display that we are sure will be judiciously availed of.

The magnitude of the work may be represented, in one shape, by the number of bricks required for its construction. From seventeen to eighteen millions, of which rather more than two-thirds are in the actual viaduct, and somewhat less than one-third in the constructions connected with the side streets. Of course these amounts are independent of what[331] will be used in the houses and buildings to be erected hereafter. These will be millions in their numbers also.

Of gradients in reference to railways we speak hereafter.

The distance from St. Michel to Susa is 78½ kilometres—48¾ English miles. It is divided into two portions nearly equal in distance, but very different as regards gradient. For the first half of the distance the road continues to follow the valley of the Arq for twenty-five miles up to the village of Lanslebourg, which is situated at the foot of the Mont Cenis Pass, and here commences the second portion of the route forming the passage of the mountain.

Before proceeding farther we had better state that a French metre is equal to 3 feet 3·371 inches; consequently, 1,000 metres (or a kilometre) are equal to 1093·6389 English yards; an English mile is 1760 yards or 1609·31 French metres; 100 kilometres are 62¼ English miles; but a rough conversion of kilometres into English miles can always be made by multiplying the number of the former by 5 and dividing by 8; vice versâ to convert English miles into kilometres—multiply the number of the former by 8 and divide by 5.

In the 25 miles, or 40 kilometres, extending from St. Michel to Lanslebourg, there is only a rise of 670 metres, or 1,994 English feet. The steepest gradient is for 2½ kilometres (1½ miles) just beyond Modane at the French entrance of the great Tunnel of the Alps, of which we shall speak presently, the rise is 1 in 19, or 278 feet in the mile; and beyond Bramans, five miles farther, there is a rise of 1 in 20, or 264 feet in the mile, for 2 kilometres. The remaining gradients are as follows—1½ kilometre, 1 in 47; 8½ kilometres (5¼ miles) 1 in 60; 4½ kilometres (nearly 3 miles) 1 in 100; 7½ kilometres (4¾ miles) 1 in 108. In fact, with the exception of 4 kilometres (2½ miles) post-horses[332] go at the trot over the whole distance between St. Michel and Lanslebourg. It is at this latter place that the real elevation of the pass commences, and the traveller who wishes to see a considerable portion of the ascent that is before him, can do so by taking a look out of the comfortless-looking, but, in reality, comfortable Hotel Imperial, the ground-floor of which is occupied as a refreshment room for passengers, and by Messieurs les Employés de la Douane Imperiale de la France. The frontier which separates France from Italy is exactly at the summit of the pass, and it is 10,500 metres or 6⅓ miles from Lanslebourg. In these 6⅓ miles it is necessary to mount 2,171 feet, or at the continuous rate of 350 feet in the mile. The gradient is consequently 1 in 15 in the whole of these 6⅓ miles. From the summit to L’Hospice, 4⅕ kilometres along the bank of the Cenis Lake, which yields capital trout six months in the year, and is frozen over for the other six, the gradient falls 1 in 25, or 211 feet in the mile. There is a short length of 3 kilometres to the Posting House of La Grande Croix, with a gradient of 1 in 60, or 88 feet in the mile. The severest gradient on the whole pass is in the next 10 kilometres (6¼ miles), 1 in 14, or 376 feet to the mile; and from Molaretta to Susa, 10⅓ kilometres (6½ miles), it is not much better, being 1 in 15, or 350 feet in the mile. There is a difference in the comparative elevations above the sea, of St. Michel and Susa of 715 feet, Susa being the lower of the two. Consequently, the Italian side of the pass is more precipitous than the French, for, whereas the total rise from St. Michel to the summit (a distance of 31 miles) is 4,165 feet, the descent from the summit to Susa (a distance of 18 miles) is 4,880 feet; in fact, the descent of the mountain only terminates as the town is entered. Of course, what are ascent and descent[333] when going from France to Italy are reversed when coming in the opposite direction.

Mr. John Fell,[118] a gentleman about whom we have now to speak, has been occupied during many years of his life in the construction of railways and other works in Italy, being associated in several of them with Mr. Thomas Brassey, the eminent contractor, and other English gentlemen, among whom may be mentioned Mr. William Jackson, now M.P. for North Derbyshire. Connected with the laying out and subsequent construction of the magnificent railway between Pistoja and Bologna, by which the Apennines are traversed and overcome by the locomotive, Mr. Fell’s attention was directed to the mighty cost of construction of this railway, as well as of that across the Sœmmering and of the Giovi Incline, by means of which last-named, Genoa obtains railway connection with all parts of the Italian system. Reasoning and reflecting, Mr. Fell’s mind was, by a most happy incidence, brought to bear upon the effect that would be developed if the adhesion of the locomotive were increased by the application of horizontal wheels to a third or intermediate rail. But, in order to understand and to appreciate the full force of this conception, it is necessary to explain that the power or motive force of a locomotive is derived[334] from two sources—the amount of steam evaporated and the amount of adhesion, or, as it is familiarly called, “bite,” that the wheels have on the rails. If a railway were completely level, it would only be necessary, in the construction of engines for working it, to make them with as little weight of material as possible, consistent with the strength and solidity required for their complete efficiency. But as a railway on, or very nearly on, the level, does not exist, it is necessary, in building engines, to give them such weight as, in addition to their steam power, will ensure them efficient adhesion upon the railway. On railways with favourable gradients the additional weight of engine is trifling; but exactly in proportion as gradients become unfavourable, so has it been found necessary to increase the weight of engines. Mr. Fell’s system increases adhesion without increasing the weight of the engines,[119] except to the very trifling extent of that appertaining to the four horizontal wheels, and the machinery connected with them. These horizontal wheels—two on each side of the engine—are made to rotate along the sides of the centre rail by identically the same steam that operates upon and causes the rotation of the perpendicular wheels upon the upper surface of the two ordinary rails. In this fact is contained the whole secret of the extraordinary development and marvellous increase of power which are obtained by the introduction of the centre rail, combined with the action of the horizontal wheels upon it.[120]

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But before we go farther, let us endeavour to settle a question of priority as regards this invention or discovery, and we are able to do so all the more easily through the information furnished by Monsieur P. Desbriere at page 61 of his Etudes sur la Locomotion au Moyen du Rail Central, Contenant la relation des expériences entreprises pour la traversée du Mont Cenis. Paris 1865.

“Claims having been recently started,” says M. Desbriere, “as to the priority of the invention of the centre rail, we present the following historic resumé. The first patent taken out for its application was on the 30th of September, 1830, jointly by Messrs. Charles B. Vignoles, the eminent English engineer, and Ericsson, the Swedish engineer, the gentlemen who constructed the first monitors and marine engines to be driven by means of heated air. On the 15th of October, 1840, a patent was taken by Mr. Henry Pinkus, an English gentleman. On the 18th of December, 1843, Baron Seguier addressed a communication to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, in which he proposed, as a means of avoiding getting off the rails, the employment of a centre rail upon all railways, the gradients of which were moderate and the speed upon which was high. On the 5th December, 1846, a patent was taken out by the Baron for this system, of which he described himself the inventor, and of which he was at all events the very active promoter.[121] On the 13th July, 1847, a patent bearing upon the subject was taken out in England by Mr. A. V. Newton.”

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“On the 20th of January, 1863, Mr. Fell took out his first patent, and on the 16th December, of the same year, his second, under the modest title of ‘improvements in locomotive engines and railway carriages.’ In neither of these patents did Mr. Fell attempt to appropriate to himself the invention of the centre rail, but simply the means, both ingenious and practical, by which he has succeeded in applying the principle of additional adhesion.”

“Independent of the energy, perseverance, and straightforward practical sense, of which he has given proof, in his long train of trials and experiments, Mr. Fell’s principal merit, in our opinion, is that he has understood, what theory entirely justifies, that locomotives with additional adhesion are only applicable to steep gradients and slow speed, because such engines are able to develop powerful means of traction, without heavy additions to their weight.”

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Early in 1863, Mr. Fell instituted experiments on a length of line of 800 yards, laid out on his plan, upon the Cromford and High Peak Railway, near Whaley-Bridge. The gauge was 3 feet 7½ inches, 180 yards of the line were straight with a gradient of 1 in 13 (406 feet in the mile); 150 yards with a gradient of 1 in 12 (440 feet in the mile); with curves of two chains and a-half each. The centre rail was raised seven and a-half inches above the surface of the two ordinary rails, so as to be acted upon by the two horizontal wheels of the engine. During the experiments, the first engine of the kind ever constructed, and necessarily, from want of experience, unsatisfactory in many of its details, working with a pressure of 120 lbs. to the square inch, was always able to convey a load of twenty-four tons up the incline. The maximum it succeeded in taking was thirty tons. Its dimensions were as follows: diameter of cylinder, 12 inches; length of stroke, 18 inches; four wheels coupled, diameter 2 feet 3 inches; axles, 5 feet 3 inches apart. The weight of the engine fully loaded with coke and water was sixteen tons. When the pressure was only brought to bear upon the vertical wheels, the engine could not take more than a weight of seven tons up the incline, but when the horizontal wheels acted combinedly with the perpendicular, she took up twenty-four tons on the same day, and under circumstances precisely similar in every respect, except as regards the action of the horizontal wheels upon the centre rail.

These experiments were considered so satisfactory, that it was decided, with the permission of the French Government, and for its information, that they should be repeated upon a more extended scale upon the Mont Cenis, with the condition made by Mr. Fell, that if the system were found to be practicable, the authorities should grant the concession of a portion[339] of the roadway for a line to be laid down across the French division of the mountain on the same terms as had already been agreed to by the Italian Government for the Italian portion.

The experimental line was laid down between Lanslebourg and the summit. It commenced at the height of 5,305 feet above sea level, and terminated at the elevation of 5,820 feet. Its length was two kilometres all but forty-four yards, or an English mile and a quarter. Gauge, 3 feet 7½ inches. Its mean gradient was 1 in 13, the maximum was 1 in 12; it had two curves of 44 yards each, and others, the most favourable of which was 125 yards. It will thus be seen that the line was constructed in a manner, both as regards gradients and curves, to subject the system to the severest tests. The experiments, which were conducted in the presence of commissioners from England, France, Italy, Austria and Russia, lasted from the end of February until the end of May 1865, and it is a remarkable fact that the adhesion was found during the period of snow better than could be expected in summer, for when snow was swept off the rails, it left them dry, and under favourable conditions; whereas, summer dust combined with moisture, would render them comparatively greasy and slippery. Captain Tyler, who was present at all the experiments on the part of the British Government, calls special attention to this curious fact in his report.

Two engines were employed in the trials, the first that which had been used on the High-Peak Railway experiments, and the second an engine built specially for the service of the Mont Cenis Railway. This latter was the engine principally employed, No. 1 being chiefly used to supply the place of No. 2, when any trifling derangement in its machinery required attention. It is intended that No. 2 shall be used on the completion of the line over the pass, and it is[340] the engine by which the trial trip was accomplished on the memorable 26th of August, 1867. When empty its weight is 13 tons, when loaded with coke and water 17 tons 2 cwt. The horizontal wheels and the machinery connected with them weigh 2¾ tons. The boiler is 8 feet 4 inches long, 3 feet 2 inches diameter, and contains 158 tubes of 1½ inches exterior diameter. Heating surface 600 feet. The cylinders, two in number, 15 inches diameter, with 16 inches stroke, act at one and the same time upon the two systems of wheels, four horizontal and four perpendicular. Each system of wheels consists of four coupled, diameter of each 2 feet 3 inches. The space between the centres of each pair of perpendicular wheels is 6 feet 10 inches, that between the horizontal wheels 2 feet 4 inches; maximum pressure of steam in the boiler 120 lbs. per square inch; effective pressure upon the piston 75 lbs. This engine was a great improvement upon its predecessor. With engine No. 1, Captain Tyler, R.E., from whose Report to the Board of Trade the foregoing particulars are taken, says that during the space of two days he descended and remounted the experimental line six times. The train behind it consisted of three waggons, with a total gross weight of 16 tons. The average of his experiments was as follows:—The first ascent was made in 8 minutes 15 seconds, with a loss of 14 lbs. of steam, and of 5½ inches in the gauge glass; the mean pressure of the steam varied from 92 to 125 lbs. per square inch. The speed in each of the experiments was greater, with the same load, than is proposed for the express trains. The mean speed resulting from the figures above stated, was at the rate of 13 kilometres, 300 metres per hour (8 English miles), instead of 12 kilometres (7½ English miles), the highest speed specified in the programme submitted to the French Government for this part of the line. The weather was fine and[341] calm, the external rails were in very good condition; but the centre rail, as well as the horizontal wheels were greasy, and consequently in a very unfavourable condition for adhesion.

The results of Captain Tyler’s experiments with No. 2 engine were as follows:—Although at the time that they took place she was not in the best order, she was, nevertheless, able to ascend the incline, with the same load as had been attached to engine No. 1, in 6¼ minutes, or at the rate of 17⅓ kilometres (nearly 11 miles) an hour. This engine besides possessing a greater amount of boiler-power, travelled more steadily than No. 1; its machinery is more easily attended to, and the pressure of the horizontal wheels upon the centre rail can be regulated by the engine driver at pleasure, from the foot plate. The pressure employed during the experiment was 2½ tons on each horizontal wheel, or 10 tons altogether, but the pressure actually provided for, and which may, when necessary, be employed is 6 tons upon each, or 24 tons upon the four horizontal wheels. When this engine had ascended the experimental line in 6¼ minutes, or at the rate of 17⅓ kilometres per hour, the steam pressure in the boiler had fallen from 112 to 102½, and 3 inches of water in the gauge glass. The engine exerted, including the resistance from curves, 195 horses power—nearly 12 horses power to each ton of its own weight, or about 60 horses power in excess of what would be required to take up the load of 16 tons, over the same gradient and curves, at the rate of 12 kilometres per hour.

Captain Tyler finally reduced the pressure to 40 lbs. on the square inch, that is to one-third of the maximum pressure, and when he had done this, he found that the engine alone could move on a gradient of 1 in 12; the resistance of waggons and carriages being proportionally[342] much less than that of a locomotive, the latter could a fortiori, draw a train with a gross load three times its own weight, or 48 tons upon the same gradient, the pressure of course being raised to 120 lbs. to the square inch.

A very important, and we believe an unexpected feature of the Fell system was immediately developed in the experiments; M. Desbriere calls special attention to it. The centre rail not only aids the train in going round curves, but also adds largely to its safety. Each vehicle is provided with four horizontal pulleys, each of about eight inches diameter, playing around vertical axes fixed upon the frame of the vehicle, and placed two and two at each of its extremities, and on each side of the centre rail. By the tightening of these pulleys, the flanges of the wheels, instead of gliding along the outer rails, press strongly against them, and thus the train is able to overcome curves unaccomplishable by any other means. This arrangement of parts also renders it impossible for either engine or vehicles to get off the line; all the more important, seeing that by the terms of the concession, the portion of the roadway ceded to Mr. Fell is, for the most part, on the outside, that is, the side nearest to the precipice, the bottom of which is, in many places, eleven or twelve hundred feet deeper than the roadway.

Before proceeding to extract from the Reports of the French Commissioners to their government their opinions upon the Fell system, it is desirable to give some general deductions which Captain Tyler makes from what he witnessed, as bearing upon the important general question of railways over mountain passes.

Hitherto the immense cost of the construction of such railways, and the immense cost of working them, have proved all but an effective barrier to their adoption. The cost of construction divides itself into two portions, and we will[343] illustrate our meaning in the following manner:—Let us take A and B as the bases respectively on each side of a mountain. Were we to take these two points and to measure the interval between them, according to the every day application of the words “as the crow flies,” we must first take our crow perpendicularly up from A, to the exact height of the highest point which a person would be obliged to ascend, in order to cross the mountain, and then having drawn our imaginary tape to the point perpendicularly above B, we have the distance between them “as the crow flies.” But this distance in no way represents the actual distance that a person has to trudge up the mountain, and then to trudge down again in order that he may get, matériellement et physiquement, from one side of it to the other. The road which he has gone along can only be constructed with gradients that man and beast can accomplish. Exceed those gradients and the road might as well not be constructed. 1 in 12, or 440 feet in an English mile, is about as much as ought to, or, indeed, can be accomplished in this way. Yet, even to attain a mountain road with this gradient, it is necessary to make a great many turns and twists, to tunnel here, to raise an embankment there, to span a gorge sometimes several hundred feet deep with a bridge built between two projecting craigs at opposite sides of the ravine, whilst other bridges, of almost adamantine strength, and hundreds of feet in length, are often barely sufficient to resist the giant force of the torrents that dash along the gorge, and at times rise to within a few inches of a bridge’s level. And when the road is finished, at the heavy cost which all such works involve, and traffic is brought upon it, its length is very different from what it would have been if it could simply have been climbed up the mountain by the shortest and straightest possible way, and then been brought down[344] again in the same manner. Still greater will be the difference between it and what our friend the crow accomplishes in the flight we have just referred to.

The experience acquired by our engineers tells us that the very maximum gradient an engine on the ordinary principle can climb up is 1 in 25, or 211 feet in a mile, but this can only be for a few yards, and with what is known, in locomotive language, as “a good run at it.” On the Sœmmering, as has already been stated, the average gradient on the north side is 1 in 47, or 111 feet in a mile; on the south side 1 in 50, or 105 feet in the mile; yet these gradients, favourable as they are, compared with the gradient of an ordinary roadway over a high mountain pass, could only be obtained at a cost of £98,000 a mile. Equally costly was the Giovi incline, constructed to surmount the Apennines near to Genoa. The worst gradient on it for a short distance is 1 in 29, or 160 feet in a mile; its best 1 in 50, or 106 feet in a mile. The ruling gradient of the beautiful railway over the Apennines between Pistoja and Bologna is 1 in 40, or 132 feet to the mile. The distance from Pistoja at the foot of the mountain on the east to Poretta at the foot of the mountain on the west, by the old road, is 25 “chiliometres” (kilometres), a little more than 15½ English miles, but in order to obtain for the railway the average gradient of 1 in 40 we have just mentioned, it has been necessary to extend the distance from 25 chiliometres to 40, equal to 25 English miles. Each of these 40 chiliometres has cost 1,000,000 francs, or £40,000, making the total cost of the railway independent of the special rolling stock for working it, £1,600,000, or at the rate of £64,000 a mile. If at the time that Mr. Fell was engaged in connection with the construction of this very fine work, he had had his ideas matured respecting the centre-rail system, and that consent[345] had been given to the line being laid down in accordance with it, the distance to traverse would have only been 15½ English miles; many expensive works would have been avoided, and the total cost of the line would not have exceeded £400,000—probably it would have been considerably less. Another matter worthy of consideration is, that this Apennine Railway consumed eleven years in its construction. Not very protracted, considering that there are nearly 7 miles of tunnels (39 in number), of which 23 are on the ascent from Pistoja, and 16 on the descent to Poretta. The longest is 1⅞ mile, the second longest 1⅝ mile, the length of the others is pretty nearly equal. Nearly one-eighth of what is not tunnel is bridge or viaduct; some of the latter across ravines 300 to 400 feet long, and nearly 180 feet high. They are, in fact, double viaducts, one built on the top of the other, and reminding one of the two tiers of guns of an old-fashioned two-decker. According to the testimony of M. Desbriere, Mr. Fell would have accomplished an equally efficient railway on or through the pass in a couple of years. He would have had no tunnels, unless when, occasionally, he might want to get by a short cut through a projecting ledge of rock or mountain instead of round it, and, as to bridges and viaducts, a twentieth part of those now existing would have amply sufficed him. Before quitting this subject, we would observe that Captain Tyler sets down the difference between the length of a mountain road with gradients of 1 in from 12 to 15 as one-half that of a roadway with gradients of 1 in 40. In practice, however, it will probably be found that the difference will hardly be so great—but there can be no doubt of its not being less than as 3 to 5.

Taking the question of working expenses, we know that on the Sœmmering, on the Giovi, and on the Pistoja lines, the[346] weight of the engines is about fifty-five tons, and that on the Sœmmering and the Giovi the cost per train mile is 6s. 2d. down the pass as well as up it, while the average cost on the ordinary portions of the lines is under 3s. a mile; and so oppressive is the working cost of goods trains over the Sœmmering felt to be, and with such uncertainty are the trains, but especially the goods trains, worked over the pass, that before the end of the present year, a railway between Vienna and Trieste will be opened, with a detour of 110 miles, and it is by this roundabout line that the immense and continuously increasing goods traffic between the interior of Austria and its great naval and commercial sea port, will eventually be conveyed to it.

Captain Tyler, whilst instituting a comparison between the cost of the construction and working of the Mont Cenis Over-ground Railway with these costs upon the railway through the Great Tunnel of the Alps, calls especial attention to the fact that the former is only laid down on a road-bed already in existence, as a temporary (that is if we can accept temporary as an exact translation of provisoire) line, whilst that through the tunnel is permanent. But keeping this point in view, the report of Mr. James Brunlees, C.E., the distinguished engineer of the Mont Cenis Railway Company, shows its cost to be (including the necessary engines and other rolling stock) a little under £8,000 a mile, whilst he asserts that the Tunnel line will probably cost, including interest at 6 per cent, during construction, but not the cost of special engines and other rolling stock, £7,000,000, or £140,000 a mile. As the cost of the tunnel and its accessories is dealt with subsequently at full length, we need only here remark that Captain Tyler considers the cost of an over-ground permanent Fell line, laid down on an already existing Alpine roadway, with the ordinary 4 feet 8½-inch gauge, and with[347] curves of radii varying from 150 to 180 yards, should not exceed three times the cost of the present provisional road, or about £21,000 a mile. We are disposed to concur completely in this estimate, provided the additional width that it would be necessary to give to the roadway could be obtained by excavating from the inner side of the road, and not by widening it on its outer side—the side of the precipice—for this latter could only be effected by the construction of numerous solid and very expensive abutments in masonry, requiring great tact, nicety and judgment in their adjustment.

Captain Tyler concludes his report to the Board of Trade as follows:—

The French Imperial Commission ordered to be present at Mr. Fell’s experiments, consisted of M. Conte, ingénieur en chef des Ponts et Chaussées de France, as President, with MM. Bochet, ingénieur en chef des mines, Guinard, ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées, and Perrin, ingénieur des mines, as his colleagues. These gentlemen completed a voluminous and elaborate report of thirty-one pages of printed matter, accompanied by drawings, with the following “conclusions”:—

We cannot conclude our notice of the part which was taken by France in the trials on the Mont Cenis without[349] referring to the fact, that the Emperor Napoleon took a warm interest in this subject, and it is owing to the intervention of His Majesty that, not only was the portion of the Mont Cenis roadway granted to Mr. Fell for his experiments, but subsequently the concession, under the terms of which the line across the mountain has been constructed. His Majesty expressed an opinion several years ago, that increased adhesion, and thereby increased power, would be obtained for engines, by the adoption of a third or centre rail, along the sides of which additional wheels would be run. An engine was actually constructed in France, at the instance of Baron Seguier, to illustrate the system; but the third rail was found useless at high speeds, and with flat gradients. When, however, Mr. Fell propounded the plan of centre rail for slow speed and steep gradients, the conviction of His Majesty was, that Mr. Fell was right. Hence, he afforded him his gracious patronage and support; without them, Mr. Fell would probably have had difficulties, even greater than he now has to contend with, in bringing his invention into practice.

On the 4th of November, 1865, “Napoleon, par la Grace de Dieu et la Volonté Nationale, Empereur des Françaises,” authorised, by Imperial Decree, the construction and working of a locomotive line between St. Michel and the frontier of Italy (the summit of the pass) until “the opening of the tunnel of the Alps” for traffic. Of this very indefinite period and of the tunnel itself we shall have to speak presently. In the meantime, let it be stated that the Emperor’s decree was accompanied by a Cahier des Charges (Table of Conditions), in which, in addition to the usual conditions as affecting railways in France, are contained several specially appropriate to this very special railway. Of these, the only ones that interest the general public set forth the[350] prices that are to be charged for the conveyance of goods and passengers. Each of the latter travelling in a coupé is to pay 27 francs, or about 5¼d. an English mile; other first-class passengers, 25 francs, or about 5d. a mile; second class, 22 francs, or about 4½d. a mile; third class, 18 francs, or 3¾d. a mile; children under three years of age, free; between three and seven, half-price; above seven, full fare. It will be seen from this tariff, how small is the difference between the charge for the highest and lowest classed passengers. The transit for goods by passenger trains is at the rate of £3. 1s. 6d. a ton, or 1s. 2½d. a ton a mile; by goods train £1. 12s., or about 7½d. a ton a mile.

The works of the railway were commenced on the 1st of May, 1866. It was expected that they would be finished in twelve months, but various circumstances have intervened to prevent the realisation of this intention; the chief, the floods of September 1866, on the French side of the mountain, when the waters rising higher than was ever known before, committed wholesale devastation, not only upon the works of the company executed up to that time, but upon the ten miles of the already opened railway between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel, as well. The devastation extended from Termignon within seven miles of Lanslebourg to St. Jean, a distance of twenty-eight miles. The Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company has repaired the ten miles of railway between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel. The works of the roadway from St. Michel, eighteen miles, to Termignon have been repaired and their strength added to, by the French Government at an expense of about £80,000. The French Government has also recognised the claim of the Fell Railway Company to consideration, by agreeing to repay two-thirds of the cost of reinstating its works as they were previous to the floods, so that practically the company[351] has incurred through them a direct money loss of not more than from £3,000 to £4,000. It has, however, sustained a heavy loss from not being opened to carry the immense traffic which has crossed the pass during the spring, and summer of the present year.

The railway is laid, not altogether but principally, on the outer side of the roadway. The sleepers are transverse, three feet apart, to which the outer or ordinary rails are fixed by bolts or nails. The line is fenced off from the portion of the roadway to be used for ordinary horse traffic, (the greater portion of which will disappear on the opening of the railway) by means of substantial posts and rails. The railway, in passing from one side of the roadway to the other, crosses it thirty-three times, one more than half the number of these crossings (seventeen) are on the roadway, where it is practically on the level. The crossings are therefore of the ordinary character, such as are seen in England and on the Continent; but inasmuch as the top of the centre rail, which is laid upon and fastened to continuous balks of timber bolted on to the transverse sleepers, is 9 inches higher than the outer or ordinary rails, it has been found necessary to arrange that when the roadway is open as a crossing, at those parts at which the centre rail is in use, it shall be lowered, so that it shall not be higher than the two outer rails. This is effected by a mechanique extremely simple in its action, moved by means of a lever, just as a pointsman moves his points at an everyday railway station. One movement of the lever depresses the centre rail, into a hollow made expressly to receive it, to the level of its confrères, and when it is necessary to elevate it again so as to place it in apposition with the centre rails at each side of the crossing, one movement of the lever raises it, and then it forms continuous centre rail just as completely as if there had not been any lever beside it to elevate or to depress it.

[352]

There has scarcely been a portion of the roadway which has not been widened. In most places it has only been to the extent of a yard or a little more, but the heaviest works in connection with the road it has been found necessary to execute have been at its sharp turns or zig-zags, and in passing along the villages which are studded along the entire length of the pass; for it must not be supposed that it runs through a barren, uncultivated, and unfrequented district, inhabited only by the goatherds, or occasionally dwelt in by the chamois hunter. So far is this from being the case, that there is a well-to-do population of at least 25,000 along the pass, the well-made, robust, and hardy male portion of which has often been the means of saving human life during the snows and storms of winter, with a devotion and an indifference to personal risk or consequences, not exceeded in any other district, along the whole length of the Alpine ranges.

As regards deviations, the railway winds to the back of the villages of St. Michel, Modane, Bramans, Termignon and Lanslebourg, on the French side of the mountain, but, on the Italian side, there is only one inhabited place at which it is necessary to keep in the background, and that is at Susa. By means of this deviation the connection with the Alta-Italia Railway is effected. Both lines unite together at the existing Susa station at which there is the mixed gauge of 3 feet 7½ inches, the width of the Mont Cenis Railway, and 4 feet 8½ inches, the width of the Italian railway system, which is also the width of the French railways as well as of our own, with the exception of the Great Western. But even the Great Western, in order to come within the comity of the railway world as established in England, has had to succumb, and by means of a third railway, to become “narrow” as well as “broad” gauge. Owing to the difference of gauge, transhipment both of[353] passengers and their luggage, and of goods must take place at St. Michel as well as at Susa.

Of the deviations, or rather the prolongations or extensions of the railway, to avoid sharp turns or zig-zags, there are four between Lanslebourg and the summit. At all these zig-zags, as we know in our experience of turns in hilly or mountain roads, the gradient is always steeper than at other parts; but the deviations of the Cenis, by taking sweeps carried through eight little tunnels in the mountain, the longest of which is 105 metres, the shortest 40, and by increasing the actual distance three to four times what it is by the roadway, curves of larger radius and lighter gradient are obtained. The total length of these tunnels is 505 metres. On the Italian side there are ten deviations, and they would have been nearly double that number, had not the railway, instead of following the existing road at a part called les Echelles, about five miles from the summit, reverted to the old road which had been abandoned in consequence of the prevalence of avalanches along it in winter. Whilst the new road is undoubtedly superior for carriages to the old one, the latter is better suited for a railway, in consequence of their being no zig-zags upon it; but en revanche for this advantage, it has been necessary to cover the line over. 600 metres of this covering are massive and solid masonry, upon which avalanches will impinge, as they are hurled from the rocks above into the abyss beneath. In addition, there will be, hereabouts, 1,200 metres of covered way, of which we shall speak immediately. There are several other places on the Italian side of the mountain at which protection against avalanches must be afforded by means of similar galleries. Their total length will be 1,480 metres, or about 140 yards less than a mile, and with this amount all the Engineers seem to agree (notwithstanding the assertion of Mr. Crawford, M.P., to the contrary) that the[354] railway will be completely protected from the avalanche danger. But snow is the cause of inconvenience as well as of danger. If snow would be satisfied to remain quietly when it falls on terra firma, the snow-plough on the engines and the shovels of a few permanent-way men would speedily send it off the line without trouble or delay; but snow is invariably accompanied, especially in these elevated regions, with high winds, and these cause drifts. There is an almost undeviating rule as regards drifts, and it is that a drift of this year will find its way to, practically, the same spot that it was at last year, the previous year, and the year previous to that also, and it will be at the same spot next year, the following year, and so on ad infinitum. Hence it is necessary, on the Mont Cenis, to protect the railway by means of covered ways, in addition to protecting them from avalanches by galleries. The covered ways are constructed, combinedly, of wood and of timber. They require to be sufficiently strong to resist the effects of high winds or tourmentes, and the weight of snow that may fall or drift upon them. By means of them the line will be kept quite free from snow exactly at those points where, without them, its greatest accumulations would have taken place. They are obviously only required high up the pass—the first, on the French side, of 450 metres long, will be at a very exposed angle of the road, about 400 feet from the summit. At and about the apex of the pass the covered ways will be about 5,000 metres, or a little more than 3 miles in length, not exactly continuous, but very nearly so. Upon the greater part of the plateau which extends along the Cenis Lake and nearly to les Echelles, covering will be unnecessary, the effect of the wind being to sweep the plain comparatively clear of snow, which becomes deposited in the angles of the hills that form the somewhat distant background of the panorama. Proceeding downwards on the Italian side, there will be the[355] 1,200 metres of covered way on the old road parallel to les Echelles, already mentioned, and about 1,200 metres more farther down, freedom from serious snow-drifts not being obtained on the Italian side of the mountain until at an elevation of about 4,000 feet above sea level. That point passed, the softness and glow of the Italian climate become perceptible, not only by one’s own sensations, but because we witness the effects of the atmosphere from the crops and trees that surround us. The line of demarcation, beyond which cereals will not grow, is higher on the southern than on the northern aspect; suddenly we come upon the walnut and the sweet chesnut, and we have not proceeded more than a mile or so, when a turn of the road near to Mollaretta, 3,795 feet above the level of the sea, brings us upon the grape, growing in beautiful festoons, and yielding fruit that is said to make good and vigorous wine. But the highest point at which the vine can be cultivated on the French side of the pass—and that not always successfully, for in cold seasons the crops do not come to complete maturity—is St. Michel. Yet St. Michel is only 2,493 feet above the level of the sea, or 1,300 feet lower than Mollaretta.

The total length during which the trains of the Mont Cenis Railway will not be “en plein air,” will be 11,113 metres, about 6¾ miles, scattered over 18 miles of distance, but in no case will the light of heaven be shut out, as both in the galleries and in the covered ways there will be openings for its admission, as well as for that of air, which openings can, however, be closed if the direction of drifting snow be towards them. As the average length of the eight tunnels is only 70 yards, it is obvious that the maximum of darkness in them, while the sun is above the horizon, will be twilight.

There will be four intermediate passenger stations—one only first class—at Lanslebourg, the half-way house, and as already mentioned, the place at which the ascent of the[356] mountain on the French side commences. The other French stations are at Modane, and Bramans—on the Italian side only one—a place which will be rather an engine-watering than a passenger station.

Having constructed our line, or rather we should say, having done our possible to make our readers understand how it is constructed, the next obvious proposition is how to work it.

Previous to the experiments of 1865, Mr. Fell gave a programme to both the French and Italian Governments of the manner in which he proposed to carry the traffic on the line when opened. Considering that three trains per day in each direction would be sufficient, at all events for the existing traffic, he divided his service into two for passengers, one of which should also carry goods, and one for goods only. The train conveying passengers without goods, should also be the mail train, and he proposed that its weight, exclusive of engine, should not exceed 16 tons. The speed of this train to be about 11½ miles an hour including stoppages; the mixed train to weigh 40 tons, but its speed not to exceed 7 to 8 miles an hour; the goods train to weigh 48 tons, and its speed to be 6 miles an hour. When Mr. Fell submitted these proposals, he estimated a certain weight for each of his engines, and each of his carriages and waggons, but unfortunately the weight of all three has been much exceeded in the construction of the rolling stock. The engines instead of weighing about 17 tons each, as expected, will weigh upwards of 21 tons, and there is a corresponding increase in the weight of the vehicles. The consequence is that although these additional weights do not affect the question as to the power of trains to cross the mountain, it very materially affects a most important point—that of proportion between dead, and paying and productive weight. It is obvious that the problem of adhesion being solved by[357] the addition of the centre rail, every pound added unnecessarily to the weight of the engine increases dead weight, without affording the corresponding benefit of carrying increased weight that brings profit and benefit to the shareholders. In this respect, the case between the Fell engine and the case of an ordinary engine for ascending a steep gradient is, that with the former additional weight is an incubus—an impedimentum—a break put upon the power of the engine without the slightest counterpoising or balancing advantage, whereas the ordinary engine, by increased weight, adds to its power, at all events to some extent, by the additional adhesion it obtains. It is therefore to be regretted that in laying down the plan for these engines, this most essential point was not more carefully—we might almost say more jealously—looked after. The same point bears, though in a less important degree, upon the weight of the carriages and waggons, for it is obvious that if a vehicle weighing, say, 3 tons (we take the figure at random) will carry safely, efficiently, and without strain upon any part of it, a given load, any weight beyond 3 tons is surplusage—not only unnecessary but most injurious. If anything tarnish the success of the Mont Cenis Railway, it is more likely to be from this cause than from any other that we are acquainted with, as the fact is undoubted that the weights are much in excess of what are required for the tractive power of the engines or for the safe conveyance of the loads that will be placed in the carriages and waggons behind them.[122]

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CHAPTER XII.

TUNNELS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

It is hardly necessary to say that the great rival to the Mont Cenis or Summit Railway is the railway that is to be laid through the tunnel, which, in the official documents of both France and Italy is denominated “The Great Tunnel of the Alps.” But before we enter upon the description of this tunnel, an account of subterraneous construction from the earliest period we have been able to trace tunnels, may not be uninteresting.

Tunnelling through hills and mountains is not exactly “as old as the hills,” but the practice, nevertheless, is of great antiquity.[123] Yet, the oldest tunnel of which we have record was neither through hill nor mountain, but was carried beneath the course of the River Euphrates. This happened no less than 4,812 years ago, for it was at that time that Semiramis was appointed by her dying husband, Ninus, King of Assyria, Regent and guardian to their only child, the infant Ninias. The royal widow, according to[359] Diodorus the Sicilian, the most trustworthy historian of antiquity, who has written of the peoples that existed earliest after the world’s creation, commenced her reign 2,944 years before the birth of Christ, and immediately afterwards, the building of Babylon was begun, by two millions of men, who had been collected, by regal command, from all parts of the empire. The mighty city was erected on the two sides of the Euphrates, on each bank of which was raised a palace of colossal proportions. These the Queen Regent connected together by “a passage under the river,[124] in the nature of a vault, from one palace to another, whose arches were built of firm and strong brick, and plastered all over on both sides with bitumen, four cubits thick. The walls of this vault were twenty bricks in thickness, and twelve feet high, and the breadth was fifteen feet. This piece of work was finished in 220 days, and the river flowing over the vault. Semiramis could thus go from one palace to the other without passing over the river. She made likewise two brazen gates at either end of the vault, which continued to the time of the Persian empire.” The passage was made, not by the process of tunnelling as we now understand it, but by first making enormous works for diverting the course of the Euphrates; then restoring it to its ancient channel as soon as the vaulted passage had been completed. The investigations of Mr. A. H. Layard, M.P., from 1846 to 1851, show that the process of making underground connections was fully understood from the earliest period of Assyrian history.

The ancient Egyptians were undoubtedly masters of the art of tunnelling. In a very interesting letter received from our much valued friend George Groves, Esq., the secretary[360] of the Palestine Exploration Fund, enclosing the recent reports of Lieutenant Warren, R.E., the writer says, “you will see by Warren’s papers that there is no lack of tunnels at Jerusalem; in fact, the whole of the rock upon which the city is built, appears to be honeycombed with them, but of what exact age they are, it is impossible for us as yet to tell.”

The further reports of Lieutenant Warren cannot fail to be looked for and read with an all-absorbing interest by every lover of biblical literature and history. Already his researches and discoveries show that he is a man with whom his countrymen may well be satisfied. True type of the Englishman, he is earnest, indefatigable, and enduring; incapable of fatigue, he never knows what it is to be beaten. His ordinary work extends not only throughout the day with a temperature varying from 100 to 107, but also far on towards midnight. But at that period of the 24 hours, the Lieutenant says, “the temperature is much cooler.” That is, the thermometer falls to about 80! Recently when having “an attack of incipient fever and not being able to shake it quite off,” he with his faithful assistant and humble companion in all his labours and anxieties, Sergeant Birtles, “who was also very unwell,” went for a three days’ ride through Faghur, &c. “We returned on Saturday quite recovered!” Twelve or thirteen hours a day in the saddle for three successive days, is rather a rough remedy for the cure of fever.

We limit ourselves to two extracts from the reports; the first relates to a discovery made as recently as the 1st of September last, which may be truly described as one of very great importance.

At the date of the last report the tunnel had been traced about 300 feet to the north-east, where it appears to fall into the present aqueduct.

Our second and concluding extract will show the difficulties and dangers attending upon the labours of Lieutenant Warren and his party, as well as the necessity which exists for funds coming in liberally to meet the very heavy expenses of these marvellous explorations.

The oldest tunnel, of which we can find any record or[364] mention in Europe, is that constructed in connection with a great aqueduct built about 540 years B.C. in Boetia, to draw off the waters of the lake Copais, now called lake Topolias, to the sea then called the gulf of Opuntius, and now the Channel of Talanti. The tunnel, nearly a mile in length, became impeded and choked up, and, about 220 years afterwards, was ordered to be restored by Alexander the Great, who had previously “fleshed his maiden sword” in its neighbourhood at one of the few great and decisive battles of the world—that of Chœroncia. It was fought and won by Philip of Macedon, 338 years before the birth of Christ.

As to how the rock was penetrated in the absence of the modern appliance of gunpowder, we are now as ignorant as we are of the mechanical means by which the great pyramids of Egypt and other gigantic works there, were constructed; and we are in the like state as regards a tunnel in the Island of Samos, which we learn on the authority of Strabo was 4,200 Greek feet long—equal to 4,230 modern English feet—that is more than three-quarters of a mile. The height of the mountain through which it was driven was 900 Greek (907 English feet), and its purpose was to supply with water the principal city of the island, the inhabitants of which, 2,600 years ago, were among the most active and enterprising merchants and shipowners of the world. Ancient Samos, now called by the Turks Susam Adasi, is the nearest to the coast of Turkey in Asia of the numerous islands which dot the Eastern Archipelago.

Albano is the first halting station of the day express train from Rome to Naples; close to it is the Alba lake seven miles round, at an elevation of 700 feet above the level of the sea. 2,000 years ago the Romans constructed a duct to carry off its superfluous water into the Tiber; part of the duct is through a tunnel, which, in consequence of modern repairs, is still in a state of perfect preservation. It is a[365] little more than a mile long, and its dimensions are 6 feet high and 4 feet wide; it was completed in a year.

But the grandest tunnel of ancient Italy is the underground canal constructed by the orders of the Emperor Claudius to draw off the waters of the lake then called Fucinus, now Celano, into the River Siris. This stupendous work, three miles long, and nowhere less than twenty feet high, required the labour of 30,000 men for eleven years to accomplish. It has several shafts as in modern tunnels; it is now in a sound state, having been solidly repaired only a few years ago.

In the second volume of La Vie de Cæsar, by the Emperor Napoleon III., pages 412, et seq., (English edition) will be found the account of the siege of Uxellodum (Puy d’Issolu, near Vayrac), the capture of which by Julius Cæsar, U.C., 703, put him in complete possession of Gaul. The town, surrounded on all sides by steep rocks, was, even without being defended, difficult of access to armed men. It was also well provisioned, but, as its water supply was derived from an abundant spring which arose at the foot of the wall of the town, 300 feet from the channel of the River Tourmente, “Cæsar resolved,” says his Imperial historian, “to drain this spring, and for this purpose he did not hesitate to attempt a laborious undertaking. Opposite to the point where the spring rose, he ordered covered galleries to be pushed forward against the mountain, and, under protection of them, a terrace to be raised. Although these works were attended with great danger and fatigue, they were vigorously persevered in. At the same time, a subterranean excavation on a lower plane than the fountain, and running from the galleries, was made. This work, carried on, free from all danger, was executed without being perceived by the Gauls; the terrace attained a height of sixty feet, and was surmounted[366] by a tower of ten stories, which, without equalling the elevation of the wall of the town, a result it was impossible to attain, still commanded the fountain. Its approaches, battered by engines from the top of the tower, became inaccessible; in consequence of this, many men and animals in the place died of thirst. Nevertheless, the Gauls did not yield. At last, the subterranean gallery having reached the veins of the spring, they were taken and turned aside. The besieged seeing the fountain all at once dried up, believed, in their despair, that it was an intervention of the gods: they submitted to necessity, and surrendered.” Researches made for the purposes of the Vie de Cæsar, by M. J. B. Cessac, assisted subsequently by the Permanent Commission of the Department du Lot, have brought this tunnel fully into view. It was carried through the marl; and the proof that the Roman soldiers had not boring tools suited for penetrating rock is afforded by the fact that, when they came upon it, they deviated in the expectation that they would come upon the tufas which, formed by the waters, would necessarily lead towards the spring. The Roman soldiers were right in their expectations.

The galleries and tunnel, as well as the siege-works, are illustrated by two plates, No. 31 and 32 of the Appendix. The tunnel was about 550 yards long. During M. Cessac’s investigation the timber which supported part of it still existed.

The earliest mention that we have of tunnelling in connection with the Alps dates back more than 400 years. Anne,[125] Duchess of Savoy, conceived the grand project of[367] piercing the Col di Tenda, then, and for nearly two centuries and a-half afterwards, the best and easiest pass available between France and north-western Italy, with a tunnel at about one-third of its height from the summit. It appears, beyond doubt, that the works were begun, but at the death of Anne they were abandoned; after a lapse of three centuries they were resumed in 1782 by order of Victor Amadeus III., King of Savoy. The excavation of the mountain was continued, although not vigorously, until 1794, when it was abandoned, in consequence of the invasion of Savoy by the French. The total length of the tunnel would have been about 3,000 yards, and by means of it a precipitous sugar-loaf ascent of 1,300 feet to the top of the pass would have been avoided. At the present time the idea of the tunnel is revived, it being proposed to construct to it a railway on the Fell system,[126] from Cuneo at the foot of the[368] pass, which place is now connected with Turin and the whole system of Italian railways by a line fifty-four miles long. The Cuneo district is one of the most productive of the fertile plains that fringe the southern slopes of the Alps, and extend for a width of from fifty to sixty miles beyond them.

We did not begin either to make canals or to tunnel in Great Britain until a little more than a century ago. Now we have 2,200 miles of inland navigation, of which 213 are in Scotland and 297 in Ireland. Brindley, the engineer of the Duke of Bridgewater, commenced the Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal in 1765, but it took him eleven years to finish it. It was not until 1776 that the first boat was able to go through it. The tunnel is 2,880 yards long, 12 feet wide and 9 feet high. Although Brindley was much troubled with quicksands, the work was completed for the marvellously small sum of £3. 10s. 8d. a yard forward. Some years afterwards, in consequence of the immense increase of the business of the canal, Telford constructed another Harecastle Canal alongside the first, the dimensions of which are—length, 2,936 yards; width, 14 feet; height, 16 feet.

The longest canal tunnel—indeed, the longest tunnel, whether railway or canal—in England is the Marsden, on the Huddersfield Canal, 5,450 yards (3 miles and 170 yards), thus exceeding the longest railway tunnel by 154 yards. The lengths in yards of some of the principal canal tunnels[369] of England are as follows:—Sapperton (Thames and Severn), 4,180; Lapal (Dudley), 3,776; Blisworth (Grand Junction), 3,080; Tipton Green, 2,926; Oxenhall, 2,192; Foulbridge (Leeds and Liverpool), 1,640; Asperton (Hereford and Gloucester), 1,320; Fenny Compton (Oxford), 1,188. From this list we exclude the Old Thames and Medway Canal Tunnel, near Rochester, because the South-Eastern Railway Company, when it purchased the canal, converted the tunnel into one suitable for a railway; its length is 3,740 yards.

The most recently constructed canal tunnel in England is the Netherton Tunnel, on a branch of the Birmingham Canal, having only been completed in 1858. It is 3,036 yards long, 27 feet wide, and 24 feet 4 inches high in the clear. Seventeen shafts altogether were sunk during its construction, of which ten were closed on being used for traffic. The greatest depth of any of the shafts is 344 feet 6 inches, the least 65 feet 9 inches. The time occupied for completing this tunnel was only two years. For full and minute description of this tunnel see proceedings of the “Institution of Civil Engineers,” Vol. XIX.

The village of Highgate, situated on one of the two northern hills in the immediate vicinity of London, was to have had a tunnel 301 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 13 feet high, for the purpose of avoiding the steep and dangerous hill on the great road which led, and still leads from London, towards the North. An Act of Incorporation was obtained, and the undertaking was prosecuted for a time with great energy; but unfortunately, after 130 yards of the work had been accomplished, the whole fell in on the 13th of April, 1812. The accident created an intense sensation, and it was the subject of a drama: “The Highgate Tunnel, or the Secret Arch,” which for a time was a source of attraction at one of the minor theatres at the East end of London. The[370] disaster put an end to the desire for a tunnel, and the present road was constructed through a deep cutting, by means of which much of the steepness of the hill was done away with. Hornsey Lane crosses this cutting, on a noble bridge, which is called the Highgate Arch.

The late Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., in his address to the Institution of Civil Engineers, on his election as President in January 1856, stated, that “tunnels for railways had traversed hills and penetrated mountains to the extent of nearly 70 miles,” the miles of railways opened in the United Kingdom at that time being 8,054.

Mr. J. M. Fraser, in a paper which he read at the Institution of Civil Engineers, on the 24th of March, 1863, considered, that “it would not be inaccurate to assume 80 miles as representing the length of tunnels now daily traversed by railway trains in the United Kingdom.” At that period there were 11,547 miles of railway in operation. As there were 13,882 miles opened for traffic on the 31st of December, 1866 (of which about one-third is single line), we may consider that w e have about 90 miles of line “in tunnel” at the present date, and in these are included the Metropolitan (Underground) Railway and the tunnels[127] on the New Midland Line between Bedford and London, opened for goods traffic in August 1867. We knew as a fact that, during the early construction of railways in England, our engineers resorted to tunnels to avoid gradients and curves (especially the former) that would almost be considered favourable at the present day. As experience increased and the power of the locomotive was developed, so did the amount of tunnel[371] work diminish. Hence it is that if the three estimates just stated be correct, the proportion of tunnel to railway on the 1st of January, 1856, was one mile to every 115; on 1st of January, 1863, one to every 144 miles; on 1st of January, 1867, one to every 154. Had Ireland been excluded from the reckoning,—as she might well be, seeing that there are only three there of the aggregate length of 2,980 yards (exactly 100 yards less than a mile and three-quarters) on the 1,948 miles of railway that are now open for traffic in that part of the United Kingdom,—the proportion of tunnel to railway in England, Scotland, and Wales would have been one mile of the former for every 132½ of the latter. The number of tunnels in Ireland is, however, it is alleged, about to be added to, as, since a very serious accident at “Bray Head,” on the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway, a feeling of uneasiness prevails in the public mind as regards the safety of the line at this point. It is, therefore, contemplated to run four tunnels through the mountain at its side nearest to the sea, at an estimated cost of about £23,000. Bray Head, it may be mentioned, forms the southern boundary of the Bay of Dublin, the Hill of Howth being its boundary to the north.

The longest railway tunnel in England[128] is the Woodhead or Summit Tunnel of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. Its length is 5,296 yards, or 3 miles and 16 yards, with a gradient of 1 in 200, or 26⅖ feet to the[372] mile, the rise being in the direction from Dunford to Woodhead. The ordinary passenger trains require ten minutes from Dunford to Woodhead, but trains travelling from Woodhead to Dunford take a minute less. Therefore, with the gradient favourable, the speed is only at the rate of 20 miles an hour; against the gradient, 18. It is a single line tunnel.

The Stanedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Branch of the London and North-Western Railway is exactly 3 miles long, and it is also a single line tunnel; the gradient is nearly a level. The time for passenger trains through it is six minutes, or at the rate of 30 miles an hour; the time for goods trains is nine minutes, or at the rate of 20 miles an hour. The deepest portion of the tunnel is 600 feet below the upper surface of the mountain.

On the 3rd September, 1867, we came through the Shepherd’s Well Tunnel of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, 2,376 yards long, against the gradient, which is 1 in 100, or 53 feet in the mile for two-thirds of its length, and the remainder nearly level, in two minutes fifteen seconds; on the same day we came through the tunnel in the opposite direction, when the time occupied was one minute forty-two seconds: on the other hand, Mr. Allport, the General Manager of the Midland Railway, to whom we gladly acknowledge ourselves indebted for much valuable information most obligingly afforded, says that the passenger trains are timed to run in each direction through the Dove’s Hole Tunnel 2,420 feet long at the same rate of speed, and actually do run at that speed—nearly 46 miles an hour,—yet the gradient is 1 in 90, or 58⅔ feet per mile. The same for goods trains, their speed is 23 miles an hour in each direction, and Mr. Allport assures us they maintain it in both directions.

[373]

The following are the lengths of some of the principal railway tunnels in Great Britain and of the two longest in Ireland:—

Name.	Company.	Yards.
Medway	South-Eastern	3,740
Sevenoaks	”	3,600
Box	Great Western	3,227
Littleborough	Lancashire and Yorkshire	2,869
Sapperton	Great Western	2,800
Pohhill	South Eastern	2,750
Kilsby	London and North-Western	2,423
Dove’s Hole	Midland	2,420
Shepherd’s Well	Chatham and Dover	2,376
Wapping (L’pool)	London and North-Western	2,250
Lime Street—”	”	2,230
Clayton	London and Brighton	2,200
Sydenham	Chatham and Dover	2,190
Abbot’s Cliff	South-Eastern	2,000
Watford	London and North-Western	1,793
Merstham	South-Eastern	1,780
Clay Cross	Midland	1,780
Sapperton(A)	”	1,760
Corah Wood	Newry and Armagh	1,510
White Ball	Bristol and Exeter	1,470
Belsize	Midland	1,460
Grenfield	Midland	1,400
	North-Eastern	1,364
Thackley	Midland	1,360
Honiton	London and South-Western	1,350
Bletchingly[374]	South-Eastern	1,324
Lydgate	Lancashire and Yorkshire	1,322
Wichwar	Midland	1,320
Shanklin	Isle of Wight	1,320
Shakspeare	South-Eastern	1,320
Almonsbury	Bristol and South Wales	1,320
Kilbarry	Great Southern and Western	1,290
Primrose Hill	London and North-Western	1,250
Glasgow	Edinburgh and Glasgow	1,250
Potter’s Bar	Great Northern	1,210
Balcombe	London and Brighton	1,122
Brislington (No. 1)	Great Western	2,200
Brislington (No. 2)	”	1,100
Brislington (No. 3)	”	330
North Welwyn	Great Northern	1,046
Penscliff	”	968
Guildford	London and South-Western	965
Saltwood	South-Eastern	954
Bangor	Chester and Holyhead	910
Chislehurst	South Eastern	900
Elstree	Midland	900
Gillingham	Chatham and Dover	895
Stoke	Great Northern	880
Milford	Midland	836
Calandar	Edinburgh and Glasgow	830
Whitstable	South-Eastern	822
Haddon	Midland	800
Oakley	”	800
Bishopton	Glasgow and South-Western	760
Coates Park	Midland	740
Buckhorn Weston	Salisbury and Yeovil	739
Belmont	Chester and Holyhead	737
Penmaen Bach[375]	Chester and Holyhead	721
Tottenham	Great Northern	714
Leeds	North-Eastern	700
Copenhagen	Great Northern	694
Dover	Chatham and Dover	682
Manton	Midland	660
Ampthill	”	640
Chivet	”	620
Martello	South-Eastern	616
Barnet	Great Norther	605
Chelsfield	South Eastern	600

(A) Followed by an open cutting of 100 yards; then a tunnel of 440 yards. The gradient in these tunnels is 1 in 70. For full details respecting them, see Paper read by Mr. Charles Nixon at the Institution of Civil Engineers. Proceedings, volume for 1842.

Some of our tunnels have been extremely costly, the Kilsby, for instance, £125 per yard forward, total £302,000. The face of the Primrose Hill Tunnel at its London end cost £7,000, thereby adding to its total cost at the rate of £5. 15s. a yard. Up to 1857, the average cost of all tunnels was £102 per yard, or for 70 miles £12,320,000. Tunnels have certainly been constructed more cheaply since then.[129] Mr.[376] J. G. Fraser assumes them to have cost at the average rate of £45 per lineal yard, but this must be considerably below the mark, notwithstanding that many of the more recently constructed tunnels have only been for “single line.” The dimensions of these tunnels on the 4 feet 8½-inch gauge, are usually as follows:—12 feet wide at rail level, 17 feet from rail level to soffit, whilst for a double line of the same gauge tunnels are usually about 25 feet wide at rail level, and about 22 feet from rail level to soffit. On the exceptional Great Western gauge, they would be respectively about a fourth higher and a third wider.

We must only touch the Thames Tunnel at a tangent. Its length is 1,200 feet with two arches each 13 feet 9 inches at the springing of the arch; 16 feet 4 inches high from the invert. It cost £1,000 a yard, or for 400 yards £400,000, two and a-half times as much per yard forward as the most expensive estimate for the Mont Cenis Tunnel, more than three times as much as its cost per yard forward up to the present time. In addition, the approaches of the Thames Tunnel (for foot passengers only) cost £54,714, total £454,714. It is now about to be utilised as a railway tunnel, having been purchased by the East London Railway[377] Company for the purpose of bringing together the lines at the north-eastern and south-eastern ends of London.

As a rule, the tunnel mileage (except in one country only, Spain) is much less in proportion to total mileage on the various continental railways than it is in England. This is especially the case in almost all the more recently constructed lines, but more particularly so in Germany. Here, the ingenuity of the engineer has been exercised to avoid tunnels wherever possible, and not to seek them. We might cite many instances in proof, but limit ourselves to one, which must be familiar to many—the line along the left bank of the Elbe, between Dresden and the Austrian frontier at Bodenbach, through the beautiful Saxon Switzerland. There are, however, tunnels in Germany, the longest of which is that which has already been mentioned, the summit Tunnel of the Sœmmering Pass, 1,565 yards, just 195 yards less than an English mile.

There are long tunnels in France, both canal[130] and railway, and as regards the first-named class, our readers will hardly be prepared to learn that there has existed for forty-five years in France, an underground passage at Cunhardy called a tunnel, which is in length only 314 yards less than the Great Tunnel of the Alps; yet such is the fact,—the Norieu underground passage which forms a portion of the Canal de St. Quentin, is 13,128 yards long, or 7½ miles all but 72 yards. Its maximum depth below the surface is 86 yards. It is only 4 feet 11 inches wide and is without towing path. It was opened in 1822 at a cost of only £2. 12s. per yard. Seven years were occupied in its construction. But the most important canal tunnel in France, in respect of its width and elevation, is that of Rigueval, which is also on the[378] Canal de St. Quentin. It is 6,237 yards long, 26 feet 2 inches wide, of which 5 feet 3 inches are for the towing path along which horse traction is used. The Tunnel of Manvages, 5,320 yards long, is on the Canal du Marn au Rhin. Of the two other long canal tunnels (both on the Canal de Bourgogne), that of Sousey is 3,873 yards long, 7 feet 3 wide. It has not a towing path. That of Pouilly is 3,630 yards long and 20 feet 2 inches wide, including a towing path of the width of 5 feet 3 inches. The cost of the Sousey was £9. 4s. a yard; of Pouilly £80 a yard.

The longest railway tunnel in France is that of La Nerthe on the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway, between Avignon and Marseilles. It is 4,638 metres (5,101 yards). It cost £90. 10s. per metre. Its shafts vary in depth from 65 to 623 feet.[131] There are twenty-four of these shafts, which are not over the centre of the tunnel, but about 30 feet on one side. They communicate with it by lateral galleries 10 feet wide, and as high as the tunnel itself. The shafts are all circular, about 10 feet wide, and have all been left open. The gradient from one end to the centre is 1 in 500—10½ feet in the mile. It then falls to the other entrance at the rate of 1 in 1,000. The tunnel of Blaisy on the same line, near Dijon, is 4,100 metres (4,510 yards). It cost £77 per metre. It had twenty shafts during construction, of which ten are now closed. Nine of the shafts are from 515 to 643 feet below the surface. They are not[379] over the tunnel, but about 32 feet on one side, and connected to it by lateral galleries. The Credo Tunnel on the Geneva Branch of the same line 3,949 metres (4,344 yards), £65. 12s. per metre. There are several other long railway tunnels in France. That of Rilly near Rheims, is 3,500 metres long. There were nine shafts during construction, of which four were closed when the railway was opened. Although lined with masonry throughout, the thickness being 20 inches in compact chalk, and 32 inches in that which was seamy, the cost was only £28. 15s. per yard. Hommarting Tunnel (Chemin de Fer de l’Est), is 2,780 metres long, Pissy Poville, 2,400 metres; Tarare is a very long one but we are not sure of its exact extent. The Tunnel of Arschwiller, on the Chemin de Fer de l’Est, is 2,678 metres, and is close to the tunnel of the canal from the Marne to the Rhine, named on the previous page the Tunnel of Manvages. In fact, where they enter the mountain they are at the same level, and a double arched entrance—the intervening pier being only 22 feet thick, and the arches precisely similar—receives them both. The canal tunnel was completed before that for the railway, which latter diverges from the line of the former at the rate of 26 feet in 1,000, so that at the end of the railway tunnel it is 60 feet from that of the canal. The canal then makes a bend and presently crosses over the railway tunnel, as it has a descending gradient of 1 in 200, and at what may be called its diverged entrance, it is 44 feet below the level of the canal. The railway tunnel took nearly eight years to construct at a cost of £38. 10s. per metre forward.

There is also a large number of tunnels from 500 to 1,500 metres long. The price per metre forward varies nearly as much as in England, its maximum being £95, that of Batignolles, near Paris, on the Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest, a short one, only 333 metres (366 yards); minimum £30, that[380] of Terre Noire 1,641 metres, on the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean.

The longest railway tunnel in Belgium is that of Braine le Compte, 641 metres (705 yards). It cost £46 a metre. There are altogether eighteen tunnels along the 15½ miles of picturesque line of railway between Liege and Verviers; they are all short, none exceeding 400 metres in length; their cost was exactly £50 a metre forward. There is only one long tunnel in Switzerland, that of Hauenstein near Olten, on the railway between Basle and Berne, its length is 2,731 yards, and, notwithstanding the numerous difficulties which attended its construction, its cost was only £80 per yard. It might be expected that in an undulating country like Switzerland there would be a great many tunnels on its railways; such, however, is not the case, the larger proportion of the railways are constructed in the comparatively level valleys, and when engineers come upon rough ground, as a rule, they prefer stiff gradients to very expensive works. This, however is not always the case; witness the passage of the Jura from Pontarlieu towards Neufchatel; here there is the combination of expensive works with a steep ascending and then a steep falling gradient. These might have been greatly alleviated, if not altogether avoided, by a tunnel of comparatively short length; the engineer, it is said, wished to erect for himself, in this work, a monument perennius ære. He has succeeded.

The longest tunnel upon a railway in Italy, now open for traffic, is on the Giovi incline, near Genoa, 3,225 yards, or five yards over two miles. The longest of the two on the Brachia pass of the Apennines, between Pistoja and Poretta, is (as already stated) 3,300 yards; the length of the next longest, on the same pass, is 2,860 yards. A tunnel longer by a few yards than that on the Giovi incline, is in[381] process of construction on the branch which is to connect Naples by a direct line with the Adriatic. The tunnel Maggioni, between Florence and Rome, is 1,170 metres (1,287 yards) long.

The natural undulatory, in many places almost mountainous, character of Spain, has rendered necessary the construction of numerous tunnels on Spanish Railways. The following is an abridgment of much interesting information on this subject, published by the Spanish Government last summer, and translated into French a few weeks ago.

On the line from Madrid to Saragossa, the length of which is 213 miles, there are twenty-six tunnels; the most important of them is Horna, 1,010 metres. The total length of these twenty-six tunnels is 4,791 metres, or 3⅝ miles. On the Manzanares to Cordova Line, the length of which is 243½ kilometres, there are thirteen tunnels, the longest of which is 1,025 metres; their total length 3,092 metres. The Albaceta to Carthagena Line, is 154 miles long; the chief tunnel is that of Almadenes, along the gorge of the same name, its length is 1,056 metres. There are four short tunnels on this line, all in the vicinity of the gorge; their combined length is only 393 metres, making, with the tunnel of Almadenes, 1,449 metres.

The Northern of Spain—Madrid to Irun—is 399 miles long. Although it is not the longest, it is probably the most important railway in Spain, traversing nearly throughout its entire extent, a difficult, and, at places, an extremely hilly country, and finally terminating at the Pyrenees, where it meets the Bayonne and Irun Railway. Thus, on the section from L’Escurial to Avila, 44 miles long, there are sixteen tunnels, the total length of which is 4,408 metres, all of which are associated with numerous extremely difficult works of art in their immediate vicinity, some of the viaducts[382] varying from 95 to 135 feet in height, with other proportional dimensions. It is in this section that the Guaddarama Mountains are traversed, and, until the locomotive crossed the Mont Cenis the summit of this railway was the highest in Europe, 4,505 feet above sea level. On the section between Otzaurte and Beasain, 33 miles long, there are twenty-three tunnels, the total length of which is 10,351 metres. Some of the works of art on this section are magnificent in their character and construction. The tunnels on the other sections of the line are not so numerous; nevertheless, they are altogether fifty-eight in number, with an aggregate length of 22,160 metres, exactly 14 miles.

Turning from the most difficult Spanish railway in point of construction, to the easiest for the greater part of its extent, the Seville, Xeres and Cadiz Line, the length of which is 103 miles, we find that there are no tunnels upon it, although on the section between Xeres and Cadiz there are several extremely difficult works of art.

The Alar del Rey to Santander Railway is 87 miles long. It has twenty-one short tunnels upon it, the total length of which is 4,808 metres.

The length of the Palencia and Astorya Line is 110 miles. It runs from Palencia to Gigon, on the Bay of Biscay. This railway is only in course of construction. There are several tunnels upon it, of which the particulars have not yet been published.

The Saragossa and Barcelona Line is 230 miles in length. In the section between Cervara and Tarrassa, 59 miles long, there are sixteen tunnels. As their aggregate length is only 3,591 metres, it will be observed that they are all very short ones. The other portions of the line are of comparatively easy construction.

The Ciudad Real to Badajoz Railway, 213 miles long, is[383] a line presenting scarcely any difficulties of construction, and it has no tunnel upon it from one end to the other.

The principal difficulty connected with the Tudela and Bilbao Line is that at its terminus at Bilbao, it is barely above the level of the sea; but it has to ascend 2,060 feet in 29½ miles. There are no heavier works in all Spain than those upon this section. For more than half a mile the principal branch of the Ebro has been deviated, and the railway has been constructed upon the old bed of the river.

On the Barcelona to Santa Coloma Railway there are seven tunnels, very short in length; the longest is 443 metres long.

The Tarragona to Barcelona Line is 64 miles long; though passing through a level country for the greater part of its extent, it has one section—that between Villa-franca and Marterello, in which the rise is 540 feet in 15 miles. There are five tunnels upon this length, all short ones; but they were very difficult as regards construction, and they are very troublesome in maintenance.

The Lerida Reus and Tarragona Line is 63 miles. It has only one tunnel upon it, that of Terres, 700 metres long.

The Cordova to Malaga Railway, 121 miles, is extremely easy in point of construction, except for 6¼ miles at the passage of the Guitanas, where there are no less than twelve tunnels and six great bridges. In one of the tunnels a singular circumstance was discovered during construction. The miners suddenly came upon a crevasse or split in the mountain which extended from its lofty and precipitous summit to a great depth beneath the part bored through. The space is traversed by a bridge, the only one in the records of tunnels that we remember to have met with.

There is one very long canal tunnel in Spain—the Canal of Urgel—between the Ebro and one of its affluents, the[384] Segro. This canal is 90 miles long and the tunnel is of the length of 5,230 metres.

The grandest canal in Spain for water supply is the “Canal of Isabel II.” It furnishes the supply for Madrid. It is built after the system of the ancient Romans—that is, aqueducts constructed in masonry arched over. Its total length is 45 miles. It has besides, thirty-one tunnels, partly cut straight through rocks which the canal traverses, and partly side-cut tunnels (one is five-eighths of a mile long) for obtaining water. At the present time, when the question of supplying London and other important cities with water is much agitated, it may be well to mention that by means of this canal 200,000 cubic metres of water, or 600 litres (a litre is about a quart) per inhabitant are brought to Madrid daily. Of these 600 litres 100 per head is for domestic use, and 500 for irrigating the districts adjoining Madrid. The quality of the water is said to be excellent; indeed it is alleged that if the air which it contains were abstracted it might be considered as distilled water. The pressure of the water in the conduits is almost without exception sufficient to raise it to the upper stories of the highest houses in Madrid. In some quarters of the city it could rise 75 yards above them. There are two road tunnels in Spain, one on the road between Grenada and Motril, 300 metres long, and one on the Pyrennean road between Barbastro and Benasquez, the length of which is 90 metres.

Spain, for a country with a population under 16,000,000, cannot be said to be badly off for means of communication. The total length of roads in the kingdom on the 1st of January, 1867, was 4,137,640 miles of the first class, 3,265,700 of the second, and 1,908,112 of the third. About 2,800,000 are in course of construction. It is intended eventually to extend the road system of Spain to a total of[385] about 22,500,000 miles. As already mentioned, the total length of Spanish railways on the 1st of January, 1867, was 3,182 miles.

There are few tunnels of any length in the United States. The Cincinnati Tunnel is 3,337 yards long; the Kingwood 1,366. The Alleghany mountains are perforated by one, the property of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which is 1,204 yards long, 24 feet wide, and 22 feet high. There are four through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, the longest of which is 1,955 yards, the next 1,418 yards, with an uniform gradient of 1 in 70. The Long Duck Tunnel, New Jersey, is 1,437 yards in length. But the Hoosac Tunnel, Massachusetts, will, when completed, be the longest railway tunnel in existence—except the tunnel of the Alps—8,166 yards; it was commenced in 1855, but it has only been vigorously proceeded with since 1864; its total estimated cost is to be £1,100,000, of which about £420,000 have been expended upon the 2,350 yards already constructed; its width is 26 feet, height 24 feet; the rock through which it is pierced is mica slate mixed with a little quartz.[132]

General Haupt, of the United States Army, the engineer-in-chief of this tunnel, is said, by the Times, to have invented one of the most compact, effective, and economical drilling machines, applicable for boring tunnels, driving adits of mines, and indeed for every description of work in which the hardest kinds of rocks have to be pierced. It is stated that it can drive holes in granite, or even quartz, at the rate of nearly four inches in a minute, and that as soon as about twenty-eight inches have been drilled, the blasts take place, when the[386] machine can, in consequence of its great lightness and portability, be immediately carried over the debris caused by the explosion, and be at work upon the new face of the tunnel in the course of a few minutes.

We extract the “latest novelty” in tunnels from a New Zealand newspaper received in England August 1867,—

“A Tunnel through an Extinct Volcano.—The Moorhouse Tunnel, opening up the fertile plains of the Canterbury settlement, is 2,838 yards long, and cost £195,000. It affords, we believe, the first instance where a complete section of an extinct volcano has been opened out. The elaborate drawings prepared by Dr. Haas for exhibition in Paris, will draw the attention of geologists to the fact, and doubtless afford the greatest satisfaction to the scientific world. The rock in the tunnel may be described as a series of lava streams and beds of tufa, intersected by vertical dykes of phonolite. The lava streams consist generally of scoria, overlaying a coarse pink trachyte, which passes gradually through shades of grey, purple, and blue into a black finely grained dolorite intensely hard and tough; the lightest and softest rock being at the top, and the densest and blackest at the bottom. Regarded from an engineering point of view, the work is considered eminently successful.”

The New Zealanders are naturally very much elated at the completion of this, to them, great and important work, of which the New Zealand Examiner, a monthly journal published in London, and devoted exclusively to the interests of the New Zealand settlements, thus speaks in its August number:—

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[387]

“That perseverance which has commanded success for England in so many fields has achieved another triumph in New Zealand. For six years has a quiet, but none the less remarkable, work been going on in the range of hills that divides Christchurch from Lyttelton. Possessed of a splendid harbour, the Province of Canterbury has had to suffer ever since its foundation from the difficulty of communication between its capital and port. At first sight the range of hills appear impassable, and are sufficient to frighten new arrivals. For the first years of the settlement’s existence there was nothing in the shape of a road until the track over the hills was widened into a bridle path. All goods destined for Christchurch had to be sent round in boats up the river. Then came the cutting of a cart road winding round the hills, and eventually reaching Heathcote (which may be properly called the Christchurch side of the range). The latter road was opened in 1859, and ever since the traffic on it has continued increasing. In 1856 an attempt was made to introduce steam navigation on the river, for the quicker and cheaper conveyance of goods, this unfortunately terminated disastrously in the wreck of the steamship Alma. The course of the river having been staked out in 1858, the Planet commenced running, and from that time the number of coasting steamers has steadily increased, while the sailing vessels from being confined to craft of 15 to 20 tons have risen to 100 tons. Still the great desideratum of a direct and rapid communication remained, and various schemes were propounded, but none carried into effect till May 1861, when the Provincial Government accepted a tender from Messrs. Holmes & Co., to complete a line of railway from Lyttelton to Christchurch (a distance of six miles) in five years, for £240,500. In this contract the tunnel, 2,838 yards long (the cost of which was estimated at £195,000), was included. The first sod of the line was cut on the 17th July, 1861, and for six long years, night and day, has the process of boring through the mountain gone on. During that time the contractors have met with all sorts of difficulties, not the least of which have been the attractions offered to their men by the successive outbreaks of the Otago and Canterbury diggings, but, lending their whole energies to the task, the works have not been stopped for a single day. The completion of this work must be productive of the highest benefits to Canterbury.

It will thus be seen that this tunnel cost at the rate of £69 per yard forward, and it required six years to complete it at a cost both of money and time very onerous to a young settlement. With Mr. Fell’s system the tunnel would have been altogether avoided, and it is probable that the line would have been completed in about two years, at a price not exceeding £60,000, instead of the £240,500 it has cost the colony to construct it.

The total length of London’s greatest tunnel, the Metropolitan Railway, from Bishop’s Road to Moorgate Street, is 23,616 feet, or 4½ miles, less 144 feet. Starting from Bishop’s Road, the measurements are as follows:—For 3,024 feet, or 96 feet less than five-eighths of a mile, there is tunnel, then an open space of 675 feet around the Edgware Road station. From there to King’s Cross, 2 miles and 496[388] feet, is tunnel; but in this distance there are three most effective means of ventilation: the first is at Baker Street Station, 2,640 feet, or exactly half a mile from the Edgware Road Station. The second is at Portland Road Station, 2,978 feet, or 338 feet more than half a mile, from Baker Street. Portland Road Station is the most open of all the four intermediate stations. The third is at Gower Street Station, 1,920 feet, or 60 feet more than three-eighths of a mile. From Gower Street to King’s Cross Station is the longest interval between two stations, 3,900 feet, or 60 feet less than three-quarters of a mile. The distance between the King’s Cross and the Farringdon Street Stations is 5,192 feet, or 88 feet less than a mile. In this distance there are two tunnels—if one of them may be so called, for it is only 220 feet long; the other is 2,170 feet, or 190 feet more than three-eighths of a mile. In the remaining 3,836 feet, or 124 feet less than three-quarters of a mile, there are two little tunnels, one 523 and one 91 feet. During the hours the sun is above the horizon, complete light is never absent in the 91 feet tunnel—the train is no sooner in it than it is out again; and in the longer one there is for a moment or so “a dim religious light,” and then it is actual daylight. The amount of this, however, must depend upon the season of the year at which the passenger goes through it. In certain dark days of November it is hard to say which is the darker of the two—the tunnel or the daylight.

The foregoing measurements will be readily understood by reference to the diagram herewith appended. It is a section of the Metropolitan Railway from end to end.

As regards its ventilation we shall speak presently.

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[389]

There are two railways in connection with the Metropolitan Railway, which are also to be carried underneath portions of London. The Metropolitan District Railway, when finished, will form the southern side of the inner railway circle that is to encompass London. It connects at Kensington, with the “Metropolitan Extension Railway” (a continuation from Paddington of the Metropolitan Railway). This extension is to run through Brompton to Pimlico, where it will be in closest proximity to the Victoria Stations of the London, Chatham and Dover, and of the London, Brighton and South Coast Companies; from there to Westminster Bridge, whence it is carried along, and, in fact, forms part of, the Thames Embankment, to Blackfriars Bridge. Here it is again in close contact, although at a different level, with the line of the London, Chatham and Dover Company, near its Ludgate Hill station. Proceeding eastward, it is carried as far as Trinity Square, Tower Hill, where it is to meet the eastern “Metropolitan Extension” of the Metropolitan Railway. These two sections finished, the whole inner Metropolitan circle will be completed. The distance from Kensington to Trinity Square is 33,150 lineal feet, or 6 miles and 1,470 feet, of which a little more than a third—that is, 10,974 feet—or 2 miles and 414 feet, are open cuttings or glass-covered stations, and a little less than two-thirds, or 4 miles and 1,056 feet, are in tunnel. The open cuttings and the tunnels are constantly alternating; the three longest of the latter are 665 feet; one is close to Gloucester Road Station, Brompton; one is at Tothill Street, Westminster; and the third is in the Thames Embankment. The gradients are favourable, there being only 2,352 feet (or less than half a mile) of 1 in 100, or 52 feet in the mile. These are all situated between Blackfriars Bridge and Trinity Square, Tower Hill. In addition to the foregoing main line of the Metropolitan District Line, there is to be a railway from Kensington High Street to join the West London Railway—the[390] line that connects the London and North-Western and the Great Western railway systems north of the Thames with the Clapham Junction Station on the south. From Clapham Junction there is unbroken connection with all parts of the London and South-Western, and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railways.

The length of the Kensington and West London Extension of the Metropolitan District Extension is to be 7,470 feet, or 450 feet less than a mile and a half, of which 5,565 are to be entirely open, 525 station roof and 1,380 covered way.

The St. John’s Wood Railway, which starts from the Baker Street Station of the Metropolitan Railway, is in tunnel throughout, and is a series of stiff gradients, culminating with the stiffest of all at its St. John’s Wood end. The line is 2¾ miles long, and its total rise in this length will be 255 feet, but the elevations are very unequally distributed. Starting from Baker Street Station, it proceeds for a short distance on a level, and then it rises 1 in 90 and 1 in 44 to the Regent’s Canal. From the canal the line descends slightly, and then at three quarters of a mile from Baker Street will commence an ascent of 1 in 60, or at the rate of 88 feet in the mile, for 660 yards. Then follows an incline of the same length of 1 in 150 (35 feet in the mile), then for 440 yards nearly level, except, just for a few yards, 1 in 80. At one mile and 1,320 yards from Baker Street commences a gradient of 1 in 27, or 196 feet in the mile for a length of 1,320 yards. Half way up the gradient will be a station, but the steepness of the gradient will be diminished for about 200 feet to 1 in 250, or 21 feet in the mile. Mr. John Fowler, the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, is engineer of the Metropolitan, the Metropolitan District, and the St. John’s Wood Railway Companies.[391] The construction of an extension of this last-named line to Hampstead has been authorised.

The longest tunnel in Europe over land and over water is the Britannia Tubular Bridge built across the Menai Straits, parallel to and some mile and a-quarter from Telford’s beautiful Suspension Bridge opened for road traffic in 1829. It is 1,834 feet 9 inches long, and in fact consists of two independent wrought iron tubes, each placed alongside of the other. There are four spans, two of 460 feet each, and two of 230—that is, the tubes rest upon two abutments and three towers of masonry—at an elevation of 100 feet above high water mark. The tower called the Britannia Tower is built upon a solid rock that projects above high water nearly in the centre of the Channel. The summit of this tower is 130 feet higher than the level of the railway in the tubes. The total weight of iron in the tubes is 9,360 tons, each tube of 460 feet weighs 1,587 tons, each of 230 feet weighs 753 tons, but these weights of iron are greatly in excess of what would be put in tubular bridges of like spans at the present time; and for a length but little exceeding a third of a mile, one tube, and not two, would be considered more than sufficient for all traffic, in both directions, that could be conveyed through it. The tubular bridge across the Conway River, forty-five miles from Chester, consists of two tubes placed alongside each other, each is 400 feet long and 1,180 tons. The combined cost of the two bridges, Britannia and Conway, is always set down at a million sterling. Now-a-days they would be constructed for about half that amount.

But Canada, or rather the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, can put forward the boast that it possesses the longest over-land-and-water tunnel in the world. The Victoria Railway Bridge is constructed across the River[392] St. Lawrence just above the ancient city of Montreal. The entire length of this stupendous structure is 3,470 yards, or exactly 50 yards less than 2 miles. The tube is approached on each side by a solid abutment, that on the north side being 266 yards long, on the south 400 yards. Deducting these measurements from the total length of the bridge, the tunnel or tubular portion of it is 2,804 yards long, or 164 yards more than a mile and a-half. In addition to the abutments there are 24 piers of masonry which it is impossible to exceed in grandly massive strength and solidity. The current of the St. Lawrence runs where the bridge is constructed at a rate never less than six miles an hour, and in some parts of the stream its rate is ten. The real giant force, however, which the piers have to resist is the ice at its breaking up some time between the last ten days of each April and the first six or seven of each May. The late Mr. Robert Stephenson the engineer of this bridge, as well as those at the Menai Straits and at Conway, estimated the ice pressure on some of the central piers of the Victoria Bridge at six thousand tons each. It is therefore not to be wondered that there is no stone opposed to the current at each of these piers which weighs less than ten tons, and that all should be clamped together by massive bars of iron drilled into each block, and held fast for ever by molten lead poured into each interstice. The total amount of masonry in the bridge is 3,000,000 cubic feet, or about 22,000 tons. There are 25 tubes or spans of which 24 are 130 feet long each, and the centre, which is 60 feet above the surface of the water, is 242 feet long. The total amount of iron in the structure is 10,400 tons. The contractors for the bridge were Messrs. Peto & Betts, their resident engineer was Mr. James Hodges, and to him the chief merit in connection[393] with the construction is due. Its cost was £1,350,000. It was opened for traffic at the period of the Prince of Wales’ visit to Canada and the United States in 1860.

So far as regards tunnels actually constructed. We now come to speak of tunnels suggested. These may he divided into two classes—tunnels under rivers and tunnels under the ocean. Of the former, the first to he mentioned is that proposed to he constructed under the Mersey, to connect its Cheshire and Lancashire sides together. The scheme is propounded by Mr. John Hawkshaw, the eminent engineer, in a letter which he addressed to the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board, on the 31st of August last. Mr. Hawkshaw having stated that it is evident a bridge or viaduct over the river would interfere with the navigation, whilst the sand-stone rock which underlies its bed affords facilities for the construction of a tunnel, proceeds to show that the river should be crossed between New Brighton and Bootle, that being the best point for connecting together the dock lines of railway on each side of the river Mersey.

The cost is set forth as follows:—

Total length of lines 9¼ miles; length of tunneling, 4,800 lineal yards: estimated cost £785,000.

The lowness of the estimate is owing to it not being necessary to pass through valuable property, or important commercial buildings of any kind. Nevertheless Mr. Hawkshaw feels that the usual allowance for contingencies should be increased from 10 to 20 per cent. on the outlay. Still it brings the total amount considerably under a million. Mr. Hawkshaw does not ask the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board to be at the total cost of these works, however important it is that the two several portions of the board’s establishment should be closely united in the manner which this tunnel accomplishes, but that it should only contribute a[394] portion of the outlay—an outlay which he considers will not be more than a third of what will be required for accomplishing any other of the schemes that have been proposed for carrying a tunnel under the Mersey.

In 1864 the Dublin Trunk Connecting Railway obtained an Act for the construction of a railway in the immediate vicinity of Dublin. Part of the plan sanctioned by Parliament is a tunnel under the Liffey, less than half a mile from its mouth. The depth of the tunnel-top under the bed of the river will be 20 feet. The stratum of limestone rock is curiously placed where the tunnel is to be pierced. The bottom of it will rest upon the rock, but the tunnel itself will be constructed through the superjacent clay. It will be lined with brick in cement. Its length under the river is to be 324 yards, and the approaches to it, which are to be constructed in the manner known as “cut and cover,” are to be 430 yards each. The gradients on both sides will be 1 in 70, or 75½ feet in the mile. The cost is estimated by Mr. John Burke, the engineer for its construction, at £200 per yard forward.

A proposal has recently been made to construct a tunnel under the Humber from Barton to Hessle, close to Hull. A bridge over the river has often been spoken of; but its estimated cost, £700,000, render its construction hopeless. It is considered that the tunnel, which would be about 2,000 yards long, could be constructed for £150 a yard, and, with an allowance of £50,000 for approaches, the total cost would not exceed £350,000. It is not probable, however, that the railway companies concentrating on both sides of the river would find it to their interests, at all events at present, to carry this project into execution. The company that would most benefit by it would be the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire.

[395]

Mr. Peter W. Barlow, civil engineer, has recently obtained permission from the City Commissioners of Sewers to construct a subway beneath the Thames, which is to be carried from Lower Thames Street to the opposite shore of the river. The dimensions of the subway are to be sufficient to allow a loaded omnibus to pass through it. If constructed economically, there is no reason why it should not answer commercially.

We perceive by recent accounts from America that it was originally intended to connect the railways concentrating on both banks of the Mississippi at St. Louis, by a tunnel under the bed of the river; but this plan has been abandoned, and instead of it a “sub-aqueous iron tubular bridge” is to be laid on the bed of the river, which is about half a mile wide in this vicinity.

The difficulties connected with crossing the upper Indus at Attock, a thousand miles from its mouth, and 940 feet above sea level, have long been felt. Colonel Robertson, of the Madras Staff Corps, therefore, proposed a scheme for going under instead of over it. In his report on the subject submitted to Government in 1859, he stated that, as the geological formation at Attock, is a compact slate rock, it is easily worked; and under the bed of the river it is apparently not broken by any great fissures which might possibly endanger the tunnel. Colonel Robertson fixed the upper level of the excavation for the tunnel at 60 feet under low water cold weather mark, or, at the water’s deepest point, 20 feet below the bed of the river; the lining of the tunnel to be 2 feet thick, and as its height is 20 feet, the foundation level would be 82 feet below the low water level. To guard against all risk of inundation through floods, which raise the level of the river from 50 to 92 feet (it was at the latter height in 1841), the two entrances of the tunnel are to be[396] 100 feet above low water level. The width of the river at the point selected is 1,215 feet. This portion of the tunnel is to be nearly on the level; but the gradient of the approaches to it on each side, each 3,720 long, is to be 1 in 40, or at the rate of 132 feet in the mile; the total length of actual tunnel to be 7,215 feet, as some portion of each approach is to be in open cutting. There are ten shafts, each 600 feet apart, except at the actual river, where they are 1,580 feet apart. In 1860 the works were commenced, and a drift gallery had been nearly carried through, when all operations were suspended; but it is intended that they be resumed in prospect of the railway between Lahore and Pesshawer being constructed. The revived estimate makes the cost of the tunnel £105,000, if the gradient on each side be 1 in 20; but if it be flattened to 1 in 30, the estimate is £143,300.[133]

The greatest tunnels that we know of connected with mining (irrespective of galleries for working in mines) are the great drainage galleries at the mines of Clausthal, in the Hartz, 11,377 yards, or 6½ miles long, and in many parts 900 feet below the surface of the superjacent mountain. The second is the Great Adit, which drains several of the important mines in the parish of Gwennap, Cornwall. It is from 30 to 60 feet below the surface, and is 30 miles long. There is an adit level of 10,000 yards to the celebrated silver-mines of Norway.

There are two modes by which it is proposed to carry a subway between France and England,[134] the first is by means[397] of iron tubes laid on the bed of the ocean, the other is by actual tunnel. At the present time no less than three competitors present themselves for the honour of constructing the former, and there is only one whose scheme is before the public for the latter. The three advocates for the tubular system are Mr. James Chalmers, Mr. B. Hilmer, and M. Thome de Gammond, of Paris. Each has his mode of laying down and connecting the tubes together, but the great and distinguishing feature of the plan of M. De Gammon, is that he proposes to construct a great oceanic station, which is to be a kind of half-way halting house between the two shores. Here also is to be a harbour and three ship’s basins, so that any one returning from a long voyage and being in a hurry to get either to London or to Paris, or to any other place—it signifies not where—in England or the Continent, might land and at once proceed upon the terra firma portion of his journey. In the centre of the harbour there is to be a huge shaft 330 yards in diameter, which would serve the double purpose of ventilating the tunnel, and of providing means of ingress and egress between the Islet de Varne station and the upper and outer world. All these great advantages—tunnel, shaft, and railway—are to obtained at the cost, as estimated by M. De Gammond, of £7,200,000!

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[399]

The advocates for the tubes insist that theirs is the right system, in consequence of its having been publicly stated that Mr. Hawkshaw has satisfied himself by many borings that the bottom of the English channel between Dover and Cape Grinez, has too many and too deep “faults” to permit of tunnelling. Mr. George Remington, C.E., however, considers he gets over the difficulty by avoiding the line originally selected for the Anglo-French tunnel. He therefore proposes Dungenness as his English starting point. The depths of the tunnel is, says Mr. Remington, to be from 90 to 130 feet below the bed of the channel, and there are to be three main shafts, the first at the point of Dungenness, the second on the shoal in mid-channel, where there are only eleven feet at low water spring tide, and the third at Cape Grinez. These shafts are to be 100 feet diameter, and being carried up considerably above the sea are to act as lighthouses. It would be inconsistent with the character of this work to enter into an account of the technical details which Mr. Remington proposes to adopt. We shall, therefore, limit ourselves to saying that in addition to the three intended permanent shafts, it is likewise proposed to put down ten temporary shafts, the cost of each of which is not to exceed £20,000. With these thirteen shafts, says the editor of Engineering, “the tunnel may be carried on in twenty-six sections, and the distance from shore to shore being twenty-six miles, gives only one mile for each section, or two miles for a shaft, and assuming an advance of only one yard a day for each headway, the whole distance may be accomplished in about five and a-half years,” exclusive of the couple of years required for sinking the shafts.

The following is Mr. Remington’s estimate:—

56,320 yards run of tunnelling of £100	£5,632,000
Three main shafts, at £50,000	150,000
Ten temporary shafts, at £19,800	198,000
Six miles of approaches, at £20,000	120,000
36 miles of permanent way, at £4,500	162,000
Stations	100,000
—————
	£6,362,000
Contingencies	636,200
—————
Total	£6,998,200

Is it practicable? An excellent authority, although, no doubt, a little of the “go-a-head” class, says, “Yes,” and informs the world that there is judicious “provision for gas lighting, water pipes, electric telegraph and proper drainage,[400] and indeed all that can be desired to make the passage through the tunnel as safe and comfortable as transit on the Metropolitan Railway.” On the other hand, there is the opinion of Mr. Hawkshaw, whose borings we have just referred to. Have they been extended as far to the westward as the diagonal line, or course, proposed by Mr. Remington, and do the “faults” extend to a depth of from 80 to 130 feet below the bed of the ocean? At all events, thinking it would interest our readers, we have had engraved the section of the tunnel from the drawing of it, which was recently published in Engineering, and it is herewith inserted.

There is no incident or occurrence in life, no matter how solemn or serious it may be, that cannot, in some way or another, contribute to travestie and amusement. We shall therefore, conclude our notice of “Tunnels suggested,” with the following piece of pleasantry extracted from a recent number of the Scientific American—“A gigantic engineering project is now the sensation out West—a tunnel under the Atlantic for a railway! The plans are already supposed to be drawn up, complete in detail. Even to lighting the cars with the magnesium and electric lights. The undertaking is to employ one hundred thousand men for thirty years, and when completed it will take the trains but five days to do the journey from Newfoundland to Ireland, viâ the telegraph route. The amount of capital required is estimated at two billions five hundred million dollars.” Well may the Editor of Engineering lift up his hands and exclaim, Good Gracious!

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE GREAT TUNNEL OF THE ALPS—TUNNEL VENTILATION—VENTILATION IN THE METROPOLITAN RAILWAY.

By some authorities, the great tunnel of the Alps is called the “Mont Cenis Tunnel.” But this appellation is a misnomer, as the tunnel is as far as 15 miles distant from the Cenis Mountain. It is in reality carried through the Great Vallon Mountain, the narrowest of the Alpine range which separates France from Italy. Nevertheless, between the spot where the tunnel enters the mountain at Modane, on the French side, and makes its exit at Bardoneche on the Italian, there is an intervening distance of more than 7½ miles. It is opposite to Fourneaux, a village 1½ mile from the village of Modane, that the Modane entrance of the tunnel commences. It is 3,709 feet above the level of the sea, and it is at an elevation of about 150 feet over the roadway of the Mont Cenis Pass, between St. Michel and Lanslebourg. It is visible on the right hand side as a traveller is going from France towards Italy.

The Bardoneche entrance is not visible, as it is in the midst of the mountains, far away from any roadway, and 426 feet higher above the level of the sea than the Modane entrance.

At Lanslebourg, the road which has, for all the distance from St. Michel, run nearly due east, makes a sudden turn to south-west and continues in this direction to Susa. The course of the tunnel is south-west throughout its entire length. It is consequently parallel or nearly parallel to the Mont Cenis Road, between Lanslebourg and Susa; although, as just stated, they are about 15 miles apart.

[402]

The following little outline will convey to the reader an idea of the relative positions of tunnel and railway.

We have drawn a straight line between Lanslebourg and Susa, solely for representing the general direction of the road; but in reality the road is a cork-screw with fully as constant deviation from the straight line as is exhibited by that useful article of domestic economy, and perhaps we could not find a better manner of illustrating the difference between an ordinary road on the level, and one on or through a mountain passway. If the iron of a cork-screw went straight from where it is fastened to the handle, to its point or extremity, it would measure about three inches, but its convolutions extend it to ten. It is precisely the same with the road between Lanslebourg and Susa. If it were on the plain it would measure about seven miles; but its convolutions, its twists and its turns, its zig-zags, and its lacets convert seven into twenty-five. The length of the tunnel when completed will be 12,220 metres, or 7½ English miles and 242 yards. It consequently exceeds by about 4½ miles, the next longest railway tunnel on the continent of Europe,[403] that of Lanerthe, on the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway already referred to.

The Tunnel of the Alps has a double nationality, it is half, exactly half, French, and exactly half Italian. By the convention of 1856, between the Governments of Sardinia and France, 6,110 metres of perforation and of lining were to be made at the expense of each country, but the whole of the works were to be done by Italy exclusively. They were commenced on each side of the mountain in 1857. For the first 3½ years, that is, until the end of 1860, the process of perforation was performed by manual labour only; in 1861 and 1862 it was partly by manual labour and partly by machinery; since 1862, machinery has been exclusively adopted.

The following Table sets forth the progress made on each side since the commencement of the work.

THE TUNNEL OF THE ALPS.

Northern Entrance.						Southern Entrance.				General Total.
	Year.	Progress.		Total.		Progress.		Total.
		M.[135]	C.[136]	M.	C.	M.	C.	M.	C.	M.	C.	M.	C.
	1857	10	80	621.	0	27	28	725	0	38	8	1646	0
	1858	201	25			257	57			459	82
	1859	132	75			236	35			369	10
	1860	139	50			203	80			343	30
	1861	193	00			00	00			193	00
	1862	243	00			....	00			243	00
		——————				——————				——————
	1861	....				170	0			170	0
	1862	....				380	0			380	0
	1863	376	00			426	0			802	0
	1864	466	65			621	20			1087	85
	1865	458	40			765	30			1223	70
	1866	212	29			812	70			1024	99
	1867[137]	317	98			456	60			774	58
		——————		1831	32	——————		3631	80	——————		5463	12
				——————				——————				——————
				2752	32			4356	80			7109	12

[404]

The rate of progress given in the foregoing Table is very different from what was expected previous to the commencement of the works. It was then anticipated that the tunnel would be excavated from end to end before the close of 1864, but it was not until the 15th of October, 1866, or 9¼ years after operations had been begun, that exactly one-half was perforated. On the 1st November, 1867, the half had been exceeded by 1,958 metres, still leaving 4,152 metres to be excavated. The amount of perforation accomplished on the two sides of the mountain has always been unequal, for of the 4,152 metres yet to be excavated, 2,905, equal to about 1⅞ mile, have to be accomplished on the French side, whilst on the Italian there are two-thirds of a mile. This will be understood by an explanation of the strata through which the tunnel is to be carried. Commencing at Modane, there are 2,140 metres of schist, then 363 of quartz, followed by 2,706 of compact limestone, and finally 901 of schist. This completes one half; the other, or Italian half, is all schist. The only rock comparatively easy in working is the schist, but from the commencement the schist on the French side was of a more resisting character than that on the Italian. The miners came upon the quartz exactly where they expected to find it, but instead of its being a stratum 400 metres thick, as was anticipated, it turned out to be only 363 metres; nevertheless, it required two years, less two months, to bring it into subjection, that is, from the 15th of June, 1865, until the 20th of April, 1867,—the progress forward during all that time, not much exceeding half a metre (about 20 inches) a-day. The compact limestone nearest to the quartz having been partly decomposed by the action of this latter, was very workable. Hence, during May and part of June 1867, the advance was very considerable, but since June the compact limestone has proved to be harder but not so difficult to work upon as the quartz. For six[405] weeks the engineers were hopeful that they could go on at the rate of three metres a-day. If such progress could have been unflinchingly maintained, the excavation on the French side could have been accomplished by August 1870. With two metres a-day it will require until March 1872; but if, the advance do not exceed a metre and a-half a-day for two-thirds of the whole distance, the tunnel cannot be perforated under six years, which brings the date to July, 1873.

But the perforation of the rock is not the only serious impediment to progress. All things that live and breathe, miners among the number, require air for their sustenance; and, in order to supply it in sufficient quantities for the support of the human moles within the interior of the tunnel, it has been necessary to resort to special appliances for this purpose. Immense machinery, moved by water-power of an aggregate force for each end of about 400 horses, erected at both entrances of the tunnel, works not only the boring machines, but, at the same time, furnishes the miners with the necessary ventilation. The air is compressed to five atmospheres by means of the water-power just referred to; and the double application of the air is the ingenious contrivance of Messrs. Someilier, Grandis and Grattoni, the distinguished Italian engineers, under whom the works are conducted. Until recently the ventilation, although indifferent except at the site of the boring machines, was excellent in their vicinity; but with each metre that the works progress farther into the mountain, the difficulties of ventilation are added to; especially so on the French side, and for a reason that will at once, on a moment’s explanation, be evident to the reader. When the boring machines have made the usual holes in the rock about three feet deep, they are filled with gunpowder, and exploded. Now, if the excavation of the mountain had been[406] made partly by adit and partly by shaft, as soon as one of the latter had been made, the smoke from each explosion beyond it would have found vent through it to the outer air, and in a few minutes the forward face of the tunnel would be ready for the fresh action of the boring machines. But as there is no shaft in the Cenis Tunnel, the whole of the smoke created by each explosion has only one means of exit—that is, through the tunnel’s mouth. Smoke, in its escape, wants to ascend (as we know by our everyday experience), but it cannot do so for the want of a shaft; it cannot get out even on the level, for the gradient in the tunnel on the French side is, on an average, 1 in 45, or 117 feet 4 inches per mile. As the perforation had, on the 1st November last, been accomplished to the extent of 3,205 metres, the face of the tunnel was about 226 feet higher than the entrance,—consequently, the smoke of each explosion at the present time is not only not able to come out on the level, but it has actually to descend the number of feet just stated before it can commingle with the outer air; and the number of these feet of elevation wall continually increase, until, at the end of the French perforation, there will be 429. We believe it is a matter of fact, that the ventilation is every day becoming worse, and the means of supplying the requisite air are becoming more difficult with each metre of advance made, and so it must continue until the final perforation has been (for no doubt it will be) accomplished.[138] On the Italian half, the rock is throughout,[407] schist, and the gradient, being only one in 2,000, or 2-8/25 per mile, all the elements for progress will continue to be, comparatively, as favourable as they have hitherto been; and even with a much less rapid rate of advance than on the French side, it requires no great gift of prophesy to “forecaste” that the boring machines from Italy will be ready to embrace those from France long before the latter shall have arrived at the midway point. But let it be understood that the works from the Italian side cannot go on a yard beyond midway,—first, on account of the gradient, which would dam up all the water percolating into the tunnel; second, because it would be impossible to keep the line of the tunnel, owing to the absence of all the external landmarks required for ensuring its correct direction. The embrace we have just referred to will take place 4,138 feet above the level of the sea, 1,645 above the level of St. Michel, 429 above the Modane entrance of the tunnel, but only 2-8/25 above that at Bardoneche, 2,360 above the level of Susa, about 5,360 feet below the highest point of the Great Vallon Mountain, and 2,520 feet below the summit of the Mont Cenis Railway.

What might have proved a source of great trouble and expense—water—has fortunately not as yet on any one occasion presented itself in a manner to cause alarm or even uneasiness. We need not therefore refer to this subject in[408] any detail, but before proceeding to as important an element as any with which the tunnel is encompassed—cost—we had better state that the arch of the tunnel is a semicircle 25 feet 3½ inches at its base, 26 feet 3 at its broadest part, and 24 feet 7 inches high. (See diagram.)

Captain Tyler in his report of 1866, sets down the total cost of the tunnel and its 34½ miles of approaches at £5,400,000, or £128,500 per mile. Now we know that up to the present time each metre of tunnel excavated and lined (for it is to be lined throughout from stone quarried near to each entrance, with an occasional introduction of brickwork) costs 7,000 francs, or £280. This would bring its total cost exclusive of permanent way, which would be, say £30,000, to £3,421,600, but we believe that the farther the tunnel is penetrated, the expenses will increase rather in geometrical than arithmetical proportion, and that the average cost of the tunnel will not be 7,000 francs or £280 “per metre courant,” but 10,000 francs or £400. If this be so, the cost of the tunnel, without permanent way, would be £5,188,000. To this sum has to be added the cost of the 34½ miles of approaches. The nature and the probable cost of the works can be appreciated from the fact that they are now about to be let, and the contract time for their completion is to be four years and a-half from the date of their commencement. These 34½ miles of double railway cannot be estimated at less than £60,000 a mile or £2,070,000, making the total cost of the tunnel and of the railways which connect it with the railways of France to the north, and with those of Italy to the south, £7,258,000, or at the rate of £172,800 per mile. Possibly, if the construction were in the hands of a railway company instead of those of two governments, a saving of a million or so might be effected, but in any case the cost would be upwards of £6,000,000, or nearly £142,850 a mile.

[409]

In connection with the subject of cost, a calculation of Captain Tyler’s gives the following results. The difference, says the Captain, of elevation between the outer summit of the Mont Cenis Pass and the summit of the railway through the tunnel is 2,520 feet. The excess of working expenses in consequence of this difference of height, estimated on a traffic ten times as great as that which passed over the Mont Cenis in 1865, and the cost of traction per horse power and per hour being taken at 2¼d. (the cost on the Sœmmering and the Giovi), an additional capital of £650,000, or £13,000 a mile, with interest taken at 6 per cent., is represented. If then £13,000 a mile be added to the £21,000 actual cost per mile of a permanent Alpine railway, the total cost of a railway on the mountain becomes, for the purposes of comparison, £34,000 a mile, as against whatever may be the cost per mile for the Tunnel Railway and its approaches. If they cost £142,850 a mile, the comparison will be as 31 to 142; but, if, as we believe, the cost will be £172,800, then the proportion will be at 31 to 172.

A few years ago people could think or speak of nothing else for the Alps but tunnels; there was to be a tunnel railway through the Simplon, one through the St. Gothard, and as immediately to the eastward of the Great St. Gothard range, there is a rapid diminution of elevation of the Alpine mountain, no less than three passes were named as suitable for tunnels, the special advantage of each being that they could be constructed by means both of shaft and of adit. These three passes commencing near Dissentis, run from north to south, and each, as it were, starting from one root, branches off and follows its own course through its own system of valleys, but the three unite in a common pass about two miles to the south of Olivione. They are called respectively the Cristillina (the easternmost), the Greina (the centre), and the Lukmanier[410] (the westernmost). The length of tunnel suggested for the Cristillina was the most modest of all, only seven miles; for the Greina it was to be twelve and a-half miles, whilst that for the Luckmanier was proposed to be fifteen miles, nearly but not quite double that now constructing under the Great Vallon Mountain. But if the tunnel of the Lukmanier was to be the longest, its advocates were able to assert in its favour, that not only could the shafts be numerous, but that not one of them need be at a greater depth from the surface than two hundred yards. Well, notwithstanding these supposed advantages, these long tunnel railways have ever since remained a dead letter, and have long ago been consigned to rest in the wide laying burial ground of Utopia. We shall one of these days (probably, in four or five years) have one tunnel through the Alps; we are not likely in this or the succeeding generation to have a second.

At a very early period in the history of English Railways, the ventilation of tunnels came to be considered a very important question, and as usual on such occasions, ignorance furnished an immense number of facts and realities which experience showed to be nothing but fictions. It was in deference to the highly wrought popular feeling on the subject, when every manner of evil was prognosticated for travellers going through tunnels, that the late Mr. R. Stephenson was induced to construct the large ventilating shafts on both the Kilsby and the Watford tunnels of the London and North-Western Railway. There are two shafts in each of these tunnels, the diameter of each of the four being sixty feet. They may be said to divide the tunnels into three distinct parts, the periods of going along each space of sixty feet being perfectly appreciable by the traveller. The ventilation is no doubt better in consequence of the execution of these gigantic shafts; but experience has long since shown[411] that shafts nine to twelve feet in the clear, are quite sufficient for all ventilating purposes, no matter how much the tunnel may be below the earth’s surface.

We are indebted to Mr. Charles S. Storrow, an American engineer of reputation, for a great deal of very interesting information upon the subject of the ventilation of tunnels, and the state of the atmosphere in them during and subsequent to the passage of trains. Mr. Storrow was sent to Europe in 1862, by the commissioners of the State of Massachusetts, which had been appointed by legislative action, in relation to the construction of the Great Hoosac tunnel already referred to. The tunnel first visited by Mr. Storrow, in England, was the Box Tunnel, of which in his report he furnishes a section. Its length is 3,227 yards; its gradient throughout is 1 in 100. It has five shafts, each being twenty-five feet in internal diameter. But this diameter is, as just stated, now considered to be unnecessary. The deepest shaft is 300 feet.[139] Mr. Storrow experienced[412] no inconvenience as regards ventilation when going through the tunnel in passenger trains. On one occasion he proceeded through the tunnel in a hand car—“a passenger train passed us” says Mr. Storrow, “on the other track to that which we were on. It filled the tunnel with smoke and produced perfect darkness, so that the other ends of the tunnel (which had been seen most distinctly previous to the passage of the train) could not any longer be seen, and on removing the lights we were carrying, the person who sat at my side talking with me and touching me, was absolutely invisible. With all this, however, there was nothing troublesome to respiration. As we proceeded and successively passed the large shafts, a ray of light appeared directly under them, which, a moment afterwards was lost in intense darkness, and this continued until we reached the other end of the tunnel, after an interval of fifteen or twenty minutes from the passage of the express train.” Mr. Storrow was informed that “the ventilation of the tunnel depends a good deal on the weather. Whenever a strong clear wind blows, the smoke disappears very readily, but in fogs it is quite troublesome to the workmen. I could not find, however, that it seriously interfered with their work. Indeed there never was a time when it could not be done, if required. No artificial means had ever been used to ventilate the tunnel, but the passage of quick trains going through it in the ordinary course of the operations of the road, is a powerful agent for this purpose. With the steep grade of 1 in 100, the steam, on the descent of the tunnel, is nearly or quite shut off, and the train passes quickly through. The first engine which passed us, moving down the grade, produced no sensible effect upon the air, but in ascending the tunnel there is a very great expenditure of steam; the trains moving slowly, and heavy trains are assisted by a second engine. All[413] this of course vitiates the air. The quick passage of a train always produces a current in the direction of its motion, and if made by a train running downward, and therefore using but little steam, its effect in clearing the tunnel is very marked. This effect is said, however, to be rather impeded than assisted by the presence of the shafts, and I found that the persons in charge of the tunnel, taking this circumstance, and the water admitted into the tunnel by the shafts, into consideration, would be pleased to have them closed altogether, and to depend for ventilation upon a natural current from end to end being caused by difference of temperature, or prevailing winds, and by the artificial current produced by the passage of quick trains.”

“Its most dangerous enemy is frost. In winter enormous icicles are sometimes formed by the gradual accretion, and if not removed would be very dangerous.”

Of the Sapperton tunnel on the Birmingham and Gloucester section of the Midland railway, 1,760 yards long,[140] Mr. Storrow says, “the grade is very steep, 1 in 70, or 75½ feet to the mile. Hence, in running up the tunnel a great deal of power is required, and an assistant locomotive is kept constantly in use. This, of course, creates a large additional development of smoke and steam, so that after the passage of a single heavy freight train up, the smoke would fill the tunnel for hours, and be quite offensive. Formerly coke was used on English railways, but latterly coal (which, as we know, produces a much greater volume of smoke) is now universally used. All agree that this change has been very injurious in tunnels. At the Sapperton tunnel the assistant engine is usually run down the tunnel immediately after the train has passed up,[414] and thus assists in clearing away the smoke, but a quick passenger train running down the steep incline at great speed is found to be far more effectual, and is indeed the only effectual ventilation.”[141]

“The inspector of the road, who accompanied me, thought the opening in the shaft of some use, and said the men wanted it. The superintendent thought it of no use whatever, and that it was something of a nuisance from the water which dripped from it. He was of opinion that after a tunnel was constructed, it would he better to close all shafts, and to trust to quick trains for ventilation. As the tunnel now is, the men continue in it all day, whenever necessary, though they do not like it, but if two freight trains should follow each other without the smoke being cleared away, it would be very difficult for them to work, and if four trains followed each other, it would be impossible.”

In confirmation of the view that tunnels are better for ventilation without shafts, than with them, Mr. Storrow gives the particulars of interesting conversations he had with Mr. Brotherhood and Mr. Brassey upon the subject. Both say that numerous shafts are unnecessary for ventilation. They make eddies and currents, and interfere with each other. Mr. Brassey particularly says, that the passage of a train at quick speed is the best ventilator.

On the whole, although opinions are divided in England, as to the use of shafts for ventilation after a tunnel is completed, it leans rather to the side, that unless in very long ones, shafts are of no use and had better be closed, as they are rather an interference with the natural current which difference of temperature, or prevailing winds, generally[415] occasion; they also interfere with the great ventilating agency of quick trains. A tunnel is compared by many engineers to an inclined chimney; and, as in the upright chimney, the draft would be impaired if there were several openings in its side, interfering with the direct currency of air for ventilation.

The Hauenstein Tunnel (already mentioned in our list of tunnels) is 2,731 yards long; it is straight throughout, and has a uniform gradient of 1 in 139. Three shafts were commenced in the construction of the tunnel—two only were completed, of which one, by a fearful accident through fire, that caused the death of between fifty and sixty persons, became irremediably choked up. The third shaft was used until the completion of the works, but it was closed immediately afterwards, and has not since been opened; the tunnel, therefore, is without ventilating shaft. We have, in the last three years, passed through this tunnel eight or nine times, and, notwithstanding the slowness of the pace, never experienced any inconvenience from want of effective ventilation. Mr. Storrow, who rode on the outside platform of the carriages (they are on the American plan), expresses the same opinion. The conductors of both the trains informed him that there is usually a current of air through the tunnels, and that the smoke disappeared in from fifteen to twenty minutes. Both complained of its being very wet from the dripping of water—a fact that we can fully confirm from personal experience.

Even with goods trains, drawn by two heavy locomotives, which burned coals, although the tunnel was filled with smoke, Mr. Storrow did not find respiration so difficult as what he had often experienced when sitting in a room with a smoky chimney; and he remarked on several subsequent trips the same day, how quickly the tunnel became free of smoke.

[416]

The greatest danger to travelling in the Hauenstein, is the falling down, either of portions of the rock, through which the tunnel is pierced, or the giving way of portions of its lining, owing to the water, which is constantly falling, forming into ice. To exclude the cold, as far as possible, a wooden screen, during winter, covers the upper part of the arch at each entrance, descending as far as possible, but allowing sufficient room for the funnel of the locomotive; there are also canvas curtains which may be drawn across the entrance at pleasure, and they are invariably so drawn in winter, except at the very moment of the passage of trains.

The chief engineer of the line is doubtful as to whether there ought not to be a shaft. At times the current of cold air through the tunnel is so strong, that it would be an inconvenience to the trains if not checked by the curtains. They also have the effect of keeping up a temperature in the tunnel sufficient to prevent the water that drips on to the rails becoming frozen in winter. Great trouble and inconvenience were experienced from this cause in the first instance. The freezing of water, lodged on the rails, has scarcely ever happened during the last few years.

The time that a train will take to pass through the tunnel of the Alps must now be considered. If it had been constructed throughout on the level, or with every favourable gradients, and that a train would be permitted to run throughout at express speed, it might be conveyed from entrance to exit in about twelve minutes. This gives a speed of say thirty-eight miles an hour. But with a gradient, the average of which is 1 in 45, anything approaching this rate of speed would be simply impossible.

Length, however, is not the only element that has to be taken into account.

M. Auguste Perdonnet, in his “Traité Elémentaire des[417] Chemins de Fer” (Paris 1858-60), says with great truth: “Les fortes pentes sont plus nuisibles dans les souterrains que dans toute autre partie, d’un chemin de fer. L’humidité empechant la boue, qui impregne les rails, de secher, l’ascension de fortes rampes y devient tres penible. Il faut, donc, s’appliquer a les eviter plus encore dans les tunnels qu’a ciel ouvert.” No matter how stoutly the tunnel of the Alps may be lined, and no matter how impenetrably the tunnel may act as a barrier against infiltration of water, it never can be free from moisture; not the moisture of a downfall of rain, which washes the rails and “makes things pleasant,” but it will be one in which will be conbined, unchemically and therefore loosely, the steam of the engines condensed into water, minute particles of grease, and smoke; all three will, inter alios locos, find a resting place upon the rails, and they will thus create on them a thick, clammy, pasty moisture, which will sensibly diminish the engine’s adhesion, and act as a most serious impediment to its progress. It will therefore be impossible with the foregoing elements, and with a gradient of 1 in 45, to calculate on a higher rate of speed from the Modane entrance to the centre than ten miles an hour, or six minutes to the mile—twenty-two minutes; and our belief is that to maintain even this rate of speed it will be necessary to have a fiercely burning fire in the fire-box and tubes, together with a plentiful fall of sand from the sand boxes on to the rails. As soon as the train has arrived at the centre, which is also the summit of the tunnel, the engine will get relieved, and with the gradient almost level the second half of the tunnel can, as a simple question of speed, be run at the highest possible rate. But although it may be safe, it certainly will not be expedient to do so. At twenty-four miles an hour the time required would be nine minutes; total, with twenty-two minutes for the ascent, thirty-one[418] minutes. As regards the journey from Italy to France, Can a higher rate of speed be permitted for the descent of the 429 feet in 3¾ miles than was allowed for the ascent? There appears to us to be but one answer—Certainly not. As regards danger, we believe that with efficient and powerful engines and proper brakes, in the hands of steady and competent men, the transit will not be attended with a particle of danger; but the question arises, Will travellers generally be of this opinion? Many of both sexes will undoubtedly consider that they are as safe in the tunnel as during any other part of their journey; but it is to be feared that the majority of persons who go through it will not only have vividly present in their minds a sense of actual danger from material causes, but also a belief that if they escape any damage from these causes, suffocation must be a natural result of going through seven and a-half miles of foul, fetid, and polluted atmosphere, in a long hole never less than three thousand, and for a tolerable distance five thousand six hundred feet, below the upper and outer surface of the mountain. Death, if it do occur, will be caused, not by actual suffocation, but from some action upon the nervous system, that will produce all the fatal symptoms of suffocation.

We have had no less than three very recent illustrations of death from such a cause, no later in fact than in August 1867; for during that month three inquests were held on three persons who had been taken out in a dying state from the London Metropolitan Railway. In each case the suspension of animation took place between Lisson Grove and King’s Cross Stations, yet the distance (all in tunnel) between them only slightly exceeds two miles, and there are abundant means of ventilation at the three intermediate points, Baker Street, Portland Road, and Gower Street Stations. The verdict in the first case was “accidental death[419] from natural causes, accelerated by the suffocating atmosphere of the Underground Railway.” “Death from effusion of serum on the brain” was the verdict in the second case—in other words, apoplexy; but as the medical gentleman who made the post-mortem examination, could not state at the inquest that the atmosphere of the railway had accelerated death, no reference to it was made in the wording of the verdict.

The third case, happening almost immediately afterwards, excited a good deal of alarm in the public mind; and the alarm was not lessened in consequence of the publication of several sensational articles in two or three London newspapers. Therefore, at the opening of the inquest held upon Elizabeth Stainsley, on the 28th of August, Mr. Myles Fenton, the General Manager of the company, requested an adjournment until time had been afforded to obtain analyses of the atmosphere of the tunnels. Professor Julian Rodgers, of the London Medical School, was engaged by the Coroner; Drs. Bachhoffner, Letheby and Whitmore by the company. At the adjourned inquest, held on the 30th of October, Professor Rodgers submitted his report, in which he stated that he had analysed and tested the air contained in the tunnels of the railway between Bishop’s Road and King’s Cross Stations, and he had made comparative experiments in other tunnels. “The atmosphere in a pure condition,” continued Professor Rodgers, “consisted of a volume of 79·19 measures of nitrogen, and 20·81 of oxygen; and every 10,000 measures of air contained from 3·7 to 6·2 measures of carbonic acid. On the 4th of September he found that, in 17 cubic inches of air taken from each of the tunnels between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m., tested for carbonic acid, with the exception of the air from the Gower Street and King’s Cross tunnel (which contained a more notable quantity), only a[420] slight trace of the acid was indicated. On the 10th of September, between 10 and 11 p.m., he determined the quantity of carbonic and sulphurous acids contained in 17 cubic inches; and during his transit backwards and forwards from King’s Cross to Bishop’s Road he found 13 measures of carbonic acid in 10,000 of air, and one measure of sulphurous acid in 40,789. Carbonic acid was evident in 17 cubic inches of the air taken from the Gower Street and King’s Cross tunnel. On October 2, in the same tunnel, he found 18·7 measures of carbonic in 10,000, and one measure of sulphurous acid in 23,913. On October 28, between 8 and 9 p.m., he found traces of carbonic evident, in 17 cubic inches in all the tunnels. On the 4th of September he found that the following were the per centages of oxygen in the tunnels:—Bishop’s Road, 20·48; Edgware Road, 20·60; Baker Street, 20·30; Portland Road, 20·10; Gower Street, 18·7. In the Blackheath tunnel, on September 28, it was 20·0. The air of Pimlico on September 21 contained 20·9. On October 24 the per centage was as follows:—Box Tunnel, 20·3; Birkenhead Tunnel, 20·1; Wolverhampton Tunnel, 20·5; at Wellington Barracks, 22·42, at 2 feet 6 inches from the floor.”

Replying to the Coroner, Professor Rodgers said he did not think the deficiency of oxygen would act injuriously upon a delicate person passing through the tunnels; and he considered that the amount of carbonic and sulphurous gases in the tunnels could not have been injurious to the woman. There was not a sufficient accumulation of these gases to be of injury to the public health. The woman had eaten heartily, was laced tightly, and had a diseased heart; he, therefore, did not think the deficiency of oxygen could have hastened her death.

The joint report of Drs. Bachhoffner, Letheby, and Whitmore[421] was then read and put in evidence. It stated that the analysers collected samples of the air on three separate occasions:—First, immediately after the trains had ceased running at night; second, just before they commenced running in the morning; and third, in the afternoon, between four and five o’clock, a period of the day when there was generally the largest amount of traffic. The samples, twenty-eight in number, were analysed for sulphurous acid, carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, coal gas, and oxygen. The presence of sulphurous acid having been sought by the most delicate chemical test—namely, its action upon iodic acid and starch, which was capable of showing the presence of one part by volume of sulphurous acid in 100,000 parts of air, but by such test the presence of that acid could not be detected; and from this the analysers concluded that its volume was less than the above in the tunnels. The mean proportion of carbonic acid was about 6 in each volume of 10,000. The amounts of coal-gas and of carbonic oxide were so small as to be barely discoverable. The amount of oxygen in the tunnels and stations was not in any case deficient. These results proved that in no instance was the air found to be vitiated to any material extent, although the air taken in the afternoon was less pure than that taken at night. The presence of sulphurous acid gas in the tunnels and stations, which at times was appreciable to both taste and smell, must not be taken as an indication that this gas existed in dangerous quantities, for as little as one part of this gas in 100,000 parts of atmospheric air was strongly perceptible both to taste and smell. The partial combustion of the wood forming the breaks, when acting upon the tires of the wheels, also produces a pungent smell. The analysers were of opinion that, having regard to the cubical volume of the trains,[422] the short time occupied by them in passing through the tunnels and stations, the large volume of air they displaced, and the increased impetus given to the horizontal movements of the air by the rapidity of their transit, the vitiation of the atmosphere could not be of a serious character, and this accorded with the results of their analysis. The tunnels were dry and free from infiltration of liquid or other matters prejudicial to health. The general health of the employés of the company was such as to afford unquestionable proof of the sanitary condition of the air in the tunnels. The report ends thus:—“From the foregoing facts, we are enabled confidently to state that the atmosphere of the Metropolitan Railway is not unwholesome or injurious to health.”

Mr. Fenton, general manager, and Mr. Driscoll, an inspector of the company, having been examined as to the improvements made in the ventilation of the tunnels, and the absence of complaint from employés of the company, or from passengers with respect to the atmosphere, the jury, almost without hesitation, returned a verdict of “Death from natural causes.”

The singular fact was elicited at the inquest that the peculiarly “pungent smell” of the tunnel is due rather to the friction of the brakes, than to any other cause. The partial combustion of the wood produces a pyroligneous carbo-hydrogen, as Dr. Letheby styled it, together with a small amount of sulphurous acid gas. These the nose and lungs will detect sooner than the most delicate chemical tests, and they are the real producers of the coughing and unpleasant feeling experienced by some passengers. Such vapours, however, only affect delicate people. This will account for the fact that people, travelling through ordinary tunnels, are free from irritation and coughing. The Metropolitan[423] Railway is the only tunnel in which, owing to stoppages at intermediate stations, it is necessary to put the brakes on.

The efforts made by the company to ensure the best ventilation and purest atmosphere possible, are unremitting. Before the opening of the line an extended series of experiments was made with various specimens of coke supplied by all the leading coke manufacturers in the kingdom. That which best bore the crucial tests, to which the specimens were submitted, is the coke supplied by Messrs. Straker and Lowe from their Brancepeth Collieries near Durham. Coke for locomotives, and other purposes, is usually burned seventy-two hours. When coke of a very superior quality is required (so that all sulphurous and noxious vapours may, as far as possible, be consumed) it is burned ninety-six hours, but all coke used on the Metropolitan Railway is burned twenty-four hours more—that is 120 hours. Special ovens have been built for burning it, and when the process of combustion is completed, the coke is, what is well known in railway locomotive phraseology, “hand picked.” Thus, only the bright coke of each burning is allowed to be sent to London; any outside or dirty coke, however good it may be in reality, being kept back. It is, therefore, impossible to procure, in the whole range of fuel, any more free from ingredients likely to produce unpleasant smell, or to affect respiration.

A few words must be said with respect to the peculiar construction of the engines. In the first place the parts are so arranged that no steam whatever escapes into the tunnel. This is accomplished by having a large tank on each side of the engine. These tanks together contain about 1,000 gallons of water. The exhaust steam is turned into them, instead of through the funnel in the ordinary way. The[424] second peculiarity of the engines is that they are constructed with large heating surface. The steam is raised to a pressure of about 130 lbs. at starting, and by the time the journey through each tunnel, between station and station, is performed, it has been reduced to about 80. The damper is kept on during the entire journey. It will thus be seen that the combustion of fuel in each tunnel must be very small indeed, the fire being simply kept in, without any draft through the fire box.

Recently, the directors of the company, with the view to satisfying public feeling in every possible way, forwarded to the Vestries of St. Marylebone and St. Pancras, applications for permission to effect openings to the external air at several points of the Marylebone and Euston Roads—where important roads cross this thoroughfare—by means of handsome and ornamental hollow columns, which should be connected with the railway, and would support street lamps similar to those now placed at frequented crossings in various parts of the town.

It is a fact beyond all question that, unvaryingly, there are fewer persons belonging to the staff of the Metropolitan Railway, in proportion to their numbers, absent from duty on account of illness, than on other railways. We have seen returns, fully confirming the statement to this effect. We believe they were published by Mr. Myles Fenton, in the newspapers a few months ago.

During the year ending the 30th of June, 1867, the enormous number of 22,458,067 passengers[142] were conveyed by the Metropolitan Railway Company without accident,[425] injury, or (as far as the world knows) ill effects to any one of them.

There is a source of danger in connection with travelling through a long tunnel with a bad gradient, that a recent occurrence in the Dove Hole tunnel of the Midland Railway (a tunnel to which special reference is made at page 372), suggests. The accident is so extraordinary in its character that a brief account of it at present will not he out of place. It appears that on the 9th of September last, a ballast train had gone into the tunnel with the intention of the permanent way men supplying it with ballast. Whilst it was at a stand-still and the men were at work, a cattle train, consisting of twenty-seven trucks, and drawn by two powerful goods’ engines, was permitted to enter the tunnel. This cattle train came into collision with the ballast train, when, among other results, one was that the coupling chain which connected the cattle trucks to the engines broke. The trucks thus freed began to descend the incline, which, as already stated, is 1 in 90; their impetus increased each moment, and by the time they emerged from the tunnel, on the wrong line, they were travelling at express speed. Notwithstanding a slight change in the gradient, they went on at that rate for eight miles, continuing always, of course, on the wrong line. At that point the trucks came in collision with the engine of an express train from Manchester, which had been standing on its own proper line waiting for the signal it should receive before proceeding onwards. The driver of the express train engine perceiving in a moment what was occurring, reversed his engine, put on full steam, and then jumped off, very unfortunately for himself. But the engine had not sufficient speed upon her to prevent a collision with the cattle trucks. The greater part of these latter were literally crushed to atoms; and, perhaps, fortunately, the cylinders of the[426] express train engine were burst by the collision. This allowed a great escape of steam, and it was ultimately, combined with the presence of mind of a pointsman, the means of the engine not doing more mischief than shaking some and frightening all the passengers travelling in the train belonging to it. Not so five drovers who were in the brake-van of the cattle train: they were killed, and, apparently, their deaths were instantaneous. Such an accident as this is not likely to happen in the tunnel of the Alps; but, suppose a coupling iron broke, and with it the coupling chains, on the French or ascending side, would the brake power attached to the carriages be enough to check their downward speed? At all events, it must not be forgotten that the average gradient on the French side of the tunnel is 1 in 45 (117 feet in the mile), or exactly double as steep as that of the Dove Hole Tunnel, and that the Modane entrance of the tunnel of the Alps is 1,216 feet above St. Michel, consequently there is an average fall per mile during the whole twelve miles of 1 in 101, or at the rate of 50 feet in the mile, and as there will be no intermediate station, carriages if they came to be detached, and had not sufficient brake power to arrest their progress, might continue to run the whole of this distance at high speed, and on the wrong line.

[For minute details relating to the construction of the Tunnel of the Alps, up to 1862, and to the means of supplying ventilation during its progress, the reader is referred to the interesting report of Mr. Storrow, embodied in that of the Commissioners of the State of Massachusetts on the Troy and Grenfield Railroad, and of the Hoosac Tunnel, dated the 12th of March, 1863; also, to an article on the Tunnel, in the Edinburgh Review for July 1865, No. 249.]

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CHAPTER XIV.

ITALY—THE EASTERN MAILS—SICILY.

Arrived in Italy, either by the Mont Cenis Railway, or by that through the Tunnel of the Alps, we have in front of us a Peninsula which juts for an extent (taking Susa as the extreme northern point and Otranto as the extreme southern) of 765 miles into the ocean. On the east, the ocean is called the Adriatic; on the south as well as on the west, the Mediterranean, a sea that contains within its limits a surface of 579,000 square miles.

We have already described the mighty railway company, Alta Italia, 2,565 miles in length, of which, since the close of the war of 1866, 1,349 belong to the South Austrian Division, and 1,216 to that of Alta Italia proper. If we are on our road to Brindisi, we arrive at the end of Alta Italia at Bologna, and, at that station come upon Ferrovia Meridionale. From Bologna, the line, proceeding southwards but also verging towards the eastward, gets to the Adriatic at Rimini, and thence, hugging the shore, it touches at Ancona, distant 127 miles from Bologna. From Ancona it still follows the shore of the Adriatic, except that at the Spur of the Boot it passes inwards through Foggia, 331 miles from Bologna. It is at this point that the line which is to unite Naples by the shortest possible railway connection, with the Adriatic, branches off. Its total length will be 124 miles; 43 are now open for traffic, 68 will be finished in the summer of 1868, leaving only a blank of 12 miles to be continued. Unfortunately, however, on these 12 miles, situated in the very heart of the Apennines, are concentrated the greatest works of the railway—three tunnels, one of which will be 2 miles and 17[428] yards long, and when completed will be the longest railway tunnel in Italy; the two others will be of the united length of 2 miles and 890 yards.

Reverting to Foggia, the main line, proceeding southerly and easterly for 145 miles, reaches Brindisi, 470 miles from Bologna, 711 from Susa, 1,180 from Paris, and 1,477 from London.

Captain Tyler, in his interesting Report of 1866, reviews the relative capabilities of the several harbours of Italy for the receipt and despatch of our Eastern mails, and without hesitation, names Brindisi as the one that should be selected. The harbour is composed of an outer port of about 1¼ mile long by about half that distance at its greatest width. It is connected by a channel 290 yards, or the sixth of a mile, with two inner harbours or arms, the western of which is to be the Packet Harbour. The Italian Government have important works going on at Brindisi, and their objects are the security of the outer port, the deepening of the channel, and the facing of the channel that connects the outer and inner ports, as well as the sides of the latter, with solid masonry. During 1865 and 1866, 1,800,000 cubic feet of excavation were accomplished and very considerable progress has been made with the masonry, but at the present moment the works rather flag. It is stated, however, by the Government authorities, that as soon as it is decided that the British Contract Steamers carrying the Eastern mails to and from Alexandria, shall make Brindisi their port, the works will be resumed with great vigour. The present depth of the channel is 19½ feet, but this depth is to be increased to 26 feet at low water, not only at the channel, but at the passenger jetty (to which the railway will be extended), and alongside the coal depôt. This depth would be sufficient for the largest steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental, or of any[429] other company, and with the view to affording suitable accommodation for large ships in case of need, it has been decided to construct immediately a dry dock, 380 feet long, at an estimated cost of £100,000. At the entrance of the outer port, and for a quarter of a mile within it, the depth of water will be from 28 to 37 feet. The rise and fall of tide at Brindisi is not more than 1½ foot. A plan of the harbour is appended.

Whilst at Brindisi, it is impossible to omit reference to its future with respect to the conveyance of our Eastern mails to and from Alexandria. This subject is divisible into two portions—conveyance of the fast and conveyance of the heavy mails. These mails go at present respectively viâ Marseilles and viâ Southampton. A contract now in course of completion between the Post Office and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company is about to bind the nation to the Southampton route for twelve years. It admits, however, of the transfer of the fast mails viâ Marseilles being likely to take place at a period more or less proximate. If the reader will be so good as to refer to Appendix No. 3 in this volume, he will see a memorandum in which the course of the Eastern mails, both fast and heavy, is indicated, and the vast difference between the time that letters take in their conveyance by the two routes—that is, viâ Southampton and viâ Marseilles. This difference will continue until all mails, both fast and heavy, are carried (as eventually they will be) by Brindisi.

The following table exhibits the relative distances between London and Alexandria by the three routes. The computation is in English miles.

Viâ.	Land.	Water.	Total.
Southampton	78	3,353	3,431
Marseilles	833	1,701	2,534
Brindisi	1,477	954	2,431

[430]

There is therefore a less distance viâ Brindisi than viâ Marseilles of 103 miles; than viâ Southampton of 1,000 miles; but, as Captain Tyler says—“Apart from contingencies, which must be always greater by sea than by land conveyance, the speed on a railway is usually double that at sea,” hence the captain strongly recommends the Brindisi route, not only on account of its being the shortest between London and Alexandria, but likewise because the land portion exceeds that viâ Marseilles by 644 miles, and that viâ Southampton by 1,399 miles. As a question of time, the computation made is as follows:—Southampton fifteen days, Marseilles eight days one hour, Brindisi six days seven hours.[143]

[431]

The contrast between the weight of the Eastern mails carried in 1850 and at the present time is marvellous. Then the annual number of boxes despatched, the average weight of each of which was about 60 lbs., was under 2,500; in[432] 1867 it is at the rate of 25,152. It is true that since 1858 the Australian mails are conveyed by the overland route—they are only despatched once a month, both viâ Southampton and viâ Marseilles, but then they form nearly two-thirds of the total weight of the mails; they swell the number of boxes from the average of 524 to 1,347.

But we must ask our reader to continue his land journey a little further south than Brindisi, just for a moment, so that he may get to Leece, twenty-five miles. This is as far as he can go by railway towards Otranto, twenty-nine miles farther at the very extremity of the heel of the boot of Italy, the Castle of which used, in the days of our boyhood, thanks to Horace Walpole, to enchain, enchant, delight and to terrify us. We feel bound to acknowledge the fact that we are exactly forty-five years older than we were forty-five years ago. We fear we must also confess to a sense of terror about Otranto that can only cease with our own cessation. We are therefore not surprised that even Captain Tyler, stout, resolute and brave as he is, did not wish to go to Otranto. “I did not,” says Captain Tyler in his report of 1866, “even[433] consider it worth while to visit Otranto, although I made a personal inspection of all the other Italian Ports to which I have referred, as well as those of Naples and Genoa.” In other words, Captain Tyler visited every Italian Port except one, and that one was Hob-gob-lin!

The connection of the Ferovia Meridionale with the net-work of the Calabro-Sicula is effected by means of a branch given off at Bari, half way between Foggia and Brindisi, and running for seventy-two miles south to Tarento, situated at the very top of the front of Italy’s heel. Whilst Brindisi is intended to be the commercial port of Italy towards its southern extremity, Tarento is to be its great southern port for military purposes. The extent and depth of the outer harbour, its great natural advantage in a military as well as in a naval point of view, and the extent of the “seno interno” or inner expanse of deep water, render it admirably applicable for a naval arsenal. It will therefore eventually fulfil for Italy the purposes which Plymouth fulfils for England, while Spezzia on the Mediterranean, half way between Genoa and Leghorn, may be considered as Italy’s Portsmouth.

The main-land as well as the Sicilian portions of the Calabro-Sicula are at the present time very much longer on paper than on terra firma. The longest of the Calabrian sections is, when completed, to extend from Tarento all along the undersole of Italy as well as to the ball of the foot, and thence to its very tip-toe at Reggio, a distance of 300 miles; but although ten years have elapsed since the railway works were taken in hand, only the ten miles nearest to Reggio have as yet been completed. As, however, the Italian Government has recently made a loan of £720,000 to the company, the works are carried on actively, and it is probable that half-way in 1868 (portions perhaps earlier) 127 miles, in two sections, of which one from Tarento[434] westward will be 90 miles, and the other will extend the line from Reggio 47 miles, will be ready for traffic. Of the remaining 163 miles to complete the continuous railway tie along the sole of Italy, some slight progress has been made on 56 miles, none on 107.

In reply to a question put by us to a gentleman of the administration of the company, to whom we are mainly indebted for the foregoing information, “Quando sar[=a] terminata la Linea—Tarento—Reggio?” we were told, “Non è dato respondere a questa domanda senza conoscere di quali mezzi la societa potrà disporre;” and we received precisely the same answer in respect of the Sicilian lines of the company.

The distance between Reggio and Messina is exactly 7½ miles. As we are here on the dominions of Scylla and Charybdis, it is no wonder that the steamers of the company, which ply backwards and forwards in connection with its trains, are often impeded by the numerous currents and the heavy gusts of wind that prevail in the Straits of Messina. Nevertheless, the passage from port to port is usually made in less than an hour, although at times the navigation is so difficult and dangerous, that, in winter, the Royal Postal Steamers of the Italian Government are occasionally unable to land their mails at Reggio, and are compelled to carry them on to their next port of call.

We live in an age of wonders. M. Oudry, one of the engineers of the Ponts et Chaussées of France, proposes to cross over the Straits of Messina with a suspension bridge of four spans, each 1,000 metres, or 3,281 feet long. The bridge (which is to be made available for railways) would thus be 4,200 metres, or two miles and five-eighths long, exclusive of the great sustaining piers at each edge of the water. M. Oudry selects this width in preference to the[435] narrowest part of the Straits, which is 3,200 metres, exactly two miles wide, because at the spot of his selection the depth of his two central piers, under water, would he only 110 metres; whereas, if he took the narrowest part of the Straits, his two piers must be of the under-water depth of 130.

The lower surface of the platforms should, in M. Oudry’s opinion, be 50 metres above high water, and to that elevation he proposes they should be carried. The towers of the piers being, say, 40 metres higher, the total pier elevation to be constructed, exclusive of foundations, would be about 200 metres, exactly half as high again as the top of the cross of St. Paul’s. Semiramis, after a repose of nearly 4,900 years, should be started into life again, together with her two millions of Assyrians. Her greatest elevation, however, was only 350 feet—the walls of Babylon—270 feet short of the piers of M. Oudry. To be sure the walls were said to be seventy miles long, and wide enough at top for five chariots.

Of the total length of railways contemplated and sanctioned for Sicily—347 miles, 82 are opened for traffic, of which 59½ are from Messina (passing in its course at the foot of Mount Etna) to Catania, in the direction of Syracuse; and 22½ from Palermo to Marsala. It is a striking illustration of the rapid development which takes place through the opening of railways in a fertile country, that the traffic receipts per mile on the Sicilian sections opened have, since the commencement of 1867, been at the rate of £640 per annum. The directors of the company consider (apparently with justice) this amount as indicating very satisfactory results for the future.

Whilst upon the railways in the extreme Southern Italy, we wish to mention a non-feasible theory that has been propounded to us during a visit we paid to Italy in July last. As England is to have her overland route to her Eastern[436] possessions through Brindisi, why should not France find her way to Algeria by Reggio, and thence to Marsala, from which latter port the city of Tunis is only separated by some 90 miles of water? From Tunis to Constantine, and thence to Algiers, the measurement is 400 miles. But while the distance from Paris to Algiers, viâ Marseilles, is 1,100 miles, that viâ Reggio is 2,297, in which are comprised 500 miles of intended railway, the construction of which is not likely to be accomplished for several years to come.

“The world,” says the Pall Mall Gazette in its recent review of Alfred Von Reaumont’s Work, Geschichte der Stadt Rom,[144] “may be divided into those who have been to Rome, and those who wish to go there, with more or less of looming hope that the wish may be gratified.” For the wishful and the hopeful there are facilities that did not exist even twelve months ago. The “Roman Railways” Company is the second, both in length and importance on Italian soil, as it consists of 1,024 miles “en exploitation,” and by it, not only Rome, but Naples may be approached from the north, either viâ[437] Florence or viâ Ancona, and there is a net-work of lines running farther south than Naples, which will ultimately join at the Sole of the Boot, with the Calabro-Sicilian Railways. Summed up, the railway mileage of the whole Italian Peninsula now open for traffic is 3,040 miles. There will be further openings of them, to the extent of about 250 miles before the end of 1868; but as regards lines projected, or to which even the words “en construction” may be applied, we must wait for their realisation until the whole system of Italian finance and of Italian credit has been put upon a more solid basis than that upon which it is at present founded. But thanks to railways as they now exist towards and in Italy, the traveller, bent on tip-top speed, can leave London on any morning of the week, and even now, before the opening of the Mont Cenis Railway is accomplished, he can reach Turin before the chimes of the innumerable, and not always correctly-going public clocks in that city have struck twelve the following night. Of these clocks it is said that a person knowing them well, may start on a perambulation through the city as the first commences striking twelve and complete a circuit in which he shall never be out of public clock hearing, just as that from which he started is striking one. “When the Mont Cenis Railway is opened, the traveller in search of haste can reach Turin in time to start that night for Florence, and arrive there at eight o’clock the following morning—forty-eight hours from London to Florence—What distance? 1,122 miles. Resting in the city for thirteen hours, he can proceed at 9.10 p.m. to Rome, the distance of which from Florence, 233 miles, he can accomplish in nine hours and twenty minutes, which includes Frontier Visa, both of luggage and of passport. If he be determined not to tarry at the Eternal City more than four hours, he can proceed on his way[438] for Naples, 163 miles farther, and be there 21 hours after he has left Florence, and (including his 13 hours pause there) 44 after he has left Turin, 70 after he has left Paris, 83 after he has left London; from which Naples is distant by railway measurement exactly 1,518 miles.

The railway distance from Florence to Rome will be lessened some thirty miles by the opening early next year of the line viâ Orvietto. It will also, of course, lessen to the same extent the journey between Florence and Naples, but in some years hence the railway between Southern and Northern Italy, avoiding Florence altogether, will be shortened by 93 miles, that is, when two unfinished portions of line along the west coast of Italy, one between Genoa and Spezzia 57 miles, and the other, the portion of the line between Civita Vecchia and Leghorn, nearest to the former, 36 miles, are completed. The works required upon these lines will be extremely heavy and extremely costly. How the money is to be found for them passes even conjecture, at the time of our present writing.

“Vede Napoli e mori.” We have seen her; we obey the injunction, and we depart in peace with but one word on dying lips,

Finis.

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APPENDIX, No. 1.

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Report by Mr. Edward Page, Inspector-General of Mails, on some points connected with the relations between the Post Office Department and Railway Companies.

(See page 85.)

General Post Office,

29th February, 1856.

Sir,

In the First Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, presented to Parliament last year, it is stated by Lord Canning as one of the reasons for instituting such a report, that “many misapprehensions arise from an imperfect knowledge of matters which might, without any inconvenience, be placed before the public.”

That such misapprehensions do exist as to several matters connected with the railway branch of the Post Office Service has lately been exemplified in an address by Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., on his election as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

In that address Mr. Stephenson (no doubt without any intention whatever to mislead) puts forward, in effect, the following statements, which I believe to be inaccurate:—

1st. That the scheme of penny postage, to the extent to which it has so far been developed, would have been impracticable, or, if practicable, unremunerative, but for the facilities afforded by railways for conveying bulk.

2nd. That railway companies, instead of being liberally treated by the Post Office, are called upon to perform the service of that department at a rate of remuneration which affords little or no profit.

[440]

3rd. That the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates.

My object in this Report is to direct your attention to the facts on which, in my opinion, the Post Office is entitled to rely in opposition to the above allegations, the last of which has likewise been recently adopted in the Report of the Committee of Consultation of the London and North-Western Railway. It may perhaps be the desire of the Postmaster-General to furnish, in his Report for the current year, some corrections of these misconceptions, the more especially as Mr. Stephenson states, in the very outset of his address, that his chief object is to suggest topics for communications and discussion at future meetings over which he may have to preside. Such a correction is the more necessary, because there is reason to apprehend that these and other similar opinions which have been at various times promulgated have, by being made the ground for claiming special additional payment for the mail service, affected to a certain extent the arbitrations between the Post Office and railway companies, and have thus acquired practical importance.

On the first point (taking the subjects in the order in which they are named above), it is hardly to be wondered at that the public generally should be led to form erroneous impressions, seeing how imperfectly the details of the Post Office are usually understood. But it will not be difficult to prove that the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Stephenson cannot be supported, and to show that the increase which has taken place in the weight of the mails would have presented no difficulty to their conveyance by mail coaches, and that since the transfer of the mails from coaches to railways, the cost of transmission has increased in a far greater degree than it would probably have done had railways never been constructed.

I should premise that it has been ascertained from returns kept by the department, that while the whole number of chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom has increased about six-fold, the increase has been about nine-fold with respect to[441] letters to and from London; and the same remark applies, although the increase is in a somewhat different ratio, to newspaper and book parcels. If, therefore, it can be shown that the weight of mails at present despatched from London (which greatly exceeds that of mails brought to London) could have been carried by mail coaches, it follows that no difficulty would have arisen with the mails in other parts of the country, where the increase of weight has not been so large.

The actual increase in the weight of the mails has been much less than is generally believed. It is often supposed that, because the whole number of letters has, since the introduction of penny postage, increased six-fold, therefore the whole weight of the mails has also increased six-fold. But when it is recollected that by far the larger portion of the mails has always consisted of newspapers, which were not in any way affected by the scheme of penny postage, it will be obvious that it would require a very large increase in the weight of the small or letter portion of the mails before the total weight would exhibit more than a small per centage of increase.[145]

In 1838 the gross weight of the night mails despatched from London in a single evening was about 4 tons 6 cwt. 1 qr. At the present time the total weight of the night mails despatched in a single evening may be stated at about 12 tons 4 cwt. 3 qrs. It will be seen, therefore, that the total increase in the weight has been only 183 per cent., or less than three-fold.

Mr. Stephenson correctly states that in 1838 the number of mail coaches leaving London each evening was twenty-eight, giving an average load for each coach of 3 cwt. 9 lbs., supposing the weight to have been equally distributed, which I am far from assuming[442] was the case. Taking the present weight of mails, and assuming that these twenty-eight mail coaches were still running, the average load for each coach would be 8 cwt. 3 qrs. Now a reference to the Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage in 1838, pages 48 and 50, will show that, according to the testimony of the Post Office witnesses[146] (the general tendency of whose views was certainly not at that time favourable to the practicability of penny postage), a weight of bags amounting to 18 cwt., or more than double what the present average load would have been, was sometimes carried on one mail coach, and that a load of 15 cwt., in addition to the usual limited number of passengers and luggage, was by no means too high a maximum to fix for mail coaches generally.

Admitting, however, that the weight was not equally distributed over all the mail coaches, and recollecting, at the same time, that this average load of 8 cwt. 3 qrs. would be above the average ordinary load on any other than weekly newspaper nights, when it would no doubt be higher, the inference is still a fair one that the greater part of the mail coaches would have borne the increase of weight without any difficulty, although there can be no doubt that, on some of the lines, additional coaches would have been required for a portion of the distance.

But the result which the above calculations justify is a great deal more favourable than is at all necessary for the purpose of disproving Mr. Stephenson’s argument, that the expenses of carrying out penny postage would have been so large as to have entailed a certain loss.

Let us suppose that, partly to meet the increase of weight, either daily or on the heavy newspaper night only, and partly to provide for the establishment of additional day mails (they were already in existence on some of the lines), the number of mail coaches would have been doubled all over the kingdom, and that[443] their cost would also have been doubled (an improbable supposition, considering the increase in the number of passenger coaches which must, in the absence of railways, have necessarily taken place to meet the increase of traffic). The expenditure of the department for mail-coach service would in that case have been advanced from £155,000[147] to only £310,000 per annum, while the present expenditure for the railway and mail coach service of the department is £443,000, of which sum £400,000 is paid to railway companies alone. Not only, therefore, would penny postage without railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but it would have been even more profitable (assuming the existing increase of letters) than it now is.

In order to show the impracticability of carrying out the penny postage system without the use of railways, Mr. Stephenson states, while speaking of the mails now carried by the London and North-Western Railway, that “not one mail coach alone, but fourteen or fifteen mails would have been needed to carry on with regularity the Post Office traffic.” It is probable that Mr. Stephenson is not very far wrong in this assumption, although he deduces from it the erroneous conclusion that penny postage must have entailed a certain loss. The facts of the case are, that in 1838 twelve or thirteen mail coaches from London were actually employed to carry the mails which now leave London by the London and North-Western Railway; so that, on Mr. Stephenson’s own estimate, only two or three additional mail coaches would have been required for forwarding those mails, which, it may be observed, constitute about one-half of the whole of the night mail leaving London.

The mail coaches which formerly carried the mails now leaving London in a concentrated form by the London and North-Western night mail train, were as follows, viz.:—

London and Edinbro’		Night Mail.
London and Leeds		”
London and Halifax		”
London and Holyhead[444]		”
London and Liverpool		”
London and Manchester		”
London and Glasgow		”
London and Carlisle		”
London and Derby		”
London and Birmingham		”
London and Birmingham	}	”
(Dublin Express)
London and Hull	}[148]	”
London and Worcester

In alluding to the advantages which have been conferred by railways, Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration, the cheap transmission of the printed proceedings of Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings were conveyed by post free of all charges. On the introduction of penny postage, a postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, and this charge has continued up to the present day.

Referring to the relations between the Post Office and railway companies as to the remuneration for mail service, I should observe, that under the old mail-coach system, the Post Office was protected from undue demands for the transmission of its mails along the public highways of the kingdom by means of competition. The principle of free trade in locomotion operated as a safeguard against extravagant charges. Coach proprietors, who had established themselves on any road, were prevented from taking advantage of their occupation of the line to levy unreasonable charges for either passengers or mails, by a wholesome fear of opposition. The result was, that by constantly offering its contracts to public competition, the Post Office insured the performance of its service on terms which afforded only a fair and moderate profit to the contracting parties.

The introduction of railways practically destroyed competition,[445] and placed large monopolies in the hands of a few private companies; but, to compensate for this, Parliament took the precaution of insuring moderate charges for passenger conveyance, by special provision in each Railway Act. Strange to say, a similar provision as regards the remuneration for Post Office service was omitted, and it was deemed sufficient to specify that the remuneration should be “reasonable;” a most indefinite term, and one which has given rise to infinite variety of opinion.

It is true that, failing an amicable settlement, provision is made for a reference to arbitration; but, in the absence of any general principles to guide the arbitrators or umpire in their judgment of what is or is not reasonable, the question resolves itself into one of individual opinion, and the consequence has been that the most conflicting decisions have been arrived at in cases which, if not identical, have been so nearly alike as to render it impossible to reconcile the strange variation in the rates awarded.

Without, however, dwelling upon the uncertainty of arbitration, which is by no means its least objectionable feature, it can readily be shown that this mode of determining payments has led to results very different from those implied by Mr. Stephenson, who states that for trains put on to suit the Post Office service, very little remuneration is allowed beyond the absolute outlay which the service entails, and that the Post Office insists on the right of travelling at the mere actual cost.

It can hardly be necessary to point out that the Post Office has no more power than a railway company has to fix any particular rate, or to insist upon any principle of its own in regard to payment. The department can do no more than give expression to the views which it believes to be fair and just, leaving the final decision to the umpire. But that those decisions have allowed to railway companies the mere actual outlay, with little or no profit, is a misapprehension which a brief examination of some recent awards will suffice to remove.

It fortunately happens that Mr. Stephenson furnishes in his address the data for checking his own accuracy on this particular point. He says that locomotive expenses on railways do not on an[446] average exceed 9½d. per mile, and that the cost of running a train may be assumed in most cases to be about 15d. per mile. Compare this with some of the rates actually paid by the Post Office to different companies at various periods within the last few years, amounting, it will be seen, in one instance to the enormous price of 4s. 6d. per single mile.

	s.	d.
Chester to Birkenhead	2	0	per single mile.
Dublin to Drogheda	2	0	”
Leeds to Selby	2	0	”
London to Bristol & Gloucester	2	0¼	”
Ipswich to Colchester	2	0½	”
Ely to Yarmouth	2	1	”
Peterboro’ to Grimsby	2	2	”
London to Dover	2	3	”
Londonderry to Strabane	2	4	”
Arbroath to Aberdeen	2	6	”
Lancaster to Carlisle	2	6	”
Southampton to Dorchester	2	8¼	”
Perth to Dundee	3	0	”
Dublin to Galway	3	0	”
York to Berwick	3	0	”
Dundee to Arbroath	3	1	”
Preston to Liverpool	3	1	”
Dundalk to Castleblayney	3	2	”
Parkside to Preston	3	6	”
Exeter to Plymouth	3	7	”
Grange Court (near Gloucester) to Haverfordwest	3	7	”
Drogheda to Dublin	3	9	”
Drogheda to Dundalk	4	0	”
Dublin to Cork	4	6	”
Limerick Junction to Limerick	4	6	”

In these cases it will be seen that the rates paid by the Post Office for the use of only a fraction of the train exceeded the whole[447] cost of running, as calculated by Mr. Stephenson himself, by from 60 to 260 per cent. But these rates, while they no doubt include in some cases special elements of expense not covered by the average of 15d. per mile, are independent of the receipts obtained from passengers, parcels, and in some cases from goods, earnings which, added to the Post Office allowance, have, in many instances, rendered the mail train one of the most profitable trains on the line.

It should be mentioned that the rates of payment quoted above applied, in some few of the cases, to trains which were running as passenger trains before the Post Office employed them for the mails, the times of departure and arrival, places of stopping, &c., being adopted by the Post Office almost exactly as the company had arranged them for their own convenience. In these instances the extravagance of the charge for the mails becomes of course the more remarkable.

I should imagine that the Post Office department would be well satisfied if those mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by notice, were conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of the actual running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for the benefit derived by the company from the train, and adding, on the other hand, compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected by the requirements of the Post Office, together with a full allowance for profit. I believe that some basis such as this has long been considered a desideratum by this department, and it is to be hoped that Parliament may see fit ere long to place the question on a footing of this nature.

It may not be inappropriate to mention here, in further refutation of Mr. Stephenson’s charge of illiberal treatment, that although the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion that Government can claim exemption from toll on railways, such claim has for many years been abandoned by the Post Office. The arbitrators acting for the department always considered the railway companies both as carriers and proprietors of the road, and from their calculations accordingly. It may also be observed that the[448] strongest desire is usually evinced by railway companies to obtain the conveyance of the mails, a desire which is certainly incompatible with the assumption that no profit is allowed for that service, and strangely at variance with Mr. Stephenson’s theory that railway companies are indifferent to postal traffic.

Before dismissing this branch of the subject, I must refer to a description of postal service by railway which has now become very extensive throughout the kingdom. I allude to the cases in which the Post Office sends a certain weight of mail in charge of the companies’ guards, by an ordinary train, over the working of which no control whatever is claimed by the department. For a service of this nature, the payment awarded under arbitration has, in a recent case, amounted to the exorbitant sum of 7d. per single mile, the weight of the mail averaging for the whole line not more than 1 cwt., or about half that of a second-class passenger and his luggage. For this trifling weight of mail the Post Office was thus made to bear very nearly half of the whole cost of running the train; while it has been ascertained that the average charge made by various railway companies for ordinary parcels carried beyond short distances very little exceeds one half-penny per cwt. per mile, the average charge for ordinary goods being of course even less.

I may add, that, although in a few cases, railway companies have been induced to accept moderate sums either for the use of one or two passenger trains, or for the general use of all their trains, it constantly happens that the department is prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the occasional transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.

At page 7 of his address, Mr. Stephenson gives the total earnings of railways from passengers, for the year 1854, at £9,170,000. The sum paid to railway companies by the Post Office during the year was about £392,000, or about 1/23 part of the gross earnings of all the passenger trains. He estimates the gross weight of passengers conveyed during the year at 8,000,000 of tons; while the gross weight of mails for the entire kingdom (including guards,[449] clerks, &c.) was considerably under 20,000 tons, a large portion of which was not conveyed by railways at all. Assuming, however, that the whole of it had gone by the railways, it would appear that the Post Office paid 1/23 part of the total earnings for the conveyance of less than 1/400 part of the total weight.

In connection with this branch of the subject, it may not be immaterial to mention, that in the finance accounts printed by order of Parliament last year, the gross amount of the passenger tax paid to the Government by railway companies in the preceding year is stated to have been £309,000. As the amount paid by the Post Office to railway companies for the postal service of the year 1854 was £392,600, it follows that the Government paid to railway companies for the carriage of the mails very nearly one-third more than it received from them in the shape of passenger tax.

The third allegation of Mr. Stephenson is that the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates.

Without stopping to inquire whether railway companies (most of whose Acts of Incorporation are of a later date than the Penny Postage Act, and several of whose lines have been opened since the commencement of the book parcel regulations) have any legal or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic, it may be sufficient to state, that with very trifling exceptions it is only to books and other printed matter (the general circulation of which is so intimately connected with the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of education), that any reduction below the ordinary postal charges for letters has been applied. Now, even assuming for a moment, that every book parcel that the Post Office carries is abstracted from parcels which would otherwise be conveyed by railway, it is obvious that the companies would not sustain any loss by such parcels becoming part of the mail, if the Post Office paid to the companies for its mail rates only as high as the booksellers pay them for their parcels, in which, for the most part, such books would be conveyed, if they were sent at all. But it is a[450] matter of fact, that the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels. It follows, therefore, that the companies, instead of being injured, would be benefited by any such abstraction, seeing that, besides receiving a higher rate of remuneration for the carriage of those book parcels, they are entirely relieved of the cost of collection and delivery, a cost which, as Mr. Stephenson shows, renders goods traffic less profitable to railway companies than passenger traffic.

But a more careful consideration of this question will establish good grounds for the opinion that by far the larger portion of the book parcels which the Post Office carries would not be sent at all, but for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the Post Office, contrasted with which the facilities which railway companies can of themselves afford sink into insignificance.

As bearing strongly upon this comparison of facilities, I may mention the somewhat remarkable fact, that copies of the very Report of the Committee of Consultation of the London and North-Western Railway, in which the Post Office is represented as unduly competing with railway companies for the carriage of books and parcels, were extensively circulated to that company’s shareholders through the medium of the Book Post, not merely to towns and villages at a distance from their railway, but even to Liverpool to which the company’s own trains might have carried them without any charge whatever. When it is recollected that there are about 10,500 Post Offices scattered throughout the United Kingdom, that there is scarcely a village without a Post Office, and scarcely even a hamlet without a regularly-established official means of communication with a Post Office, and that consequently persons even in the most secluded districts, can communicate by post with all parts of the kingdom with tolerable certainty, and with very little trouble or expense, it will readily be seen that such facilities as these must lead to the transmission of books and documents which otherwise would never be sent.

In fact, the book post service is one so different in its character and objects from that to which the parcel arrangements of the[451] railway companies are adapted, that it may fairly be assumed it would hardly exist at all, but for the extensive facilities for its development which the Post Office possesses. The evidence given before the Select Committee on Conveyance of Mails by Railways (1854), especially that of Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent publisher, is very decided on this point. He says (3872) that the cases in which books are sent by post may be nearly all considered as exceptional cases to the ordinary commercial operations of publishing; and again (3870 and 3892) that the book post may be looked upon as a mere auxiliary to the conveyance of parcels by other means; and (3860) that if the existing regulations were stopped, the public would not be able to derive the same advantages through any other channel. The Select Committee, in their Report, admitted their conviction that “a large proportion of the parcels would not be sent but for the facilities offered by the Post Office in their distribution.”

Following, however, another line of argument, let us again assume for a moment that all the book packets conveyed by Post have been abstracted from the companies’ vans. It can on the other hand, be shown, that the imposition of a postal charge on Parliamentary proceedings,—the limitation as to size of packets passing through the Post,—and lastly (the most important alteration of all), the abolition of the compulsory newspaper stamp,—are changes, the combined operation of which must have been to give to the companies a far greater weight of parcel traffic than the weight of the whole of the book packets passing through Post Office. It has been ascertained, with regard to the night mails from London, by which by far the largest proportion of books is conveyed, that the reduction in the number and total weight of newspapers conveyed by these mails since the alteration in the Newspaper Stamp Act is more than six times the total number and weight of all the book parcels. To show the extent to which weight has thus been abstracted from the mails, I may mention that the number of carriage-loads of bags sent from the General Post Office to the Euston Square Station on Friday nights, has, since the recent Newspaper Stamp Act took effect, been five less[452] than previously; and that the average nightly reduction of weight of newspapers despatched from London is upwards of two tons and a half. At the same time it is beyond doubt that the effect of the Act in question has been largely to increase the newspaper circulation of the kingdom, and consequently to add still further to the earnings of the railway companies.

If, as Mr. Stephenson states, uncertainty, irregularity, and delay are observable in the service at the Post Office, they result to a great extent from the irregularity which often occurs in the working of the mail trains by the companies, and not from any difficulties experienced at the Post Office in dealing with its vastly and rapidly increasing business.

Admitting, however, that slight detentions do occasionally occur from pressure of Post Office work, it is right to mention that the Post Office has long since urged upon the principal companies the adoption of a plan by which they and the Post Office shall be mutually bound to pay certain penalties for delay, from whatever cause; the Post Office further offering to pay in addition a premium to the companies in every instance in which the prescribed time is not exceeded. This proposal was, however, rejected at the time by every company to whom it was submitted, and since that date (1851) it has only been agreed to by one of the Scotch companies. It should be mentioned, that the Post Office offered in each case to reopen the award, and to readjust the payment by an arbitration, in which the proposed agreement for fines and premiums should be taken into consideration, the object being to render the arrangement as equitable as possible to the companies. I believe that the department is willing to renew this offer on the former basis, or, indeed, to adopt any equitable scheme for insuring greater punctuality.

Before concluding this report, it is but just to record a brief admission of the points in regard to which railways have, to a material extent, improved the postal communication of the kingdom.

The most important of those benefits is unquestionably the increased rapidity of communication, which has practically brought[453] Edinburgh and Dublin almost as near to London as Birmingham and Bristol were in the days of mail coaches. But the acceleration of speed, great as it has been, has not been the sole cause of the saving of time; for the use of railways has led to the avoidance of many of the stops which formerly took place at what were termed “forward offices,” for sorting purposes, that duty being now performed in travelling sorting offices, during the progress of the train. For this boon the public are clearly indebted to railways, and the Post Office is equally indebted to them for the consequent simplification of its system. The chief of the other benefits which railways have given to the Post Office and the public is greater frequency of postal communication; for, although there would no doubt have been established more numerous day mails, as well as frequent postal communication between certain large towns, if coaches had remained the fastest means of transit, it is scarcely probable that we should ever have been able to concede the very extensive additions to the number of communications throughout the kingdom generally, of which the use of railways has admitted; and the effect of which has doubtless been to cause a greater increase in the number of letters than would otherwise have taken place.

The vast advantages comprised in those two improvements can scarcely be overrated; but, having briefly acknowledged them, it hardly devolves upon me, in the present Report, to dilate upon them at any greater length.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient faithful servant,

EDWARD J. PAGE,

Inspector-General of Mails.

To Rowland Hill, Esq.,
——&c.——&c.——&c.

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APPENDIX, No. 2.

Reply of Robert Stephenson, Esq., M.P., President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, to observations in the Second Report of the Postmaster-General. Delivered at the Meeting of May 20th, 1856.

Gentlemen,

You will no doubt remember, that on taking this chair for the first time after election to it, I addressed you, according to the custom of the President of the Institution, upon matters of interest connected with civil engineering. The special points to which I directed your attention, were connected with the rise and progress of the railway system in this country; and amongst other matters referred to, were the facilities afforded by railways to the Post Office, which were described “as of the highest public consequence.” In enumerating those facilities, I observed that speed might, at first sight, appear to be the greatest item in the catalogue. But I said, “it may be doubted if it is the most important”:—“What is really of the greatest value to the Post Office, is the facility afforded of carrying bulk.” And then I went on to state that, “without railway facilities, it was not too much to say, that the excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction of the rates of postage, could not have been carried out to their full extent,” and to give a variety of reasons in support of that position.

I had hoped that throughout the section of the Paper in which this subject was considered, I had guarded myself very carefully against the slightest appearance of impugning the merit of Mr.[455] Hill’s plan, or its influence for good upon the British people, as no one can appreciate more thoroughly than I do the value of the penny postage system, and the boon it confers upon the public. It has been, therefore, with regret that I have seen in the “Second Report of the Postmaster-General on the Post Office,” dated the 30th January 1856, observations upon the Railway companies of England and upon my own statement, which appear to misconstrue the object of my remarks.

The tendency of the Post Office Report is to depreciate the advantages afforded to the Post Office by Railways. It is said that the railway working is “so irregular as to require from the Post Office serious and repeated remonstrances,” and also that against the advantages afforded by railways “there is an important set-off in increased expenses,” that “that change, which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons, or goods, has had precisely the reverse effect as regards the conveyance of mails.” It is also alleged, that the claims of the companies are often exorbitant, and that the loss inflicted upon the companies by the Post Office, in undertaking the carriage of parcels by their book post, is not, as the railways allege, “an injury, but is, in reality, a benefit,” and that even if it were otherwise, the companies “are compensated by the law relieving newspapers from the compulsory stamp, which has largely transferred the conveyance of newspapers from the mail bags to the luggage vans.” Annexed to the Report, which contains these statements, is a letter from Mr. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails, who carries these allegations still further.

I shall endeavour in reply, not only to sustain my own argument, but to show, that the assertions contained in the Report are fallacious; and that on the contrary, railways, viewed in reference to postal facilities, are “the great public instructors and educators of the day.”

The Post Office Report commences with certain admissions. It introduces the subject by the following sentence:—“Increased use has been made of several of the railways.”

Now, if the railways are so irregular, if their claims are so exorbitant,[456] and if, as the Report says, the same work could be done by the old mail coaches at much less expense, why is “increased use made of the railways?”

The next sentence states, that “By means of the establishment of an additional express mail train from London to Dover, ... a much later despatch from London of the day mail to France has been afforded, the time being now as late as 1·30 p.m. This change, besides affording to the merchants in London the opportunity of replying, the same morning, to letters from France, received by the night mail, admits of letters from Scotland, Ireland, and the north and south-west of England, which arrive in London by the day mail, being sent forward by the day mail to France, instead of being detained, as previously, for the night mail.”

The Post Office claims the merit of this. Nothing is said of the facilities afforded by the railway. The mail, here referred to, leaves London at half-past one in the afternoon. It stops only at the four junction stations on the line;—Reigate, Tunbridge, Ashford, and Folkestone;—reaching Dover at four o’clock, and thus, in two hours and a-half, carrying all the correspondence with Europe to the confines of England. Twice a month this train carries the Indian Mail. It conveyed, last year, nearly two million letters, exclusive of newspapers, to and from the army and navy in the Crimea. It will thus be seen, that this train performs important services for the Post Office and the public, and that it travels with great speed. The Post Office complains that the South-Eastern Railway Company are exacting “enormous prices,” because they pay for the service of this train at the rate of 2s. 3d. per mile! But when it is considered that this train was put on purely for Post Office purposes, and that the ordinary train, which previously left at the same hour, has not been superseded, but has been put back, in order to give facility to this train, the rate charged cannot be considered unreasonable:—in my opinion it is too low.

“Experience,” says the Report, “has confirmed the advantages to be derived from the use of Travelling Post Offices, and several[457] additional offices of this kind have been provided. Much greater use has also been made of the apparatus for exchanging mail bags.”

The Report argues, that Mr. Rowland Hill’s plans would have been as well carried out, under the old mail coach system, as under the railway system. If so, what are “the advantages derived from the use of Travelling Post Offices”? There was no “Travelling Post Office” on the Holyhead road: why should there be a Travelling Post Office on a railway? The answer obviously is, that the immense increase of correspondence renders necessary new appliances; that if the letters all remained to be sorted when they arrived at what are called the “forward” offices, the delay would be so great that the public would have to wait much longer for their letters.

It is further said: “Against these great advantages, there is an important set-off in increased expense; for, strange as it may seem, the change which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons or of goods, has had precisely the reverse effect as respects the conveyance of mails.”

Now, I am prepared to show that, notwithstanding the enormous increase in their bulk, there has been no real increase in the charge for conveying the mails.

The charge for conveyance of the mails by railway is stated at page 14 of the Report, to be as follows:—

MAILS CONVEYED BY RAILWAYS.
	Average charge per mile.		Maximum.		Minimum.
	s.	d.	s.	d.	d.
England	0	9¼	4	10	0¼
Ireland	1	5½	4	6	0¼
Scotland	0	8¾	3	2	0¾
United Kingdom	0	10	3	2	0¼

[458]

The rates, therefore, for conveying the mails on railways are very unequal: varying from ¼d. a mile to 4s. 10d., according to the services performed. The rates paid to the old mail coach proprietors were also very unequal: varying from nothing to 1s. per mile. But the fact is, that whilst the payments by the Post Office to the railways, represent all they get for conveying the mails, the payments by the Post Office to the mail coach proprietors only represented, in a very minor degree, the cost to the public of conveying the mails, and the advantages to the coach proprietors consequent on carrying them.

All mail coaches in England were entirely free from tolls for the maintenance of turnpike roads, the cost of which is now, in effect, transferred from the public to the railways. Mr. Harker, the Surveyor and Superintendent of Mail Coaches, gave evidence before the House of Commons, in 1811, that “the toll duties from which the mail coaches were exempted amounted to nearly £50,000 a year,” upon the very limited mileage then performed. This evidence was confirmed by Sir Francis Freeling; and, taking all the data that can be obtained upon the subject, no doubt remains that the tolls on turnpike roads in England and Wales averaged, for a coach with four horses, nearly 5d. per mile. From this heavy payment the mail coaches were free; though, of course, the charge had to borne in another shape by the public. Besides this, it is to be remembered, that the mail coach was, in many cases, paid for by the Post Office, at the rate of 1-1/16d. per mile. I will not, however, include that as a distinct item in my computation, but will reckon tolls and coach together as costing 5d. per mile. Beyond this, I may add, that whenever the bags were large and bulky, the Post Office paid extra. They then took the places of the two outside passengers, allowed to be carried on the roof of every mail coach (exclusive of the box seat), and whose fares probably averaged 2d. per mile each. In many cases, also, the Post Office was obliged to employ extra post-chaises and coaches, to carry the mails. The Greyhound Coach, from London to Birmingham, was permanently engaged for the carriage of newspaper-bags between London and Birmingham, at the rate of 1d. per pound, or £9. 6s. 8d. per ton, for the newspapers carried.

[459]

The old mails, therefore, cost as follows:—

Payment by Post Office for working	2½d.	per mile.
Exemption from toll, with coach, say	5d.	”
	——
	7½d.

without occasional extra payments. So that the real sum allowed for mail coaches was nearly as large as the sum allowed to railways.

But the Post Office Report admits that the mails, which were formerly carried by coaches, now leave London “in a concentrated form”—that for example, the North-Western Railway does the work of no less than thirteen of the old mail coaches: i. e. the mails to Edinburgh, Leeds, Halifax, Holyhead, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Carlisle, Derby, Birmingham, Hull, Worcester, and Dublin. The cost per mile, therefore, must be multiplied by thirteen, on the North-Western line alone, in order to represent the actual payment the Post Office would have had to make to the old mail coaches, as contrasted with the payment they are now making to the railway. And so as to the other railways, in proportionate degree.

It is to be borne in mind, also, that the Post Office authorities obtain facilities and advantages from the railways which they could not exact from the mail coach proprietors; and for which they pay nothing. Not only have they the power, under Act of Parliament, of ordering the trains at any time, at any speed, and to stop at any place, but they have, also, the power to direct the railway companies to provide all the carriages they require; and the railways actually find carriages for the Post Office, which cost, not the £120 which the old mail coaches cost, but no less than £500 each. In many cases the mail trains are run, under Post Office direction, at such inconvenient hours, that only three, or four ordinary passengers ever travel by them, for any part of their journey; so that the only remuneration received by the railway is the payment made for carrying the mails. It happens, also, on some railways,—such for example, as the line from Shrewsbury to Stafford—that the mail train is the only train run in the night. The consequence[460] is, that clerks, porters, sidesmen, gate-keepers, telegraph clerks, and nearly all the staff of the railway must be kept at night-work solely for Post Office purposes, for which the railway company has to pay.

“No doubt,” says the Report, “this result (i. e. high rate of charge on railways) is attributable partly to the necessity for running certain mail trains at hours unsuitable for passenger traffic; but even when the Post Office uses the ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes, the rate of charge, especially considering the regularity and extent of custom, is almost always higher, than that made to the public for like services.”

What are the “like services” rendered to the public? The public are conveyed as the mails are conveyed; but do the public take the control of the trains into their own hands, choosing where they will stop, and when they will go on, and preventing alteration of times? The public accommodate themselves to the regulations of the railways; but the Post Office takes its own time, and interferes in any way it pleases with the conveyance of the public and their goods. What are the charges made for conveying mails by “the ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes?” The Post Office has not furnished a list of these charges; but it appears from the table, which I have before quoted, that there are trains which carry mails in England at as low a rate as one farthing per mile. These are, no doubt, “ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes,” and if that charge is “almost always higher than the charge made to the public for the like service,” all I can say is, that I can hardly conceive how a smaller coin could be substituted for such a service.

“It fortunately happens,” says the Report, “that Mr. Stephenson furnishes, in his address, the data for checking his own accuracy on this particular point. He says, that the locomotive expenses on railways do not, on an average, exceed 9½d. per mile, and that the cost of running a train may be assumed, in most cases, to be about 15d. per mile. Compare this with some of the rates actually paid by the Post Office to different companies at various periods[461] within the last few years, amounting, in one instance, to the enormous price of 4s. 6d. per single mile.”

This is not a correct deduction from my observation. Although locomotive expenses do not, on an average, exceed 9½d. per mile, and although the current expenses of running a train may he assumed, in most cases, to be about 15d. per mile, you are all aware that “locomotive expenses” and “the cost of running a train” are not to be taken as representing the cost of supplying the service required by the Post Office. These charges were estimated for different purposes. They are the bare cost of power, &c. They do not include any calculation for establishment charges, wear and tear of road, interest on capital, or payment of expenses of station officers and porters. Of course the estimate does not include any compensation for extra services, such as are required by the Post Office, nor any allowance of any sort for profit.

A somewhat unfair use has been made, by the Post Office, of my statement with regard “to the cost of running a train.” That statement was made, as you will see by reference to my Address, for the purpose of enabling you to consider the broad principles which ought to govern railway companies in respect of passenger traffic. It is palpable that I never contemplated, in that estimate, what would be the cost of running a train, put on without reference to the convenience of the public, or to the advantage of the railway company, and yet entailing all the charges of a special engine and night-service. The Post Office has, however, quoted and made use of this expression, as if it was applicable to all cases.

The Report gives a list of railways and branches, twenty-five in number, to which Post Office rates of from 2s. to 4s. 6d. a mile are paid. The list commences with the line from Chester to Birkenhead, and concludes with that of the Limerick Junction to Limerick. Only two of the lines in this list are railways running out of London, and the payments to those lines are made under very special circumstances, one of them being for the Foreign Mail. The rest are all small cross lines, such as the Leeds and Selby, Perth and Dundee, Peterborough and Grimsby, and Dundalk[462] and Castle Blayney, upon many of which the mail train is a special train, put on in the middle of the night, exclusively for the purpose of carrying a small quantity of letters. Wherever there is the least service performed, it is obvious that the proportionate rate of charge must be the highest; and in each of these petty cases, the arbitrators, no doubt, found some good reason why rates above the average should be paid. Upon cross roads, wherever a mail cart had formerly to be used, the Post Office was obliged to pay its whole expenses. And upon cross lines of railway, in the same manner, it is to be expected that the whole expenses of a special train will have to be borne by those who use it.

“The Post Office department,” says the Report, “would be well satisfied if the mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by notice, were conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of the actual running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for the benefit derived by the company, from the train, and adding, on the other hand, compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected, by the requirements of the Post Office, together with a full allowance for profit.”

If by the “benefits derived by the company from a train,” the Report means the amount received for passengers and parcels by a mail train, I agree with those who think that the conveyance of passengers and parcels, by such a train, may be of no benefit to a company. If those passengers and parcels did not go by the mail train, they would go by some other train, probably at a more convenient time to the company, and nothing is gained by sending them by the mail. But, apart from this, I should imagine, that the railway companies will, one and all, willingly accept any proposal from the Post Office to convey the mails, based on my “estimate of the actual running cost, with the addition of compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected by Post Office requirements, together with a full allowance for profit.”

I am informed, that the claims of the Post Office upon the railway companies are continually increasing. The old mail coach[463] carried only one Post Office officer, the guard, who also assisted in the performance of the duties of the coach. But the Post Office claims of the railway companies, under penalty, to carry, free of charge, all guards, clerks, and officers of the Post Office, “when employed in fetching the bags, or in returning back from carrying the same, and the inspectors of mails and such other officers and servants of the Post Office as the Postmaster-General shall from time to time require.” Thus an unlimited number of free passengers may be conveyed at the Postmaster-General’s discretion, and however unreasonable the number may be, the company have no redress. It is to be observed also, that instead of assisting the train, these passengers require assistance from the officers of the company. The Post Office insists that the porters of a railway are bound to place their bags in their vans and remove them from their stations.

The nonpayment of fares for these officials is not the only objection to their conveyance. Although deriving no profit from their carriage, the companies, under a recent decision, are declared to be liable to make them compensation for any accident, or injury they may sustain whilst travelling; and recently on the North-Western line, a sum of £1,200 had to be paid to an officer of the Post Office who was accidentally hurt. Was this the case with the old mail coaches?

“It constantly happens,” says the Report, “that the department is prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.”

The Report cites no one instance in support of the case which, it is said, so “constantly happens.” In the absence of such evidence I may be permitted to doubt whether the Post Office has been well informed. If such cases have occurred, it must be under extraordinary circumstances, for the Post Office itself has power to prevent such occurrences. There is nothing to prevent their sending their mail bags, as a parcel, by any train they like. They may[464] have them carried, if they please, by a goods train, at 6d. per ton per mile; and that goods train will travel at least as fast as the old mail coach. A mail guard, with his bag of letters, may take his second-class ticket and walk into the railway carriage, with his bag, like any other passenger. On most of the lines on which it is complained that the railway rates are so heavy, the correspondence must be comparatively trifling. For instance, between Dundalk and Castle Blayney, the distance is 18½ miles. The Post Office rate paid, according to the Report, is 3s. 2d. a mile, or £2. 18s. 7d. for the whole distance; but the railway fare is only 2s. 7d. for the distance. If the Post Office insist on a special train and a travelling mail to carry a few letters, it is clear that they must pay in proportion, however minute may be the service rendered.

The Report complains, that whilst the gross weight of passengers conveyed by railway, during a year, is 8 millions of tons, the gross weight of mails (including guards, clerks, &c.), is under 20,000 tons,[149] so that “the Post Office contributes less than 1/400 part to the total weight, whilst it contributes 1/23 part to the total earnings of the railways.” But this is a fallacy. The mails are not to be estimated by their weight. The tables in the Report show, that the very cases, in which the Post Office carries the smallest weight, are those in which they are obliged to make the largest mileage payments.

The Report states, “the total payments to the companies for the year 1854, were £392,600, which, it may be observed, exceeds by £83,000 the 5 per cent. passenger tax for the same period.”

It would therefore appear, that what the Government really pays for all the postal service of the kingdom, even on this showing of the Postmaster-General, is £83,000 a year. For this they carried Four Hundred and Fifty-six Million of letters, without reckoning newspapers and parcels.

I now come to the second branch of the subject. I ventured to[465] say, and I do not hesitate to repeat, that “without railway facilities the excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction of the rates of postage could not have been carried out to their full extent.” But it is contended, that “not only would the penny postage without railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but that it would have been even more profitable than it now is.” Upon that I join issue. Would it have been practicable,—would it have been more profitable than it now is?

1st.—As to Practicability. I argued that question, solely and exclusively, and, I will add, fairly and properly, upon the question of bulk. “The old mail coaches,” I said, “were never planned for bulk. Bulk, indeed, would have been fatal to that regularity and speed, upon which the Post Office could alone rely, as the means of securing the monopoly of the letter carriage of the nation.” How is this reasoning met in the Post Office Report? The Report argues the question as a question of weight. “The increase,” it is said, “which has taken place in the weight of the mails has presented no difficulty to their conveyance by mail coaches.” Seventeen times in one page the word weight is reiterated, whilst the word bulk is carefully avoided. The reply to my argument that the bulk would have been fatal is that the weight would have presented no difficulty. Until my argument is met on the question of bulk, I must maintain that my argument is untouched. We all know that letters weigh very little. But unpressed, sent in bags, as they are, by the Post Office, what is the bulk of the mails? I told you in my address, that “On a Friday night, when so many thousands of weekly papers are sent into the country, the Post Office requires, on the London and North-Western Railway, not only the use of the travelling post office, which is provided for its convenience, but of six or eight additional vans.” This is not denied in the Report. But it is argued, nevertheless, as if all these letters could have been packed into the old mail coaches. What are the facts? On Saturday week the 1.30 p.m. Dover train carried down the Indian mail. That mail consisted of no less than[466] 170 boxes,[150] each about 1 foot 9 inches long by 1 foot broad and 1 foot deep. How could these have been carried by a mail coach? I have caused an old Dover mail to be measured, for the purpose of ascertaining the space allotted to bags. The box under the guard’s feet was 2 feet 10 inches long by 2 feet 1 inch deep, and 3 feet 5 inches broad; the boot (usually assigned to passengers’ carpet-bags and private parcels) was 2 feet 11 inches wide, 2 feet 6 inches deep, and 2 feet 7 inches long. The space on the roof, including the roof seat, was 5 feet long by 4 feet broad. Giving all this space to the Post Office, without reservation, had that mail coach carried last Saturday’s mail from London, it would have carried on its top a pyramid of mail boxes 12 feet high from the roof of the mail, or 20 feet from the ground! Yet the Report tells you, that there would have been no difficulty in providing for the conveyance of the present mails by the old mail coaches.

On Friday night (May 16), the mail from the Euston Square Station consisted of one Post Office van and six very large tenders, containing large sacks of letters, newspapers and parcels (many of them as large as sacks of corn). The vans each measured 660 cubic feet; if we say 600, we shall have a total cubic contents of 4,000 feet. This is equal to the displacement of a vessel of more than 1,000 tons burden. I said, in my Address, that it would take fourteen or fifteen mail coaches to carry the Friday night’s mail from London to Birmingham: that every coach that ran in 1830 between London and Birmingham would now have been needed for Post Office purposes, if the London and North-Western Railway had not been brought into existence. It turns out that I was much under the mark. 4,000 cubic feet, the extent of accommodation required to be provided by the railway company, could[467] not have been afforded by less than fifty of the old mails, even allowing that the two passenger-seats on the roof were devoted to the Post Office service, and the bags were packed to the height of 3 feet above the roof. And yet the Report tells us, that this extent of accommodation could have been afforded by the mail coaches that formerly ran on the North road; thus assuming for each old mail the same capacity as half an ordinary fly canal boat, or as two of our largest London omnibuses.

2nd. I proceed to the next question—the question of Expenditure. The Report states, that Mr. Hill’s plan would have been even more profitable under the old coach system than it now is.

“Supposing,” says the Report, “that the number of mail coaches, all over the kingdom, had been doubled, the expenditure of the department for mail coach service would, in that case, have been advanced from £155,000 to only £310,000 per annum, whilst the present expenditure for the railway and mail coach service of the department is £443,000, of which sum £400,000 is paid to railway companies alone.”

Now, I beg you to mark these figures. £155,000, says the Report, was the sum paid for the entire old mail coach service, whilst £443,000 is the sum now paid for railway and mail coach service, of which £400,000 is paid to railways alone, leaving £43,000 as the charge incurred by the side mails. Now, at page 14 of the Report, you will find it stated, that the branch mail coaches at the present time convey the mails over 31,667 miles per day at an average charge of 2¼d. per mile. 31,667 miles at 2¼d. per mile gives a total of £108,000 a year. Here is a total then of £108,000 a year paid at the present time merely for the conveyance of the side mails by coaches, in place of £43,000 as the Report leaves us to infer.[151] Now, if £108,000 a year is paid, at the present time, only for the conveyance, by two horse coaches and mail carts, of the side mails where railways do not run, how is it[468] possible that the total cost of all the mail coach transit of England could have been only £155,000 a year?

It is clear there must be some serious error in the Post Office figures, and that error is of such a character as really to invalidate all the calculations of the Report. Either £155,000 could not have represented the cost of carrying the mails formerly, or £108,000 a year, instead of £43,000 a year, must be deducted, for the side mails, from the total sum of £443,000, assumed to be the cost of postal conveyance at the present time.

But, it is also to be remarked, that the payments to mail coach proprietors for working, did not represent anything like the amount borne by the public for the mails. The Post Office treats this question as if the working at 2¼d. a mile is all the expense the public have to bear. They forget the tolls. They forget that a mail coach could not pass over a road without wear and tear, and that the Post Office paid nothing for that wear and tear. The public in another shape bore that expenditure. Under the old system, indeed, as the Postmaster-General’s table shows, many of the old coaches were only too glad to “carry a bag” (as it was termed), merely for the sake of obtaining exemption from toll, which cost on the average 5d. per mile to the coach proprietor. You must remember that this toll was levied on the public using the turnpike road, for those purposes of repair, which are now defrayed by railway companies, in the shape of reparation of permanent way. The wear and tear of a railway line is solely paid for by the railway company, who can receive nothing in the shape of an equivalent for remission of tolls, except by direct payment.

The Post Office forgets, again, that under the old system, the roads, to some extent, were made at the cost of the public. Nearly a million of money was expended by Government in making and improving the old Holyhead line of road. Why was this expenditure incurred? It was incurred to save six hours in the delivery of the mails between Dublin and London. This, be it recollected, was the measure of the value of time by the State. They spent a million of treasure to save six hours of time. Contrast the time occupied in the transmission of mails now and in the year after[469] that expenditure was incurred? The Holyhead mail, after a million of public money had been spent in expediting it, still took 26 hours on the road. The same mail by railway only occupies 8½ hours[152] on its whole journey. Nearly 18 hours have been thus saved on this one line of road; and yet though the Government could spend a million to save 6 hours, they complain of paying £30,000 a-year, or only the interest at 5 per cent. upon £600,000, for a railway service passing over a line of road which they did not expend a farthing to construct, and which is kept in repair by private individuals, who have incurred the enormous expense of spanning the Menai Straits by a railway bridge.

In estimating the comparative cost of conveyance by road and by railway, not only are the Government officers, as I have shown you, wrong in their figures and calculations, but they suppress the great items which entailed expense on the public under the old mail coach system, and which are now saved to the State. Let me mention another saving. Under the old system, the Post Office packets were a source of well ascertained loss to the State. The old Holyhead mail coach could not bring down a sufficient number of passengers to pay the cost of the passage from Holyhead to Dublin. The packet service with Ireland entailed a loss of more than £100,000 a-year. At the present time, the railway saves the Government nearly all this loss. In consequence of the travelling facilities now afforded by the railway, the boats between Holyhead and Dublin contract to perform the service of the Government for a payment of £25,000 a-year.[153] And yet the department complains that it pays £30,000 a-year, for carrying its mails, to the railway company which has enabled it to effect this enormous annual saving.

This example proves this part of the case. The Report omits to[470] take into account the amount thus saved; or any similar savings, such as £25,000 a-year formerly paid for conveyance of mails by steam packets from London to Rotterdam and Hamburgh, now sent to Dover by the South-Eastern Railway. If I admit that which the Report does not establish, that £400,000 is paid to railway companies for postal service, at any rate I am entitled to have the public savings put against that amount. If I consider the vast total of those savings, I cannot doubt, for a moment, that railways are in reality not getting what they are fairly entitled to, for performing the duties for which the State formerly had to pay so largely. Considering the enormous item of turnpike tolls remitted to the old mail coaches,—the vast saving effected in the maintenance of the roads themselves,—the greatly increased facilities demanded by the new postal system,—the incalculable gain in consequence of the increased speed,—and the diminution of heavy loss upon steam packet and such like traffic, I should really be tempted to say, that if the Government paid to railways double what they paid to the proprietors of old stage coaches, they would still be gainers by the use of railways for the purposes of the Post Office. But when I consider, that according to the showing of this Report itself, they pay no more, if so much to railways, as they paid under the old system, whilst they carry five-and-a-half fold more letters, to say nothing of newspapers and parcels, I am surprised at the assertion that “The penny postage, without railways, would even have been more profitable than it now is.”

I stated, in my address, that not only was the Post Office dealing illiberally with the railway companies, but that it was absolutely entering into competition with them, as carriers, by undertaking the conveyance of books and other parcels, at very reduced postal rates. The Post Office authorities open their reply by saying, that they shall not stop to inquire whether railway companies have any legal, or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic.[154] I[471] shall not stop to inquire, by what policy a Government department steps in to interfere with the free course of trade. But, argues the Report, the companies sustain no loss, “for the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels.” The Post Office has never paid one farthing to the railway companies in respect of these parcels. The Post Office pays the companies so much per mile for the whole service. It carries what it pleases. It chooses to carry books. Those books formerly went by the companies’ luggage vans, and were paid for to the companies by the public. The Post Office undertakes the carriage of these parcels, puts them into its letter bags, and carries them, under its contract with the railways, without paying the railways a single farthing extra. The railways suffer all the loss: the Post Office obtains all the profit. And then the Report tells you that “the companies, instead of being injured, are benefited by the abstraction.”

“By far the larger portion of the book parcels,” says the Report, “which the Post Office carries, would not be sent at all, but for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the Post Office.” But there is one remarkable fact in the Report which is inconsistent with this theory. Since the stamp duty has been removed from newspapers, the Post Office, on their own showing, has lost the annual delivery of nearly 28,000,000 of newspapers, which formerly passed through the post;[155] and there is reason to believe, that the number of such transmissions is daily decreasing. Now, if the superior facilities of the Post Office induce the public to get their book parcels by post, how is it that they are gradually relinquishing the use of the post as a means of getting their newspapers? The superior facilities, if there are any, are precisely of the same description both for newspapers and book parcels; yet, nevertheless, the public, who best know how to appreciate superior facilities, are gradually giving up the facilities of the post in respect to newspapers, and employing the facilities afforded by the[472] railway. The superior facilities, are, therefore, not estimated by the public as equivalent to 1d. per newspaper parcel.

It would appear, therefore, that the question was rather one of “charge” than of superior facilities. The Post Office chooses to undersell the railways, availing itself of the facilities railways afford it for the purpose of so doing. The public always buy in the cheapest market. They send their books by post, because the post takes them cheaper than the railways took them. And I told you, in my Address, why the Post Office is able to do this. The Post Office insists on the right of travelling over the railways at a fixed cost per mile; and, as I have just observed, without paying anything additional whatever for book parcels. The railways have to pay, not only expenses, but interest on capital; and it is to be expected therefore, that they cannot compete, in respect to this traffic, with a public department which contributes to neither. But how far this use of the railways for the purpose of the Post Office, and to the detriment of the railways is equitable, or proper, is another question.

The Post Office itself seems to feel that it is not quite equitable or proper, for the Postmaster-General, in the body of the Report, treats the question solely on the ground that “a benefit” is conferred on the railway companies by this abstraction of their traffic, and that, even if that is not the case, the companies are compensated by the transference to the luggage vans of the newspapers previously carried by the mails. I think it is in “Gil Blas” that the gentleman who takes the canon’s purse, is made to prove that the abstraction was a “benefit” to his soul’s health, and would keep him free from many of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Upon the same principle, I suppose it is intended to be argued, that the abstraction of their traffic is a benefit to the railway companies. But, with regard to the second part of the argument, I deny that the railways are “compensated” for their loss by the transference to their vans, of the newspapers which the Post Office used to carry for nothing, and which it is admitted the officers would be “only too glad to see removed from the Post[473] Office altogether.”[156] The stamp duty, you will remember, never was a postal duty under the old system; it went into the accounts of another branch of the revenue. The Post Office consequently never benefited, but, on the contrary, was only taxed for the performance of its duty as the carrier of newspapers. Latterly, this duty became so onerous, that the Post Office felt itself almost incompetent to its due performance. To save itself the trouble and expense of receiving all the papers, at the last moment, at the Post Office, it was in the habit of sending its own vans to the offices of the great news publishers, and carrying their papers in bulk to Euston Square, where an office was assigned to the Post Office for newspaper purposes. The change effected by the removal of the stamp might have been taken advantage of as a great source of revenue to the Post Office, which failed, however, to work out a system that would have been remunerative to itself, and advantageous to the public; and the consequence has been, that the public have resorted to what I may call, in the words of the Report, the “superior facilities” of the railway. But the railway gets for the carriage of these parcels nothing like the amount that the Post Office would get. The Post Office is bound, under Act of Parliament, to charge 1d. per paper, but the railways take these papers in bulk, several hundreds in a package; and carry them at the rate of so much per ton. To tell us, that an act of their own, by which they threw off an excess of labour which had become not only burdensome, but overpowering to the Post Office, was done out of consideration for the railways, and as a compensation for the abstraction of the book parcels, is not likely to be entirely acquiesced in.

The number of book parcels that passed through the Post Office last year was a million and a-half. Captain Huish, in his evidence[474] before Parliament in 1854, has shown, that the loss of revenue to railways, by the abstraction of book parcels has, in some cases, borne a large proportion to the sum paid to railway companies for the conveyance of the mails. A stronger proof than this, of the unfair dealing of the Post Office towards the railway companies, could scarcely be afforded. But I own, that I do not look so much to the actual loss as to the bad precedent. It seems to me, that there is no limit to what the Post Office may carry, if this is permitted. There are many lighter articles than books forming the substance of railway packages. Is the Post Office to undertake all the light carrier trade of the kingdom, without extra payment to the railways for the use of the roads?

The Report says, “Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration the cheap transmission of printed proceedings of Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings were conveyed by post free of all charges. On the introduction of a penny postage, a postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, which continues up to the present day.”

If I am unfortunate in referring to this charge, the Report, I must say, is doubly so. For if all Parliamentary papers have been subjected to a penny postage, who receives the money? The railways ought to have a share of it; but they get nothing. The public ought to have a share of it; but on the contrary, the Post Office, which has greater facilities for carrying public papers, makes the public pay more for their transmission instead of carrying them for less. Who, then, does get the penny? The only answer is, that it goes to the credit of the Post Office account in reduction of the expenses incurred in carrying out the penny postage system.

[Mr. Stephenson having reviewed the complaints made by the Post Office about irregularities in 1856, and previously, and stated facts to show their injustice, and that they were fully as much attributable to the department as to the companies, proceeded with his address as follows.]

If the Post Office authorities want the highest rates of speed,[475] with perfect observance of time, they have an easy mode of securing it. Let them contract with the railway company for special trains, exclusively for the purposes of the mails. The companies will be only too glad to provide those trains, at the same, or even a less rate, than that at which they provide special trains for the public. They will, no doubt, enter into any arrangement for the arrival of such trains at their respective destinations, at the hour agreed upon. On the side of the Post Office, all that is requisite to secure this, is an equitable payment for the service, which, considering the great importance of the subject, ought not to be grudged to secure a rapid and punctual delivery of letters.

We are told, indeed, in the Post Office Report, that the railways have no right to be treated on such principles. On the contrary, they are threatened. “The law officers of the Crown,” says that document, “have given an opinion that Government can claim exemption from toll on railways.” Happily, it is one thing for “the law officers of the Crown to give an opinion,” and another for a Government department to succeed in enforcing it.

But who are these, asks the Report, who complain of “illiberal treatment?” The old mail coaches, it says, represented free trade and competition; but these railways are “large monopolies in the hands of a few private companies.” A few private companies! What is meant by a “private company”? The railway share and debenture holders of England number more than a quarter of a million. Do these capitalists represent a “private company”? An old mail coach, carrying four insides and three out, and horsed by Mr. Fagg at 2½d. a mile, is called in this Report a public conveyance, “by which the Post Office was protected from undue demands, in the transmission of its mails along the public highways of the United Kingdom,” whilst a railway, like the London and North-Western, with nearly eighteen thousand shareholders and a capital exceeding thirty millions, is called “a monopoly in the hands of a private company.” A monopoly! Allow me to ask, again, of what has any railway got a monopoly? The old “public highways,” as the Report calls them, are still open to everybody. The Post Office authorities may put upon them, once[476] more, if they think fit, their favourite public conveyances. Except the bulk of their bags, there is nothing to prevent them from loading them once more in the court-yard of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and starting them off for Holyhead, or Aberdeen, with the old guard on his seat behind, and the old driver flourishing his whip.

The railways have no monopoly; Parliament has never allowed them a monopoly. In France, and elsewhere, the Legislative bodies have given railway companies a monopoly for a certain number of years; but with us the practice of Parliament has been precisely the reverse. So far from exercising any monopoly, the railways here are subjected, even among themselves, to a fierce competition. Parliament has sanctioned a second railway to Dover; there are already two lines to Hastings; two are completed to Portsmouth, and a third is making; the Government has insisted upon the South-Western making a second line to Exeter; there are already three lines to Birmingham; there are three lines to Derby, three to Peterborough, three to York, two to Cambridge, two to Oxford, two to Norwich, two to Lincoln, two to Liverpool; I know not how many to Shrewsbury; and many routes to Scotland both by the west coast and the east. Monopoly! Why Parliament on the whole circuit of the country has established, not only the principle, but the practice of free competition; and we have absolutely as much competition amongst railways now as ever existed in the old days of, what the Post Office Report calls, the public highways.

The only monopoly ever accorded by Parliament to the railway companies has been the right of taking land; but that right has been encumbered, both legally and by the opportunity afforded for making claims for exorbitant compensations. Parliament has subjected railway companies to frightful expenses, and to most uncertain and unfair tribunals in its own committees. It has never assisted any work in progress, however useful even for purposes of State. It has given no concession to any company; it has undertaken no share of the work, as has been done by the Governments of other States; it has granted no crown lands for[477] any line; it has not assisted to make a line; it has guaranteed no interest upon outlay; it has not even lent money (with the exception of about two millions to Irish railways), as it did year after year to the Holyhead Road Commissioners. What, then, is the Government entitled to from the railway companies? No doubt it is entitled to have public services properly performed, at a moderate cost. And all public services are performed by the railways for the Government, at a moderate cost. But it is not entitled—it can establish no claim—to use the property of railway proprietors, without toll, or to have its work done, without paying a fair rate of profit to those who perform it. When the Post Office Report tells you, that railways are monopolies which have destroyed competition, I ask you to consider, on the other hand, whether railways are not in fact too much subject, at the present time, to Government control. This very mail service is performed by the railways under compulsion. Did the Government compel any one to perform the duty of carrying the mails in the days of the old mail coaches? If, in those days, they had advertised for tenders from stage coach proprietors, for the performance of a duty such as they now exact from railway companies, subject to arbitration as to the sum that should be paid for its performance, how many tenders is it likely they would have obtained?

On the other hand, I ask you to look at the treatment the railways are receiving from the Government. I will take the case of their own selection—the case of the Chester and Holyhead Railway—in which they make a merit of paying at least double what would have been awarded by arbitrators. Look at the route to Ireland before the Holyhead Railway was constructed. No less than thirty-six hours were occupied in getting from London to Dublin. But this was regarded as great expedition, and it was most munificently paid for by the Government. They spent, as I have told you, nearly a million of money in making the road. They lost on the Irish steamers more than £100,000 a-year, to say nothing of their contract for the coach, and upwards of £3,000 a-year remitted on the tolls. This was the state of things before railways were established. The work is now done, not in thirty-six,[478] but in fifteen hours.[157] The whole mail service now, with this increased expedition, costs the Government no more than £65,000 a-year.[158] Thus the Government save, upon this route alone, twenty-one hours in every journey, and nearly £40,000 a-year in expenditure.

But in the face of this, what has been the conduct of the Government to the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company? In the first place, it imposed conditions which greatly enhanced the cost of the Britannia Bridge. Then observe how it treated that line with reference to other matters. The Holyhead road runs for about half-a-mile near Conway upon an embankment constructed on the sea-shore. The Holyhead Company proposed to form its railway outside that embankment, thereby, in fact, widening the embankment and affording it protection from the sea. The same state of things occurred in the Isle of Anglesea, at an inlet known as the Stanley Sands. In both cases the railway rested on the slope of the Government embankment, and for this “privilege,” as it is called, the Government to this day charges the railway an annual rental!

Such is one illustration (among many) of the treatment of the railway companies by the Government departments. They have aggravated the expenses and difficulties of a line which has helped to save them, as I said before, twenty-one hours in every journey between London and Dublin, and no less than £40,000 a year in money outlay. At the present time, the Post Office Report tells us, that the department is paying double what it ought for conveying the mails over this railway, and that “the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion,” that Government can claim the right to pass over it, in common with all others, without paying any toll at all!

In conclusion, I ask, how can the Post Office authorities justify their tone respecting the railways? They admit great advantages from railways, but they say that against those advantages there is[479] an important set-off in increased expense. Is there any foundation for this charge? Let us look at the figures. The mails are now conveyed daily by rail and coach over, in round figures, 60,000 miles. The total cost of this conveyance is stated at £443,000. Upwards of £100,000 is saved upon the sea service with Ireland and the continent alone. Now, suppose the mail service of the country was still performed under the old mail coach system, what would it have cost? The net payment to mails, upon their own showing, would have amounted to £310,000; the tolls and coaches, at 5d. per mile, would have been £456,000. Add to this the steam-boat saving, and we should have a total cost exceeding £800,000 per annum. But as the present cost is only £443,000, there is a difference in favour of the railway system exceeding £400,000 a year, without taking credit for the increased rapidity of transmission.

If I turn to the Post Office accounts, at page 57 of the Report, I find that the additional work, to the extent of five and a-half times, has been performed at an increased cost of only two and a-half times. By their own showing then, the cost of conveyance has not “increased in a far greater degree,” but in a far less degree in proportion to the work performed. I find, also, that the cost of conveying the mails has only increased, in a corresponding ratio, with the increase in the expenses of all the other branches of Post Office expenditure since 1838. I find still further, that the whole cost of conveyance amounts to little more than one-fourth of the whole cost of management, for whilst the whole cost of management in 1855 was £1,651,000, the entire payment for cost of conveyance was only £443,000. I ask, then, with what justice, with what show of propriety, can the Postmaster-General, or his officials, complain of the payments to railways for the postal communication of the nation?

The whole course of this argument has not only confirmed my conviction that without railway facilities the plans of Mr. Rowland Hill, for the reduction of the rates of postage could not have been carried out to their full extent, but it has clearly proved to my mind, that they could not have been carried into effect at all. Space, we have seen, is absolutely essential to the accommodation[480] of the increased bulk,—speed is absolutely essential to that multiplication of correspondence, which is requisite to sustain the rapidly increasing establishment charges, augmented already from £500,000 to £1,200,000 per annum. If the absence of facilities, both of space and speed, had not proved fatal, by preventing the development of the system, it is clear, that the expense would have broken down that system altogether. I am convinced also, that unless more and more advantage be taken of railway facilities, the postage system will not progress, in proportion to the increase of the population and wealth of the kingdom. What is it that multiplies communication? Speed and facility of transmission. In those the Electric Wire is now a competitor with the Post. Suppose we had the Electric Telegraph in operation, without a railway system, and our correspondence consequently dependent on the old mail coach, I ask what would be the effect upon the penny postage system? If the Post Office authorities desire to increase the correspondence of the nation, through their machinery, they must make more and more use of railway facilities. It is only by more frequent postal communications and accelerated speed of delivery, that the telegraph can be successfully competed with, as regards the large and increasing portion of the correspondence of the nation, which is flashing unceasingly along its wires. To obtain that increased frequency and accelerated speed, the Post Office authorities must deal equitably with the railway companies. It is not only the duty, but it is for the interest, of Government so to do. If the Government and the railway companies went hand in hand, arrangements might be made, by which the whole correspondence of the nation might be carried on, in a much more perfect manner, with advantage to the companies, and without any direct payment by the Government. When the Post Office authorities are prepared to deal with this question in an equitable spirit, I shall be prepared to show them how such an arrangement may be effected.[159] Meanwhile I leave them, in the hope that[481] these remarks, offered in all good-will and friendliness of spirit, upon the document they have published, may have some influence, in inducing them henceforward to regulate their affairs for their own and the public interests, and to endeavour, in some degree, to keep better pace with the advancing spirit of the time.

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APPENDIX, No. 3.

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Copy of Letter Addressed to a Member of the Italian Parliament upon the Importance of the Eastern Mails, now despatched viâ Marseilles and viâ Southampton, being transmitted viâ Brindisi.

London,

5th June, 1867.

In consequence of the promise I made when in Florence on the 20th and 21st ultimo, that I should write to you on the subject of postal communication between Great Britain, the East Indies, China, Japan, and Australia, I have the honour to address this letter to you.

I propose to commence it with a short sketch of the history of this communication, which, from being of comparatively trifling importance in 1830, has become, at the present time, one of immense magnitude, as well as of equally great commercial, social, and political importance.

Previous to 1830, the mail communications of Great Britain with the East were maintained solely by the route round the Cape of Good Hope. Letters then were never less than 90 to 120 days on the passage between England and Calcutta, and from 20 to 30 days more between England and China.

In 1830, the then great political and commercial company of England, called the East India Company, first placed a postal steamer in the Indian Seas; but it was not until 1834 that a regular monthly service was organised between Suez and Bombay.

In 1835, steam communication was organised, although in an imperfect and unsatisfactory manner, between England and Alexandria. By degrees this service became improved.

In 1839 the British Government, by convention with that of France, opened the Marseilles route for the conveyance of a[483] portion of the Indian Mail; as, at that period, the railway system was not in operation in France, it required 108 hours to convey the correspondence despatched by this route, between Calais and Marseilles. It may here be mentioned that in 1845 great efforts were made by Lieutenant Waghorn of the British Navy, a man eminently distinguished in connection with the first attempt to establish postal communication between Great Britain and the East Indies, viâ the Isthmus of Suez, to make Trieste the port for the embarkation of the mails. These efforts were, however, not successful, and the attention of Great Britain became thenceforward limited to the routes, viâ Marseilles for the more rapid communication, and viâ Southampton for the heavier and larger portion of the Indian mails.

Reverting to the year 1840, the British Government entered, at that period into a contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for a service once a month, from Southampton to Alexandria, and from Suez to Calcutta and China; and two services were organised between Marseilles and Alexandria, one in connection at Suez, with the service by the steamers for Calcutta and China, and the other in connection with a service between Suez and Bombay, which was performed by the postal steamers of the East India Company.

In 1849 the services between Southampton and Alexandria became bi-monthly instead of monthly as before.

In 1854 the postal steamers of the East India Company were withdrawn, and the whole of the services in the Indian Seas were transferred to the Peninsular and Oriental Company.

In 1858 the postal service with Australia, viâ the Isthmus of Suez, was first commenced. It is a monthly service, but by recent intelligence received from Australia, there is probability of its becoming bi-monthly at an early date. I shall give particulars of the immense magnitude of this mail hereafter.

In 1857, in consequence of the very great increase of correspondence passing between Great Britain and the East, it was found necessary to augment the postal services to four a month in each direction viâ Marseilles, and to four in each direction viâ Southampton.

[484]

The whole of the sea service of the Indian, China, Japan, and Australian postal communications of Great Britain, is performed by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. This company is the largest in the world. It has a fleet of fifty-three steamers, with an aggregate tonnage of 86,411 tons, and 19,230 horses power. Its largest ship is of 2,800 tons. Its next largest is 2,600 tons, five are between 2,000 and 2,500 tons, and eighteen are between 1,500 and 2,000 tons each. Its routes extend from Southampton and from Marseilles to Alexandria, from Suez to Bombay, from Suez to Point de Galle and Calcutta, from Bombay to Calcutta, from Point de Galle to Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama (Japan), and from Point de Galle to Melbourne and Sydney. The total number of knots (sea miles) performed by the postal vessels of the company in 1866 was 1,194,952, equal to 2,290,320 kilometres.

By successive openings of the railways, the length of which between Calais and Marseilles is 1,190 kilometres, the time occupied in the transit of the Eastern mails through France has been diminished from 108 hours to 28 hours.

I have already stated the total contract service of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, 2,290,320 kilometres.

The annual land service of the Eastern mail is as follows; first, as regards Marseilles:—

Route.	Kilos.	Number of Journeys.	Total.
London and Dover	150	96	14,400
Calais and Marseilles	1,190	96	114,040
Alexandria and Suez	400	96	38,400
			166,840
			————
Viâ Southampton.
London and Southampton	135	96	12,960
Alexandria and Suez	400	96	38,400
			————
			218,200

[485]

It should be explained that the heavy mails that are conveyed by the steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, between Southampton and Alexandria, are taken across the Isthmus of Suez by separate trains from those which convey the light mails viâ Marseilles; hence, there are ninety-six trips of Eastern mails per annum across the Isthmus for the Marseilles mails, and ninety-six for those viâ Southampton. Thus the total annual length of this great postal service is:—

	Kilometres.
Water	2,290,320
Land	218,200
	————
	2,508,520
	══════

The weight and dimensions of the Eastern mails have increased very greatly during recent years. This is owing partly to the immense expansion of the trade of England in the Indian, Chinese, and Australian oceans, and partly to the British army in India, consisting of at least three times as many Europeans as previous to the Indian mutiny of 1857. England has also a larger fleet in the Indian and Chinese Waters than formerly. In 1865, the trading interests of England, in the Eastern seas, was as follows, in pounds sterling:—

Countries.	Imports.	Exports.	Tonnage of Vessels.
			Entered.	Cleared.
	£	£	£	£
British India	37,395,372	18,254,570	664,391	671,856
Singapore	2,169,056	1,442,450	77,835	50,292
Ceylon	3,707,615	685,308	52,197	50,400
Mauritius	1,246,299	596,848	41,029	30,805
China	10,673,690	3,609,301	91,606	80,375
Hong Kong	773,068	1,561,851	14,608	42,848
Hong Kong	773,068	1,561,851	14,608	42,848
Egypt	21,772,250	5,985,087	361,419	488,268
Dutch Possessions	226	928,642	Nil.	29,349
Philippine Island	1,253,904	945,642	23,207	18,055
Japan	614,743	1,520,895	9,361	19,602
Australia	10,283,113	13,352,357	156,649	387,239
Total £	68,117,356	42,897,846	1,492,102	1,869,090

[486]

The value of all the imports into the United Kingdom for the year 1865, was £271,131,967; so that the value of the imports of the countries above enumerated is very nearly one-fourth of the total value of English imports. British exports, consisting of materials and of articles manufactured in Great Britain in 1865, were £165,862,402, of which nearly one-fourth was exported to the above-enumerated countries. The total tonnage of the vessels cleared inwards in British ports during 1865, was 14,317,866 tons. The total outward tonnage was 14,576,206 tons. The inward tonnage, to the countries enumerated above, was therefore a tenth of the total inward tonnage of the kingdom; and the outward tonnage was an eighth of the total outward tonnage.

In proof of the immense and rapid extension of England’s trade with the East, it may be stated that the figures given above show amounts three times as great as they were five years, and nearly twenty times as great as they were fifty years ago.

The Eastern mails, sent viâ Marseilles, are packed in wrought-iron boxes. They weigh about thirteen pounds, and their contents usually weigh about thirty-seven pounds. A box, fully packed, contains about 220 newspapers; the average weight of each of which is 3¼ English ounces. If a box be filled with letters, the number of them is about 1,800. The average weight of each letters is a little more than a quarter of an English ounce, or about 7½ French grammes.

The mails sent viâ Southampton are packed in wooden boxes of larger dimensions than those sent viâ Marseilles. As the letter postal rate is really double viâ Marseilles what it is viâ Southampton, and as the great proportion of the official letters passing between the Indian office in London and the three presidencies in India, as well as the official correspondence with the army and navy, is conveyed viâ Southampton, the number of letters carried in a box is about the same as in a box viâ Marseilles, notwithstanding the difference of dimensions. The number of newspapers sent in a box viâ Southampton is about a third more than in a box sent viâ Marseilles.

In 1850, when there were only two despatches of mails from England to the East per month, viâ Marseilles, and one per month[487] viâ Southampton, the average number of boxes per despatch was 57 viâ Marseilles and 152 viâ Southampton.

In 1858, as I have already stated, mails commenced to be despatched between England and Australia by the Overland Route—that is both viâ Southampton and viâ Marseilles. The service is once a month, and the Australian mail forms a part of the mails despatched from Southampton on the 20th of each month, and from Marseilles on the 26th of each month.

The dates for the three other despatches of each month are viâ Southampton the 4th, the 12th, the 27th; viâ Marseilles the 3rd, the 10th, and the 17th.

I mentioned in the last paragraph but two the number of boxes of mails despatched per month in 1850.

In 1861 the average number of boxes despatched viâ Marseilles, on the three occasions in each month when the Australian are not forwarded, was 89; but on the 26th of each month, when the Australian mail is included, the number of boxes despatched was 232.

The weight of the mails from the East towards England is never so great as from England towards the East; and this is caused from the fact that for every fifty newspapers that are sent from England to the East there is not more than one sent from the East to England; and the average weight of the latter is little more than one half the average weight of the former. For this reason the number of boxes received on each occasion in each month of 1861, when the Australian mail was not received, was twenty-two; but when the Australian mail was received the number was fifty-three.

I regret that I am not able to give the same information for 1861 as regards the Southampton route; but an Appendix to the Report of a Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1866 upon the postal and telegraph communications of England with the East, enables me to state them with accuracy for the years 1864 and 1865.

In 1850 the total number of boxes despatched by that route was 1824, or an average of 152 each departure—in other words,[488] each month; for at that time there was only one despatch a month viâ Southampton.

In 1864 the total number of boxes despatched during the year had risen to 16,559, an average of 345 per despatch. The actual weight of these 16,559 boxes was 690 tons, an average of nearly 14½ tons per despatch. If we compute these mails according to the rules by which articles are received on board ships—that is by measurement or bulk—the tonnage was 1,540 tons, or an average per voyage of 32 tons.

The greatest mail carried by any one steamer was by the departure from Southampton of the 20th of April, 1864. There were 1,117 boxes; they weighed 46 tons actual weight, but by measurement they were 99 tons.

In 1865 the total number of boxes despatched was 17,839, being 1,280 more than in 1864. The average per despatch was 372. The actual weight of these 17,839 boxes was 747 tons, an average of a little more than 15½ tons per despatch. Their tonnage by measurement or bulk was 1,660 tons, or an average per voyage of 35 tons. The greatest mail carried by any one steamer was by the departure from Southampton of the 20th of November. There were 1,207 boxes; they weighed 49¾ tons actual weight; but by measurement, 106½ tons. The mail despatched on the 20th of each month is, of course, invariably the heaviest, containing as it does the Australian mail, which mail usually consists of about six times as many boxes as are despatched to Egypt, India, China, and Japan combined. The mail despatched on the 27th of each month is invariably the lightest; the mail despatched on the 12th is the second lightest; next comes in weight the mail despatched on the 4th.

I was favoured last month with official returns, which give the number of boxes despatched outwards, both viâ Marseilles and viâ Southampton, during the months of January, February and March of this present year, and the same information as regards mails received inwards. As these returns give the latest information respecting the mails conveyed by both routes, I send you the following very full compilation of them.

[489]

Number of boxes of Eastern mails despatched from and received at London during the first three months of 1867:-

Viâ SOUTHAMPTON.

Date of Despatch Outwards.		India, China, and Mediterranean.	Australia.	Date of Arrival Mediterranean.		India, China, and Mediterranean.	Australia.
Jan.	4	213	..	Jan.	10	213	..
”	12	169	..	”	18	30	475
”	20	233	709	”	26	20	..
”	26	80	..	Feb.	2	27	..
Feb.	4	248	..	”	11	24	..
”	12	92	..	”	16	31	448
”	20	232	762	”	24	24	..
”	27	80	..	March	8	27	..
March	4	199	..	”	8	27	..
”	12	97	..	”	21	35	463
”	20	184	800	”	28	23	..
”	27	56	..	..	..	..	..

Viâ MARSEILLES.

OUTWARDS.			INWARDS.
Date.		Boxes.	Date.		Boxes.
January	3	125	January	3	38
”	10	122	”	10	80
”	18	114	”	18	22
”	26	374	”	26	25
February	4	114	February	4	45
”	11	168	”	11	81
”	18	99	”	18	41
”	26	340	”	26	50
March	4	98	March	4	34
”	11	161	”	11	81
”	18	96	”	18	51
”	26	323	”	26	22

[490]

The returns, viâ Marseilles, do not separate the numbers of boxes to and from Australia, from those for the Mediterranean, India, and China, but the great difference between the number of boxes despatched outwards on the 26th of each month, and the number received inwards on the 10th of each month, will show approximately what is the number of boxes attributable to Australia. Outwards, it would be about 240; inwards, about 40.

But this is certain, that during the three first months of 1867 no less than 6,288 boxes (or at the rate of 25,152 boxes per annum) were despatched outwards, and 1,675 boxes (or at the rate of 8,980 per annum) were received inwards. Total outwards and inwards for three months, 8,533, or at the rate of 34,132 boxes per annum. Taking each box at the weight of 30 kilogrammes (which is below their weight taken all round) it follows that the gross weight of the Eastern mails per annum is 1,024,000 kilogrammes, or about 1,100 tons. By ship-board measurement it would be about 2,300,000 kilogrammes, or 2,550 tons.

There are two important subjects which it appears to me should at once be impressed upon the minds of the members of the Italian Government. The first is, the probable very early completion of the Mont Cenis Railway on Mr. Fell’s system, and the second, the notice given at the end of last year by the British Government to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, to terminate its existing Mediterranean contracts on the 31st of January, 1868, and the advertisement which it has since issued, inviting parties to tender for these services, dating from the 1st day of the ensuing month—that is from the first of February, 1868. This advertisement contains, for the first time, an intimation that the British Post Office is desirous of establishing an ocean contract service between Brindisi and Alexandria, in addition to its existing services between Southampton and Alexandria, and between Marseilles and Alexandria.

As regards the Mont Cenis Railway, the testimony of the various Imperial and Royal Commissioners who were present at the trials on the experimental line above Lanslebourg, made in 1865, is so uniformly in favour of the system, that we have simply to[491] look forward to its opening as the commencement of a revolution, not only as regards railway construction in mountainous districts, but also as leading to the most important results, in connection with the transport of the Anglo-Eastern mails.

The two kingdoms most deeply interested in the success of the system are, undoubtedly, England and Italy, the former, because, by means of the railway the transport of the fast mails can, according to the testimony of Captain Tyler, of Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Engineers, and the Commissioners of the British Government, at the trials on the Mont Cenis, be effected between London and Alexandria, in thirty-nine hours less time than viâ Marseilles. Italy becomes, by means of this railway, a route hitherto undeveloped, and it can be brought into active operation not only for mail transport, but also for that of passengers; and no doubt, eventually, for that of light goods, and of specie also.

The advertisement of the British Government leads to the inference that it desires the conveyance of the fast mails,—that is the mails that now take the route viâ Marseilles—by way of Brindisi, as soon as all the arrangements for their transit are completed. It is to be feared, however, that the French Post Office, instigated no doubt by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway Company, whose interests are concentrated at Marseilles, and who has no love whatever for the Mont Cenis Railway, will offer all the opposition in its power to the divergence from Marseilles to Brindisi taking place. In the first instance the department gave assurances that it would not only not put obstacles in the way of the British Government making the transfer, but would co-operate with it and assist it whenever required to do so. But in December last, the Marquis de Moustier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed to Earl Cowley, the British Ambassador at Paris, a despatch which contained a memorandum from the French Post Office, the object of which was to show that the Brindisi route would only save ten hours over that viâ Marseilles, for mails from England, and would not effect any saving for mails coming from Egypt towards England. The memorandum contains several[492] errors of fact, the most conspicuous of which is that the calculations are the same as were brought forward by the department when the Ferrovia Meridionale was only opened as far as Ancona, whereas it is now extended to Brindisi, 559 kilometres farther southwards, and therefore that much the nearer to Alexandria.

I have reason also to know that the French Government expressed, in December last, to the British Government, its willingness to reduce its present transit rate for British correspondence to and from India, China, Australia, &c., one-half, provided the fast mails continued to be conveyed viâ Marseilles, and that they be not deviated to Brindisi.

For these reasons I am sure that the Italian Government will see the necessity and importance of vigorous action; and vigour is all the more necessary, as the officers of the British Post Office have very frequently made the avowal that their leading principle in all their postal arrangements is to make each self supporting. Therefore, unless under compulsion to the contrary, they would probably accept such a proposal,—at all events I am convinced that they would, if they could. At the present time the British Government sustains a loss of about 1,000,000 francs (£40,000), a-year by its Anglo-Eastern mail services.

So far as regards the substitution of Brindisi for Marseilles in the conveyance of what are known in this country as “The Fast Eastern Mails.”

I now desire to approach a subject which I consider to be of at least equal interest and importance, both to Italy and to England, and I shall be much gratified if the Italian Government consider the suggestion I have to offer (which I may state is an original idea of my own), in the same light as I do. In order that I may make myself clearly understood, it will be necessary to go into rather lengthy details.

England has two rates of postage for the letter correspondence. Newspapers and printed matter, which are conveyed by her Anglo-Eastern Mails, by the Marseilles route, the letter postage rate for half ounce, or fifteen grammes, is 100 centimes (tenpence);[493] newspapers thirty centimes (threepence) each. Book post sixty centimes (sixpence), per four ounces, or 120 grammes. By the mails which are conveyed viâ Southampton, the letter rate per half-ounce, or fifteen grammes, is sixty centimes (sixpence); newspapers twenty centimes (twopence) each. Book post forty centimes (fourpence) per four ounces or 120 grammes. It follows therefore that a great number of newspapers and all heavy letters are forwarded viâ Southampton.

At the commencement of the Overland Indian Mail Service, in consequence of the absence of railways in France, there was scarcely any difference between the time required to convey correspondence viâ Southampton and viâ Marseilles. But by degrees, as the railway system between Calais and Marseilles came into operation the time by that route diminished, and what, in 1840, was a journey of 120 hours, or five days, between London and Marseilles, has in recent years, for the Eastern mail service, been reduced to thirty-four hours.

The contract speed of the steam vessels that sail between Southampton and Alexandria is ten knots an hour, exclusive of the stoppages allowed by the British Post Office, at Malta and Gibraltar. The time, therefore, occupied in the passage between Southampton and Alexandria is fourteen days, and as the vessels are timed to arrive at the latter port, at least one day in advance of the steamer viâ Marseilles, the journey may be said to require fifteen days. As the mails conveyed by the steamers viâ Marseilles only requires eight days, it follows, in order that the mails viâ Southampton and viâ Marseilles be carried forward by the same steamer from Suez, that there shall be an interval of from 6½ to 7½ days between the time of posting a letter for the same destination in the east. Thus precisely the same occurs in the reverse direction, that is to say, if the writer of a letter in London wishes to forward it, on account of its comparatively cheap rate of postage, viâ Southampton so that it shall arrive in, say, Bombay, at the same time as a letter despatched viâ Marseilles on the evening of the 10th of the month, he must take care that it is posted in time[494] for despatch by the morning mail of the 3rd; or if the writer of a letter in Bombay forward it for delivery in England viâ Southampton, he must be content that his correspondent receive it seven days later than if he sent it viâ Marseilles; as the usual time for a letter to be conveyed between London and Bombay viâ Marseilles, is twenty-one days, the letter if sent by the other route, is practically one-third longer on its journey. The comparative penalty in time is not so great for Calcutta and other places more distant than Bombay, but the absolute penalty is the same in all cases, a delay of six days and a half as a minimum, seven days and a half as a maximum.

When the Brindisi route is available for the mails now taken viâ Marseilles, the interval, in consequence of the saving of thirty-nine hours, between the despatch of the mails, viâ Brindisi and viâ Southampton, must never be less than eight days as a minimum, or more than nine days as a maximum. The consequence is, in my opinion, that arrangements must be made for conveying, by the Brindisi route, the great portion of the “Heavy,” or “Southampton Mails,” as well as the conveyance of the “Fast,” or the “Marseilles Mails.”

It can, however, only be accomplished by the countries interested consenting to take a transit rate, very different from that which is the ordinary transit rate for mail correspondence.

As long as the Mont Cenis Railway is the only railway open towards the western extremity of the Alps, France may refuse to agree to such an arrangement. There would then be no alternative but to continue the heavy mail service viâ Southampton, until the completion of the Simplon Railway would make both England and Italy independent of France. The reason is, that there would then be two routes between England and Italy, viâ the Simplon; one, undoubtedly the shorter, through Paris, Dijon, Pontarlier, and Lausanne, the other through Ostend, Belgium, Rhenish Germany, and Switzerland.

The distance from London to Brindisi, viâ Paris, Dijon, &c., would be 2,395 kilometers; viâ Ostend, Belgium, and Rhenish[495] Germany, 2,758 kilometers. At the present time the fast mails are conveyed between London and Alexandria, viâ Marseilles, in 193 hours, or eight days one hour.

According to the calculations of Captain Tyler, the fast mails can be conveyed from London to Brindisi, viâ Mont Cenis, in sixty-nine hours. That is to say, a letter posted in London on the evening of the 11th of a month would arrive in Brindisi at 5·30 p.m. on the evening of the 14th; allowing two hours for placing the mails on board the steamer, she would start at 7·30 p.m., and at the existing contract rate of ten knots an hour, she would reach Alexandria in eighty-three hours; that is at 6·30 a.m. on the 18th. If the Simplon line were opened, the mails would be conveyed in, at least, three hours less time; making the arrival at Brindisi 3·30 a.m. Thus, the total distance would be accomplished in 151 hours, or six days seven hours; showing a saving over the Marseilles route of forty-two hours.

If the French Government would enter into an agreement for carrying the Heavy Mails, through French territory by ordinary trains, they could be conveyed between London and Alexandria in seven days nineteen hours; or six hours less time than at present, viâ Marseilles: in other words, these mails need not be despatched from London until thirty-six hours before the departure of the fast mails.

But if the adoption of the route, viâ Ostend, Belgium, and Rhenish Germany, be unavoidable, it will then be necessary to despatch the heavy mails twenty-four hours earlier than if they were transmitted viâ France. Still this despatch will only be two days and a half earlier than the despatch of the fast mails, instead of being eight or nine days, which would be the case if the heavy mails still continued to be despatched viâ Southampton.

The progress of the heavy mails by ordinary trains viâ Ostend, &c., would be as follows:—Despatched from London on the morning of the 9th of a month, they would reach Basle on the evening of the 10th. At present there is no night mail trains on the Swiss railways, but they will be established before the opening[496] of the Simplon Railway. They would thus reach Lausanne very early on the morning of the 11th. The distance from Lausanne to Milan, is 351 kilometres, of which, 77 would constitute the passage across the mountain; allowing five hours for it, and nine for the remaining 234, the train would arrive at Milan two hours before departure of the 9·10 p.m. train southwards; leaving Bologna at 3·40 on the morning of the 12th, the mails would, at the latest, arrive at Brindisi at noon on the 13th. Thus, the whole journey from London to Brindisi would be performed in 101 hours, or four days five hours, and the heavy mails would be there 29 hours in advance of the light mails despatched on the evening of the 11th.

The following table will show at one view the distances (given in kilometres) and the times occupied, or to be occupied in the several routes between London and Alexandria.

Viâ.	Land.	Water.	Total.	Time.
	Kilos.	Kilos.	Kilos.	D.	H.
Southampton	130	5,588	5,718	15	0
Marseilles	1,416	2,835	4,251	8	1
Brindisi[160]
Fast mails	2,470	1,629	4,099	6	7
Heavy mails viâ France	..	..	..	7	19
Heavy mails viâ Belgium	2,833	..	4,462	8	19

It is a well established maxim with all Post Office authorities to prefer land to water service for conveyance of mails; but especially so, when the land service can be effected by railway. There are two reasons for this preference; the first is, the greater certainty of land over water conveyance; and the second is that mails carried by railways, are conveyed at a rate of speed never less than double, and frequently it is three times greater than that of even the quickest water conveyance.

[497]

Viewed in that light, it will be seen by the above table what advantages the Brindisi route to Alexandria affords over all others. The direct route is not only 152 kilometers shorter than that viâ Marseilles; but, whereas the sea voyage of the latter route is 2,835 kilometers, that viâ Brindisi is only 1,629, showing a difference in favour of Brindisi, of 1,206 kilometers; again, the Marseilles route, has only an advantage of 211 kilometers in point of length over that viâ Belgium; but the sea passage is still in favour of the latter by 1,206 kilometers. If the routes viâ Southampton and Brindisi be compared, the difference exhibited will be still more striking, and the effect is, that a journey which can be accomplished in six days seven hours, viâ Brindisi takes nearly twice and a half as long by the other route.

I therefore consider that great efforts should be made both by Italy and by England, to accomplish the conveyance of the heavy Eastern Mails viâ Brindisi. Even if Italy made apparent sacrifices—that is, if she carried those mails along her railways at the rate charged for merchandise, it would be worth her while to do so. She would thereby not only secure a passenger traffic such as she does not possess at present, nor can she ever possess, unless with such apparent sacrifices, but she will thereby make Brindisi the Great European Terminal Port for all Eastern Postal and Passenger Traffic.

Let but the Government reflect upon the growth and development of Marseilles in the last twenty years. They are due solely to its being the port from which steamers depart, and at which steamers arrive daily from all parts of the Mediterranean. A gigantic commerce centres there from this cause only. Brindisi has, or at all events may have, the same career before it; and it is my firm conviction that, with well-organised arrangements between London and Brindisi, by which passengers would be attracted to the route, we should see a magnificent steamer starting daily for Alexandria, and one arriving from there also daily. Surely this is an anticipation by no means hazardous to make, when we remember that at the present time there are no less than eighteen first-class communications a month from Europe[498] to Alexandria, and the same number from Alexandria to Europe. They are as follows:—from Southampton four; from Marseilles six; of which four are by the steamers of the English Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and two by those of the Messageries Impériales; four from Trieste, by the Austrian Lloyd’s Company, subsidised by the Austrian Government, and four from Brindisi, subsidised by the Government of Italy. In addition, there are two second-class steam communications a month from Liverpool to Alexandria, by the Bengal Steam Packet Company, and one from Marseilles, which belongs to the Messageries Imperiales.

I regret to observe that in the advertisements for New Mediterranean Contracts, issued by the British Government, the speed proposed is only ten knots an hour. This was a suitable speed twenty years ago, but does not correspond with modern requirements. No doubt this speed will be exceeded before long, and there is no reason why we should not have, on the Mediterranean, a rate of speed equal to what the steamers of the Atlantic, built in the last five or six years, have accomplished. They frequently run during a considerable portion of the entire voyage from New York to Liverpool at a rate of fifteen knots an hour, but even if there were a speed between Brindisi and Alexandria of twelve knots an hour, the passage of eighty-three hours would be converted into one of seventy-one hours—thus diminishing the time between London and Alexandria to 139 hours, or five days, nineteen hours—at all events, this is certain, that it will be much easier to apply increased speed to vessels which have before them only voyages of the distance between Brindisi and Alexandria, than to those which have to run from Marseilles to Alexandria; and the argument is still stronger when we refer to the vessels between Southampton and Alexandria.

Brindisi will, in my opinion, also become, on the completion of the Alpine Railways, the port for the postal and passenger communication of England and Western Europe, with Greece, the Ionian Islands, Turkey, and the Black Sea. The trade of England with those parts of the world has increased greatly in recent years.

[499]

This letter has extended to much beyond what I had originally proposed; but I feel that I shall be pardoned its length, in consequence of the great interest I have for several years taken in the subject, and of my desire to impart to you all the information I possess relating to it.

Probably, the points I have opened for consideration may lead to the desire for further particulars. If so, I shall only say that I am completely at your service for this purpose.

(Signed)————CUSACK P. RONEY.

---

INDEX.

“Above sea level,” described, 318.

Absence of mind, remarkable instances of, note, 170.

Acceleration of East Indian contract steamers, its importance, 247.

Accidents on railways, 173;

statistical account of, 176;

causes of, 178;

impossible to prevent them altogether, 179;

cost of, 180;

small in proportion to accidents from other causes, 181;

accidents in London, 181;

carriage, note, 181;

by shipwreck, 182;

in collieries and by fire, 183;

on American railways and steamers, 184;

on Indian railways, 290.

Affghanistan, the Long Railway will pass through it, 271, 300;

opinion of Mr. A. H. Layard, M.P., thereon, 300.

Africa, mountains of, note, 9;

railway mileage of, note, 211.

Ainsworth, William Harrison, his “Turpin’s Ride to York,” note, 215.

Alba Lake, tunnel from, 364.

Aldworth, Miss, the lady Freemason, note, 210.

Alexandria, comparative distances to, from London, 429.

Allen, inventor of Cross Posts, note, 103.

“Allen’s Indian Mail,” its views upon East Indian railway extension, note, 262.

Alpine passes enumerated, 7;

heights of, note, 319.

Alps, the, traversed from the earliest periods, 6;

Hannibal’s army crosses them, 6;

the first tunnel under, 366;

the Great Tunnel of, described, 401.

America, mountains of, note, 10;

railway mileage of, note, 211.

American railways and steamers, accidents upon, 184.

[502]

American trotting horses, their pace, 188.

Anglia, unde derivatur, note, 167.

Anne, Duchess of Savoy, first constructor of an Alpine tunnel, 366.

Annuities Act, the Post Office, 101.

Apennines, the highest peaks of, note, 9;

railway from Pistoja to Poretta described, 344.

Arbitration, differences between railways and the Post Office to be settled by, 75;

opposition to it by the Post Office, 76;

the only real mode of settling with railways, 123;

Mr. E. Page’s opinion on it, 445.

Argyll, the Duke of, Postmaster-General, 102;

senator, politician, man of letters, note, ib.

Army, British, that must be maintained in India, 300.

“As the crow flies,” described, 343.

Ascending heights, by man and animals, 320.

Ashford, locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Asia Minor, the Long Railway will pass through it, 271, 300;

opinion of Mr. A. H. Layard thereon, 300.

Asia, mountains of, note, 9.

Atlantic, grand tunnel under the, 400.

Atlantic islands, mountains of, note, 10.

Attock, the Indus at, note, 278, 280;

the tunnel at, 395.

Australia, mountains of, note, 10;

British exports to, 54;

coal in, for Indian railways, 288;

railways in, see Railways.

Austria, mountains of, note, 8;

foremost among nations in constructing railways, 12;

postage stamps in, how called, note, 142;

mileage of railways in, note, 297.

[503]

Avalanches, protection from, on the Mont Cenis Railway, 353.

“Bagmen” travelling on railways, note, 171.

Bahamas, the, cotton supply from, note, 299.

Baker, Sir Samuel, his views respecting railway extension in India, note, 263.

Ball, John, late president of the Alpine Club, Alpine passes and peaks enumerated by him, note, 319.

Banging of railway carriage doors, note, 213.

Barlow, Peter W., Esq., C.E., his proposed Thames subway, 395.

Barrow Docks, opening of, note, 51.

Bavaria, mountains of, note, 9;

mileage of railways in, note, 297.

Belgium, the first continental nation to construct railways, 12;

fastest trains in, 113;

postage stamps in, note, 142;

locomotive constructing establishments in, 193;

mileage of railways in, note, 297;

railway tunnels in, 380.

Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain, note, 9.

Bermuda, cotton supply from, note, 299.

Bernardino Pass, the, 10.

Bessemer process of steel manufacture, 201;

its great value and importance, note, 202.

Beypoor, unsuitable terminus for Madras Railway, 256.

Bhore Ghaut, the, described, 252.

Birmingham, rainfall in, note, 281.

Bletchley Station, 220.

Blue Coat School, the, note, 217.

Board of Trade, its powers respecting cheap parliamentary trains, 61;

errors in its calculations, 71;

its wreck register, 182;

Captain Tyler’s report to, on the Mont Cenis Railway, 347.

Boetia, ancient tunnel in, 364.

Bohemia, mountains of, note, 8.

Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway, the, 258;

proposed extension of, to Delhi, 260;

working expenses, 289.

Bombay, development necessary at, for it to become the capital of India, note, 258;

[504]

advantage to Bombay of the extension of the Baroda line to Delhi, 260.

Book Post, the, Mr. Page’s vindication, 450;

refuted, 471.

Bordeaux, the port for the Orleans Railway Company, 24;

population of, note, 31.

Box Tunnel, the, its ventilation, 411.

Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, 32.

Bray Head, proposed tunnels under, 371.

Bread winners and bread managers, note, 161.

Brenner, the, a very old Alpine pass, 11;

the railway over the Pass, 13;

its political importance, 14;

its first time table, note, ib.

Bridgewater, Duke of, opening of his canal, 65.

Brighton Locomotive and Carriage Establishment, 209.

Brindisi described, 428;

its importance for the conveyance of the Eastern mails, 429, 496.

Brindisi, distance from London viâ Brenner Pass, note, 15.

Bristol, the highest rainfall in, of England, note, 281.

Britannia Tubular Bridge, the, described, 391.

British Columbia, Canadian railways to extend to, 306.

Broadstone Locomotive and Carriage Establishment, 209.

Brockedon, William, his illustrated work on Alpine passes, 7.

Brunlees, James, Esq., C.E., 346.

Bucke, W., engineer of Manchester and Birmingham Railway, 4.

Bulk, not weight, the real manner in which mails must be estimated, 85.

Burke, John, Esq., C.E., his tunnel under the Liffey, 394.

Byron, Lord, educated at Harrow, 218;

recollection of his schoolboy days, note, ib.

Cæsar, Julius, his tunnel under Uxellodum, 365.

[505]

Cairn Tual, the highest mountain in Ireland, note, 9.

Calais to Paris, railway distance, 15;

to Nice, 240;

to Constantinople, 270.

Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway, the, 273;

working expenses, 290.

Calcutta, population of, note, 259;

postal communications with, 247;

their future accelerations, 266, 272.

Caledonian Railway, its locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

California, discovery of gold in, 17;

telegraphing with London, 19.

Campbell, Lord, his lives of the Chancellors of England, full of blunders, note, 324.

Canada, railways in, 301, see Railways;

proportion of, to population, 305.

Canals, passengers carried on them in 1837, 57;

effect of their opening upon the cost of conveying goods, 65;

canals have not suffered through railways—dividends in 1846 and 1867, 67, note, 149;

their length in Great Britain, 368;

tunnels in, ib.;

canals in France, note, 377.

Canton, distance from San Francisco, 22.

Cape of Good Hope Railway, the, 311.

Capital invested in British railways, 40, 147;

can no longer be charged with working expenses, 55.

Capitol of Rome, how saved, 213.

Carriage accidents in London, note, 181;

doors of railways, banging of, 213.

Carson, city, 19.

Cat, the, its power of ascending elevations, 321.

Catherine of Arragon introduces the mantilla and farthingale into England, note, 210.

Cattle conveyed on British railways, 40;

increased since 1859, 47, 69;

imported in 1866, 70.

Celerity of postal communication, Mr. Frederick Hill’s notions upon, 129;

inaccuracy of Post Office assertions thereon, 130.

Cenis, the, Mont. See Mont.

[506]

Central American Honduras Railway, the, 312.

Centre rail system, Mr. Fell’s claims as its inventor, 337.

Ceylon Railway, the, 313.

Chaix, M. M., “Indicateur des Chemins de Fer,” 32.

Chalmers, Mr. James, his subway between France and England, 398.

Charterhouse School, note, 217.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, note, 168.

Cheshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Christ’s Hospital School, note, 217.

City of London, value of house property in, note, 326.

Cleghorn, Mr. John, his railway statistical tables, 40.

Coal, conveyance of, by railway, rapidly increasing, 48;

extraction of, from British collieries, ib., note, 49;

how consumed, 50;

its existence in India, note, 284;

cost of, on Indian railways, 286;

prospects of its being found in India, 288;

Labuan and Australia, ib.

Cochin, best sea-board terminus for the Madras railway, 257.

Coffee, the use of, diminishing in Great Britain, 71.

Col di Tenda, the, 8;

height of, 319;

tunnel under in the 15th century, 366.

Cold, how excluded from the Hauenstein tunnel, 416.

Collieries, number of, in Great Britain, note, 49;

loss of life in, 183.

Colonies of Great Britain that supply it with cotton, 299.

Combinations, their injurious effects upon workmen, note, 159; note, 161.

Commission of 1853, on Contract Packet Services, extract from its report, 267.

Committee on Postal and Telegraphic Communications with the East, extract from its report, note, 266.

Constantinople, railways to, 271.

Corkscrew, the, ladies ungraceful in the use of, 228;

advice thereon, 229;

its analogy to mountain railways, 402.

[507]

Corn, foreign, imports of, 72.

Corporation of the City of London, great works accomplished by, 326;

further required, 327;

its columns of Luxor, 328.

Cotton, cost of conveyance from Liverpool to Manchester, last century, 65;

districts of India, the, 295;

whence imported into England, 299.

Crampton engines, 190.

Crawford, R. W., Esq., M.P., memorandum on the East Indian Railway, note, 251.

Crewe works, locomotives made at, 192;

the town and works described, 194;

statistics in 1849, 196;

in 1867, 200;

steel and iron rail manufactory, 201;

modern Crewe, 204;

its municipal government, 206;

places of worship and schools, 207.

Crinoline forbidden on locomotives, 210;

its introduction into England, note, ib.

Cumberland, production of coal in, note, 49.

Cusack, Mr. Ralph, establishes low railway fares in Ireland, 45.

Daft, T. B., Esq., C.E., his proposed steamers between Newhaven and Dieppe, note, 397.

Dâk, establishment of, between Jubbulpore and Nagpore, note, 247.

Danvers, Juland, Esq., government director of Indian railways, his annual reports on them, 247, 248, 256, 272, 277, 290.

Day mails, their number to and from London, 106.

De Camp, Monsieur A., 97.

Debenture capital of British railways, 147;

holders, number of, in Indian railways, 276.

Delhi Railway, the, 273.

Demerara Railway, the, 311.

Derby locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Derby, Right Hon. the Earl of, speech upon combinations, note, 159.

Derby, the, speed at which it is run, 186.

Derbyshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

[508]

Desbriere, Monsieur P., Etudes sur la Locomotion au Moyen du Rail Central, his resumé as to the priority of the centre rail discovery, 336.

Dingwall and Skye Railway, note, 239.

Distances, tables of, 15, 22;

from Dover and Penzance to the North of Scotland, 240;

traversed by the Eastern mails, 496.

Dividends upon share capital of British railways, 147.

Divine service, arrangements for, at Crewe, 206.

Dix, General John A., president Union Pacific Railroad, 22.

Docks, importance of, at Bombay, note, 258;

advantages of, to Southampton, note, 259.

Dog, the, its power of ascending elevations, 321.

Dogs travelling on railways, note, 171.

Doncaster locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Dove Hole Tunnel, 372;

singular accident in, 425.

Dover, railway distance from, to North of Scotland, 240.

Dublin, rainfall in, note, 281.

Duncombe, George, Esq., his noble contribution to the town of Crewe, 206.

Durham, production of coal in, note, 49.

Earlestown, waggon repairing establishment, 200.

East Indian Railway, the, its commencement, 245;

its present extent, 246;

importance of completing the gap from Jubbulpore towards Bombay, 247;

cost of the Railway, 248;

its alleged mismanagement, note, ib.;

history of, by R. W. Crawford, Esq., M.P., note, 251;

its net earnings exceed the Government guarantee, 277;

iron sleepers upon, 283;

coal-fields adjacent to the line, 287;

working expenses, 289;

provident fund, 293;

its insufficiency, 294.

Eastern Bengal Railway, the, 273.

[509]

Eastern Counties Railway, strike upon, in 1849;

described, note, 161;

locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Eastern mails, weight and dimensions of, in 1839, 90;

at present, 95, 98;

their great bulk and weight, 431, 488;

savings to be effected by sending them viâ Brindisi, 490;

table of the several routes, 496.

Edinburgh, course of post from London, 1672 to 1867, 2;

Journey from, to Marseilles in 1867, 157;

speed of limited mail to, 237;

rainfall in, note, 281.

Edinburgh Review, the, describes the tunnel of the Alps, 426.

Edward VI., founder of Christ’s Hospital and other schools, note, 216.

Eggs, imports of, 72.

Elephants have crossed the Alps, 7.

Elevations, powers of ascending them, by man and animals, 321.

Elizabeth, Queen, on the “Winton birching,” note, 216;

her letter to the Bishop of Ely, note, 324.

Engine, the Locomotive, a ride upon, from London to Stafford and back, 210.

Engine drivers, strike of, upon the Eastern Counties Railways in 1849, note, 161;

their numbers on English railways, 211.

Engine manufacturers, British and Continental, 191.

Engines, dimensions of, on the Sœmmering Pass, 13;

number of, on British railways, 45;

fuel consumed by them, 50;

number of component parts, 172;

effects of bursting a tube, 173;

compared to horses, 186;

speeds of various classes of engines, 188;

great size and power of some on the Continent, 189;

inside and outside cylinder engines, 190;

names of makers of, 191;

number made annually in England and abroad, 191;

railway establishments for the repairs of, 209;

the engine in steam, 213;

started, 215;

capacity of their tenders, 219;

engines and watches compared, 244.

Engineering newspaper, the, extracts from, notes, 125, 202, 237, 248, 264, 284.

[510]

England, Helvellyn, the highest mountain in, note, 9;

prosperity of, 164;

public schools of, note, 216;

commercial value of the East Indian Railways to, 296.

Englishmen for thirteen centuries described by Professor Henry Morley, note, 167;

national character of, similar to that of the Romans, note, 169.

Etna, Mont, height of, note, 9.

Eton College, note, 216.

Euphrates River, the, described, note, 264;

the tunnel under, 359.

Euphrates Valley Railway, the, 262, 266.

Europe, railway mileage of, note, 211.

Euston Station, its Doric portico, 212;

departure of a train from, 213.

Fares on French railways, 30;

high on Irish railways, 44.

Fell, Mr. John, the inventor of the centre rail system, 332;

the system explained, 334;

his appreciation both in theory and practice, 337;

his experiments on the High Peak Railway, 338;

on the Mont Cenis, 330;

effect of the centre rail going round curves, 342;

the Emperor Napoleon’s appreciation of the system, 349.

Ferrovia Calabro-Sicula, the, 433.

Ferrovia Meridionale of Italy, 427.

Fire, accidents by, 183;

houses destroyed by, in London, note, 184;

expense of, in several cities, ib.

Fish, conveyance of, on railways, 156.

Fitzgerald, Sir Seymour, Governor of Bombay, ordered to report on Kurrachee Harbour, note, 264.

Florence, distance from London viâ Brenner Pass, note, 15;

viâ Mont Cenis, 437.

Food, large conveyance of, by railways, 70;

imports of, from abroad, 71.

Foot mileage of the Post Office, great variety in its cost, 123.

Foreign postage stamps, note, 142.

Forest of Dean, production of coal in, note, 49.

France possesses the three highest mountains in Europe, note, 8;

[511]

history of railways in, 24;

railway passenger traffic of, 30;

cheap railways in, 31;

railway postal service in, 38;

material progress of, note, 54;

letters and newspapers circulating in, note, 81;

rural postmen in, note, 97;

speed of railway trains in, 112, 130;

stopping trains in, often unpunctual 114;

postage stamps in, note, 142;

fortunate escape through not annexing Luxemburg, note, 143;

locomotive establishments of, 193;

mileage of railways in, note, 297;

canal and railway tunnels in, 377;

mode of their construction, note, 378;

subways and tunnels from England to, 396.

Francis, John, his valuable compendium of English railways, 74.

Franks, number of, in 1839, 75.

Fraser, J. M., Esq., C.E., upon British railway tunnels, 370.

Free trade has developed the present commercial grandeur of England, 151;

America takes a different view, note, ib.;

free trade and the railway, the twin sisters of progress, 165.

Freemason, Miss Aldworth, the lady, note, 210.

Fremont, General, 17.

Frere, Sir Bartle, his views on Indian railway extension, note, 262.

Frith, W. P., Esq., R. A., his pictures “The Derby Day” and “The Railway Station,” 212.

Fucinus, Lake, ancient tunnel from, 365

Fuel for Indian railways, 284.

Furies, the, and the officials of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, 146.

Gammond, M. Thome de, his subway between France and England, 398.

Gauge of railways, note, 110.

Gauges, the battle of the, 4.

Genevre Mont, the, 8;

height of, note, 319.

Germany, locomotive building establishments in, 192;

railways in, note, 297;

railway tunnels in, 377.

Ghaut, the Bhore, 252;

[512]

the Thull, 254.

Gibraltar, height of summit, note, 9.

Gibson, Rt. Hon. Milner, the author of the abolition of stamps on newspapers, 80.

Giovi incline, the 344.

Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Wm., speech of, on King Iron, note, 51;

gratitude due to him for establishing Post Office Savings Banks, 100.

Glasgow, rainfall in, note, 281.

Gloucestershire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Glover, Colonel, his memorandum on Indian telegraphs, note, 280.

Glyn, George Carr, Esq., M.P., 74.

Gold, discovery of, in California, 17.

Goods conveyed on British railways, 40, 47;

cost and speed of conveyance in the last century, 65;

contents of first goods train on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 66;

slow development of goods traffic on British railways, 66;

increase in subsequent years, ib.

Government Insurance and Annuities Act, the, 101;

transmission of documents which its establishment renders necessary, ib.

Gradients, the early, on English railways, 4;

maximum at present, 5;

explained, 322;

on the Mont Cenis Railway, 331;

on mountain road, 343;

that engines can ascend, 344.

Grand Junction Railway incorporated, 2;

opened, ib.;

used by the Post Office as soon as opened, 73.

Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, the, begun, 302;

its length and cost, 305;

Victoria Bridge upon, 391.

Great Britain, mountains of, note, 9.

Great Indian Peninsula Railway, the, its course and works, 252;

receipts, 254;

its liability to heavy working charges, 255;

its net earnings exceed the government guarantee, 277;

working expenses, 289.

Great Southern of India Railway, the, 274;

working expenses, 289.

Great St. Bernard, 8;

[513]

height of, note, 319.

Great Vallon Mountain, the, the Tunnel of the Alps carried through it, 401.

Great Western Railway has the fastest train in England, 110;

its gauge, note, ib.

Great Western Railway of Canada, the, 302;

its length and cost, 305.

Greece, mountains in, note, 8.

Gregory, Charles Hutton, Esq., C.E., Post Office Arbitrator, 132, 144.

Gretna Green pace, the, 187.

Griffiths, Mr. Darby, M.P., chances of his Post Office Bill passing, 132.

Grove, George, Esq., Secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 359.

Guarantee, the, of the Indian Government to railways, 275;

impossible to construct railways in India without it, 278.

Guernsey, no railways in, 314.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, 304;

its magnificent harbour, 306.

Hamburg, postage stamps in, how called, note, 142.

Hand books, continental, 317.

Hannibal, his army crosses the Alps, 6.

Hanover, postage stamps in, how called, 142.

Harrow School, 216;

distinguished men educated there, 217.

“Haste, post haste,” defined, note, 158.

Hatton, Sir Christopher, note, 324.

Hauenstein Tunnel, the, its ventilation, 415;

cold, how excluded, 416.

Haupt, General, his tunnel boring machine, 385.

Hawkshaw, John, Esq., C.E., his tunnel under the Mersey, 393;

his borings between Calais and Dover, 398.

Haywood, William, Esq., engineer of the Corporation of London, 322.

Head, Sir Francis, Bart., quotations from his “Stokers and Pokers,” 196, 197, 198, 224.

Helvellyn, the highest mountain in England, note, 9.

Henry VI., founder of Eton College, note, 216.

[514]

Hermit, winner of the Derby, 1867, 186.

Hibbert, the late Mrs., “Generalissima,” note, 227, 228.

High Peak Railway, Mr. Fell’s experiments upon the, 338.

Highgate, intended tunnel through, 369.

Highland Railway, the, note, 237, 238.

Hill, Mr. Frederick, Assistant-Secretary of the Post Office, supports his brother’s views respecting purchase of railways;

his ignorance of their working, 118;

his anticipations if the State purchase British railways, 123;

his assertions answered, 124;

differences between Mr. Hill and Postmaster-General’s Reports, 130;

Mr. Hill believed to be the writer of them, 131;

his evidence before the Committee on Postal and Telegraph Communications with the East, note, 266.

Hill, Mr. M. D., his article on the Post Office, in Fraser’s Magazine, note, 98, 137.

Hill, Sir Rowland, K.C.B., appointed on the Royal Commission on Railways, 115;

dissents from report, his reasons, 117;

the chief witnesses in his support, 118;

real reasons for his recommendations, 118;

what they are, 132.

Hilmer, Mr. B., his subway between France and England, 398.

Hofer, Andreas, 12.

Holborn, past and present, note, 323.

Holborn Viaduct and Embankment, the, described, 321, 328.

Holland, postage stamps in, how called, note, 142.

Holyhead and Kingstown, the magnificent steamers between, note, 95.

Holyhead Mail, the old and the new compared, 46.

Honduras railway, the, 312.

Hooghley, the river, importance of a railway bridge across, 247.

Hoosac Tunnel, the, 385.

Hora di Roma, note, 158.

Horse boxes, their use in railway traffic, 46.

Horse, the, and the locomotive compared, 186;

[515]

its power of ascending elevations, 321.

Horses, numbers required for mail coaches in 1839, 93;

number required if the Post Office reverted to mail coaches, 94.

Hotel accommodation required at Bombay, note, 259.

Howell, Mr., Secretary of the Peninsular and Australian Navigation Company, 95.

Humber, the, proposed railway tunnel under, 394.

Ice, conveyance of, by railway, 156.

Imperial railway train for the Emperor Napoleon, 33.

Inchicore locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Inclines, the Oldham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire Railway, note, 5.

India, population of, British exports to, 53;

railways in, 245, see Railways;

marvellous development of, 297;

its debt, note, 298;

cotton imported from, 299;

what quantity produced, note, ib.;

army that must be maintained there, note, 300.

Indus River, the, how it must be crossed at Attock, note, 278.

Indus steam flotilla, the, 262.

Indus Valley Railway, the, 262.

Insurance Act, the Post Office, 101.

Intercolonial Railway, the proposed, 304.

Ireland, Cairn Tual, the highest mountain in, note, 9;

population of, note, 34;

railways in, 43;

railway animosity in, 44;

probable reduction of high fares, 45;

production of coal in, note, 49;

sums paid by Post Office to railways in, 108;

railway gauge in, note, 110;

report of royal commissioners upon, 116;

dissentients, 117;

absence of locomotive manufacturers in, 192;

canal navigation of, 368;

railway tunnels in, 371, 373.

Iron, British coal consumed in the manufacture of, 51;

King Iron, note, ib.;

how he should be heard at St. Stephen’s, 208.

Isle of Man Railway prospects, 314.

[516]

Isle of Wight Railway, the, 314.

Isthmus of Suez Railway, 95;

canal, note, ib., note, 265.

Italy, mountains of, note, 8;

postage stamps in, how called, note, 142;

mileage of railways in, note, 297;

ancient tunnels in, 364;

railway tunnels, 380;

its railway system, 427.

Jamaica Railway, the, 311.

Jeddo, distance from St. Francisco, 22.

Jerrold, Blanchard, one of the workman’s best friends, 228.

Jersey, no railway at present in, 314.

Jerusalem, explorations in, 360.

Kensington, its frequent use in London street nomenclature, note, 36.

Kilometres, how to convert into English miles, 331.

Kingstown and Holyhead, magnificent steamers between, note, 95.

Kurhurbali Coal-field, 287.

Kurrachee Harbour, its present unfitness as a harbour, note, 264.

La Vallée, M. Charles, “Les Chemins de Fer en France,” 30.

Labouchere, Mr., his speech upon railways, 1838, 74.

Labuan, coal prospects in, 288.

Ladies’ dogs carried on railways, note, 171.

Lancashire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Lange, Daniel A., Esq., English representative of the Suez Maritime Canal Company, note, 95, note, 265.

Lanslebourg, the Mont Cenis village of, 332.

Lardner, Dr. Dionysius, Treatise on Railway economy, 61.

Late trains, 166.

Lawyers at Crewe, 204.

Layard, H. A., Esq., M.P., his opinion upon a railway through Persia, &c., to India, 300;

upon Assyrian antiquities, 359.

Leeds, rainfall in, 281.

Leicestershire, production of coal in, note, 49.

[517]

Letter postage, low as contrasted with high newspaper postage; its effects; necessity of its reduction upon local letters, note, 81.

Letter writing among the working classes, 205.

Letters, number of, in 1839 and 1840, 75;

number circulating in France, note, 81;

transmission alone gives them value, 141.

Lewins, William, “Her Majesty’s Mails,” 103.

Liechtenstei, the smallest state in the World, note, 34.

Life boats, the, of the National Association, their great use in saving life, 183.

Liffey, the, proposed railway tunnel under, 394.

Lille, population of, note, 31.

Limited mail, the, its speed, 109, 237.

Linsdale Tunnel, 220.

Little St. Bernard, the, crossed by Hannibal’s army, 7;

easiest Alpine pass, 8.

Live stock conveyed on British railways, 40, 47.

Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened, 2;

“Rocket” engine tried upon, 5;

contents of first goods train conveyed upon it, 66;

used by the Post Office as soon as opened, 73;

speed upon, 109.

Liverpool, its postal arrangements with Manchester, note, 124;

rainfall in, note, 281.

Local letters, the most profitable to the Post Office, note, 81;

history of their development in London since 1800, note, 82.

Locke, the late Joseph, M.P., 4, 195.

Locomotive engine and the horse compared, 186;

ride upon one from London to Stafford and back, 210.

Locomotive engines, number of, on British railways, 45.

London and Birmingham Railway incorporated, 2;

opened, ib.;

immediately used by the Post Office, 73.

London and North-Western Railway, length, 23;

cost, 28;

[518]

passenger traffic, 33;

rolling stock and train mileage in 1847, 38;

in 1866, 39;

receipts, ib.;

its London coal traffic likely to diminish, 48;

its locomotive establishment at Crewe, 194;

carriage establishment at Wolverton, 199;

waggon establishment at Earlestown, 200;

its minor repairing shops, 201;

rail manufactory at Crewe, 201.

London, Chatham and Dover Railway, 15;

Workman’s trains, 63;

its locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

London (City), mortality in, note, 35.

London General Omnibus Company, passengers carried by the, 35.

London, population of, 34;

its motive habits, 35, 37;

street nomenclature, note, 36;

dependent upon railways for its food supply, 70;

carriage accidents in, note, 181;

rainfall in, note, 281.

Long Hedge locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Lubeck, postage stamps in, how called, note, 142.

Lukmainer Alpine Pass, the, 10;

proposed tunnel through, 409.

Luxemburg, the Duchy of, inconveniences if annexed to France, note, 143.

Lyons, population of, note, 31;

the Croix Rousse Railway, 32.

Lytton, Lord, obtained the reduction of the Newspaper duty in 1836, note, 80.

Madras, population of, 259.

Madras Railway, its course, 255;

traffic, 256;

small amount of its working expenses, 289;

freedom from accidents to passengers, 291.

Madrid, its magnificent water supply, 384.

Mail bags, 90;

conveyance of by ordinary trains, 139, 463.

Mail coaches, their speed, 56, 109;

passengers carried by them in 1837, 57;

their numbers, weights they carried, 93;

numbers required if Post Office now resorted to conveyance by them, 93, 94, 95;

[519]

more costly proportionately than railways, 137;

that formerly left London each evening, 443;

payments to, 457;

dimensions for postal purposes, 466.

Mail Contract Packets, excluded from expenses of Post Office until 1860, 94.

Mails, weight of, 92;

prices paid to railways for conveyance of, 95, 106, 446;

day, 106.

Man, his power of ascending elevations by steps, 321.

Manchester and Birmingham Railway, 4.

Manchester, its postal connection with Liverpool, note, 124;

the city described, note, 125;

rainfall in, note, 281.

Manners, Lord John, his tardy mode of doing business, note, 242.

Marseilles, from Paris, time of journey in 1672, 1;

the Liverpool of the Mediterranean, 24;

population of, note, 31;

from Edinburgh to, 157;

distance to Alexandria, 429;

its growth and development, 497.

Matheson, Alexander, Esq., M.P., his efforts to establish the Dingwell and Skye Railway, note, 239.

Mauritius Railway, the, 313.

Meat, imports of, 71;

conveyance of, by American railways, note, 156.

Merchandise conveyed on British railways, 40, 47.

Merchant Tailors’ School, note, 217.

Mersey, the, Mr. Hawkshaw’s tunnel under, 393.

Messina, the Straits of, 434;

marvellous bridge across, ib.;

mail steamers between Marseilles and Malta to go through the Straits, note, 432.

Metre, the, its equivalent in English measure, 331.

Metropolitan District Railway, the, described, 389.

Metropolitan Railway, passengers conveyed in, 35;

its workman’s trains, 62;

described, 387;

character of the atmosphere in it, 419;

cause of the pungent smell in it, 422;

[520]

efforts made to ensure the best ventilation, 423;

excellent health of the employés, 424.

Midland Railway incorporated, 3;

present length, ib.;

its importance for the conveyance of coal to London, 48.

Mileage, British Postal, on Railways, 38, 105, 138;

variety of its cost for all modes of conveyance, 123.

Mileage, train, of British Railways, 40, 47.

Minerals conveyed on British railways, 40, 47;

their rapid increase in recent years, 69.

Mining, tunnels connected with, 396;

shafts ditto, note, 411.

Mississippi, proposed sub-aqueous bridge for, 395.

Monadnock on free trade, note, 151;

his arguments refuted, note, 153.

Money Orders, documents connected with them, that pass through the Post Office, 87;

absence of complete information respecting them, note, 98;

amount of, in 1865, 98.

Moniteur des Interets Materiels, 32.

Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, 8.

Mont Cenis, height above sea level, 319;

its height described, 321;

gradients of, 331;

Mr. Fell’s experiments upon, 339;

Captain Tyler’s trials, 340;

concession for the railway, 349;

the works described, 350;

level crossings, 351;

the railway at Susa, 352;

Zig-zags, 353;

protection from snow and avalanches, ib.;

stations, 355;

the engines for working the line, 356;

its great rival, 358.

Morley, Professor Henry, his description of Englishmen, note, 167.

Mormons, head quarters, 19;

their contributions to the Union Pacific Railroad, 21.

Mountains, early desire to construct railways over them, 5;

height of, throughout the world, note, 8.

Mousell, the Right Hon. Wm., appointed on the Royal Commission on Railways, 115;

[521]

dissents from Report, 117.

Munich, distance from London, 15.

Murray’s Hand Books the best published, 317.

Nantes, population of, note, 31.

Naples, distance from London, viâ Brenner Pass, note, 15;

viâ Mont Cenis, 437.

Napoleon I. crossed the Great St. Bernard, 9;

narrow escape from death there, ib.

Napoleon III., Imperial Railway Train for, 33;

his appreciation of the Centre Rail System, 349;

Extract from his Vie de Cæsar, 365.

Natal Railway, the proposed, 313.

National Debt, the, 151;

compared with capital invested in railways, ib.

National Life Boat Institution, the great benefit it confers, 183.

Nederschindermanderscheid, a Luxemburg postal town, note, 144, 194.

Nevada, State of, 19.

New Brunswick, railways in, 304.

New South Wales, railways in, 307;

first locomotive made in, note, ib.;

amount of traffic, 310.

New Zealand, railway tunnel in, 386.

Newcastle, rainfall in, note, 281.

Newspapers, number of, circulating through the Post in 1839 and 1840, 75;

misrepresentations by the Post Office respecting, 80;

stamps for, issued, from 1835 to 1854, note, ib.;

effect of high postal charge for their transmission, and comparative low charge for letters, note, 81;

erroneous Post Office statements respecting, 81, 83, 87, 452.

Nine Elms Locomotive and Carriage establishment, 209.

North of Scotland, railway distances from, to Dover and Penzance, 240.

North Wales, production of coal in, note, 49.

Northampton, its hostility to the London and Birmingham Railway, 233.

Northern of France Railway, its powerful engines, 189.

[522]

Northumberland, production of coal in, note, 49.

Nottinghamshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Nova Scotia, railways in, 304.

Oberschindermanderscheid, a Luxemburg postal town, note, 144, 194.

Officials of railways, their general good conduct, 174;

difficulties of their positions and duties when accidents occur, 175;

numbers killed and injured, 177;

numbers employed in Great Britain, 211;

their love of banging carriage doors, note, 213.

Oldham, Mr., superintendent of the geological survey of India, his opinion as to coal being found there, 288.

Omaha, terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad, 19.

Orleans Railway Company, length, 23;

its first conception, 25;

cost, 28;

traffic receipts, 29;

passengers conveyed, 31;

engine mileage, 37;

goods traffic, 39.

Otranto, the Port and Castle of, 432.

Oudry, M., his bridge across the Straits of Messina, 434.

Overland Californian Mail, the, 18;

the “Pony Express,” ib.

Pacific islands, mountains and volcanoes of, note, 10.

Pacific Railroad, the Union, described, 17.

Page, Mr. Edward, Inspector-General of Mails, his personal character, 83;

his report, ib.;

cause of its being issued, 85;

error in the mode Mr. Page makes his computations, ib.;

omissions in his calculations, 86, 92;

his assertions disproved, 92, 94;

one of Sir Rowland Hill’s witnesses in favour of the State purchasing railways, 118, 132;

his report of 1856, 439;

increased weight of mails under penny postage system would not have prevented their carriage by mail coaches, 440;

weight increased less than supposed, 441;

comparative cost of road and railway mails, 443;

[523]

relations between the railway companies and the Post Office, 444;

arbitration, 445;

prices paid to railway companies, 446;

Mr. Page denies illiberal treatment, 447;

mails by railway companies’ guards, 448;

payment by passengers and Post Office compared, 448;

competition from parcels post, 449;

manner in which railways have improved postal communication, 452;

Mr. R. Stephenson’s reply to Mr. Page, 454. See Stephenson.

Palmerston, Lord, educated at Harrow, 218.

Paper versus letters, 141.

Parcels, post, by the Post Office not approved by the Royal Commissioners of Railways, 121;

Mr. Frederick Hill’s

method of removing the chief difficulty in its establishment, 124;

Mr. Page’s views, 449.

Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean railway, length, 23;

cost of construction, 28;

traffic receipts, 29;

engine mileage, 37;

goods traffic, 39;

its hostility to the Mont Cenis Railway, 492.

Paris to Marseilles, time of journey in 1672, 1;

present distance from London, 15.

Paris to St. Michel, 316.

Parliament, incompetence of, as regards railway legislation, 165.

Parliamentary reports, the Post Office thereon, 444;

their assertions refuted, 474.

Pascal, note, 10.

Passenger traffic on French railways, 30, 31;

on railways terminating in London, 37;

on British railways, 40;

third class, its immense increase, 47;

number carried in the United Kingdom in 1837 and subsequent years, 58;

cause of immense increase of third class, 61.

Passengers conveyed on British railways, 40, 166;

accidents to, 176;

numbers conveyed on Indian railways, 291, 297;

accidents to, on Indian railways, 290.

Patterns, numbers transmitted by post incorrectly stated by Post Office, note, 81;

[524]

first carried in 1863, 98.

Peel, Sir Robert, educated at Harrow, 218.

Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, increased postal subsidy required by it, note, 241;

services performed by it, note, 268;

its new contract, note, 430;

its history traced, 482.

Penny postage, date of its commencement, 75.

Penzance, Railway distance from, to North of Scotland, 240.

Persia, the long railway will pass through it, 271;

opinion of Mr. A. H. Layard, M.P., thereon, 300.

Perth, speed of limited mail to, 109, 237.

Periodical tickets on railways, numbers of, 64.

Peshawer and Lahore Railway Company, the, difference of opinion respecting its construction, 278.

Phipps, G. H., Esq., C.E., on tunnel construction, note, 375.

Pigs and piglings at Wolverton, note, 225;

disputed statistics of, 231.

Pistoja, railway from, across the Apennines, 344;

its working expenses, 346.

Poland, unpronounceable post towns in, note, 144.

Policemen at Crewe, 204.

Pondicherry, railways for, 257;

population and area of, note, ib.

Pony express, the Transatlantic, described, 18.

Population of chief cities of France, note, 31;

of London, 34;

of India, 53;

of United Kingdom in 1837 and subsequent years, 57.

Port Canning Company, the, 274.

Porta Cæsaris Augusti, Susa, 6.

Portugal, mountains of, note, 9.

Post haste defined, note, 158.

Post horse duty, the, not diminished by the opening of railways, 59.

Post Office, the, has produced many literary men, note, 103.

Post Office, the, its railway mileage, 38;

railways used by the department from the earliest period, 73;

[525]

its jealousy of railways; ib.;

the Bill of 1838, ib.;

largely modified in its passage through the House of Commons, 74;

introduction of the penny postage system, sudden increase of letters, 75;

hostility of the department to railways, 76;

its outcry against arbitration, ib.;

extracts from Postmaster-General’s Second Report, 77;

its fallacies, 79;

misrepresentations, 80;

Mr. Edward Page’s Report, 83;

its omissions, 86 to 92;

number of horses necessary if the Post Office reverted to mail coach conveyance, 94, 95;

mails could not be carried across the Isthmus of Suez but for the railway, 96;

Post Office service must have broken down but for railways, 97;

savings banks, 99;

the Insurance and Annuities Act, 101;

Bill for “Further Provision for the Conveyance of Mails by Railway,” 103;

withdrawn before second reading, 104;

apparently better feeling of the Post Office to railways, ib.;

it is a complete mistake, 115;

present arrangements with railways, 105;

amounts paid to railways for conveyance of mails, 106;

objection to its taking to parcels traffic, 121;

impossible to define payments to railways by Act of Parliament, 122;

can only be settled by arbitration, 123;

the official supporters of Sir Rowland Hill’s recommendations, 132;

railways proportionably less costly to the department than mail coaches, 137;

immense facilities it derives from railways, 138;

unreasonableness of its demands, 139;

day mails in charge of railway guards, 140;

hollowness of Post Office pretences, 144;

discreditable proceeding in 1855, 145;

impossible to satisfy postal officials, 146;

remedies suggested, ib.;

statistical blunders of the department, 230;

its costly blunder, note, 241;

its tardy mode of doing business, note, 243;

constantly increasing its demands upon railways, 462;

advantages to, from railways, 459;

unjustifiable tone of, to railways, 478.

[526]

See also Page, Stephenson.

Post offices, number of, in the United Kingdom, 89, 450.

Postage stamps, number transmitted through the mails, 88;

weight of, note, 89;

general information respecting, note, 142;

suppressed, note, 143;

only available for newspapers sent abroad, 473.

Postal communication with India, 247;

its future accelerations, 266, 272.

Postal Guide, the, Post Office notice respecting, 79;

first issued in 1855, 91;

not implicitly to be relied upon, note, ib.

Postmaster-General’s reports. See Reports.

Postmasters, great increase of documents sent by them by railway, 88.

Poultry, the (City of London), should be immediately widened, 327.

Preference share capital of railways, 149.

Provident Fund, the, of the East Indian Railway, 293;

its insufficiency, 294.

Prussia, fastest trains in, 113;

postage stamps in, note, 142, 143;

mileage of railways in, note, 297.

Punch, Mr., his admonition to government officials, note, 242.

Punjaub Railway, the, 272.

Puy de Dome, Pascal’s observations upon, note, 10.

Queensland, railways in, 308;

the difficulties and expenses of their construction, 309.

“Quicksilver” mail in the olden days, 110.

Rails, iron and steel, manufactured at Crewe, 201.

Railway guards in charge of mails, 140.

Railway run, the longest without stopping for water, 111.

Railway subways and tunnels between France and England, 396.

Railway system, the, its immense power and magnitude, 152.

Railway, the centre rail on the Mont Cenis, the experimental line, 339.

Railway, the first passenger, in England, 2.

[527]

Railway, the Isthmus of Suez, 95.

Railway, the Long, 271, 300.

Railways and the Post Office. See Post Office.

Railways, Australian, their moderate amount at present, 306;

in New South Wales, 307;

Victoria and Queensland, 308;

difficult works in the latter, 309;

South Australia, 310;

New Zealand, ib.

Railways, Canadian, necessity for their construction, 301;

the first railways, 302;

the present system, 304;

their length and cost, 305;

their eventual extent, 306.

Railways, Colonial, Demerara, Jamaica, Trinidad, 311;

Honduras, Cape of Good Hope, 312;

Natal, Mauritius, Ceylon, 314.

Railways, continental, date of their construction, 12;

French railways, 24;

their length, 27;

modern cheap lines, 31;

fastest trains on, 112; from Calais to Constantinople, 270.

Railways, English, miles constructed from 1843 to 1867, 360;

published traffic receipts incorrect, note, ib.;

capital expended upon them, 28, 40;

revenue from passengers and goods, train mileage, working expenses, 40;

Irish, 43;

Scotch, ib.;

rolling stock upon British, 45;

continual development of the system, 47;

advantages of, to the community, 56;

number of passengers carried on them, 57;

their importance in the conveyance of food, 70;

hostility of the Post Office to, 73, 146;

present arrangements with the department, 105;

amounts paid to them, 106, 138;

speed on, 109;

gauge of, note, 110;

Royal Commission upon, 115;

character of the report of the Royal Commissioners thereon, 116;

recommendations and opinions as regards railways and the Post Office, 119;

impossible to pass a general act as proposed, 122;

railways less costly proportionately than mail coaches, 137;

immense facilities they afford the Post Office, 139;

their duties towards the department and the public, 144, 145;

[528]

capital of, receipts, working expenses, and profits, 147;

dividends, ib.;

as compared with the national debt, 151;

powers of, for conveyance of every article of commerce, 152;

for personal locomotion 157;

value to the humbler classes, 158;

railways and free trade the twin sisters of progress, 165;

working and traffic of, 166;

accidents upon, 176;

locomotive and carriage repairing shops of, 209;

number of men employed upon, 211;

prices paid to, by Post Office, 446;

their benefits to the Post Office, as estimated by Mr. Page, 452;

monopoly, alleged, as regards the Post Office refuted, 475.

Railways in India:

the East Indian, 245;

Great Indian Peninsular, 252;

Madras, 255;

Bombay, Baroda, and Central India, 258;

Scinde, 261;

Indus Valley (proposed), 262;

Euphrates Valley (proposed), 263;

Punjaub, 272;

Delhi, 273;

Eastern Bengal, Calcutta, and South-Eastern, ib.;

Great Southern, 274;

future railways, the guarantee, 275;

working expenses, 280;

difference of working expenses upon, 289;

reasons for their being high, 281;

iron-sleepers, 282;

fuel, 284;

accidents, 290;

provident fund of the East India Railway Company, 293;

objections to, 294;

rolling stock, 295;

commercial advantages of their construction to England, 296;

National importance of Indian railways, 297;

their mileage as compared with other countries, 297.

Railways of Italy described, 427.

Railways, rapidity of their construction in America, 20.

Railways throughout the world, note, 211.

Rainfall in India, 255, note, 281;

in England, ib.

Ramsbottom, John, the head of the Crewe establishment, 200.

Raneegunge coal-field, the, 286.

Receipts of British railways, 40;

their constant increase, 47;

[529]

percentage of, to working expenses, 55, 147.

Receptacles for letters in England, 97;

in France, note, ib.

Remington, George, Esq., C.E., his proposed tunnel between France and England, 398.

Reports of the Postmaster-General, their first issue, note, 76;

two not dated, ib.;

extract from second Report, 77;

its fallacies, 79;

misrepresentations, 80;

errors in the 12th, note, 81;

in the 3rd, 82;

unceasing changes in the modes of compiling them, 83;

difficulty of understanding the statistics contained in them, 89;

facetia, note, 105;

extraordinary contradictions between the 9th and 12th, note, 121;

constant references to postal accelerations, 130;

Mr. Frederick Hill believed to be the writer of them, 131;

they abound in misstatements, 467.

Reuss-Greiz, the second smallest state in the world, note, 34.

Revue des Deux Mondes, 22, note, 97.

Rice, Mr. Spring, his speech upon railways, 1838, 74.

“Rocket” engine, the, 5.

Rocky Mountains crossed by the Union Pacific Railroad, 20.

Rolling stock on British railways, 45.

“Roman Railways” Company, the, 436.

Rome, distance from London viâ Brenner Pass, note, 15;

time of journey to, in 1834, 157;

in 1867, 158, 437;

ancient, saved by the hissing of a goose, 213;

present population of, note, 436.

Rouen, population of, note, 31.

Royal Commissioners of railways, their names, 115;

character of their report, its main recommendations, 116.

Rugby school, 217.

Rugby station, 235;

arrival of trains at, 234.

Rural postmen in France, note, 97.

Russia, unpronounceable post-towns in, note, 144;

mileage of railways in, note, 297.

Salmon, conveyance of, by railway, 156.

[530]

Salt Lake, 19.

Samos, ancient tunnel in, 364.

Samples and patterns incorrectly stated by Post Office, note, 81;

first carried in 1863, 98.

San Francisco, 18, 20;

to Canton, 22;

to Jeddo, ib.

Sapperton Tunnel, the, its ventilation, 413.

Sardinia, mountains of, note, 8.

Savings Banks, Post Office, documents transmitted through the Post in consequence of them, 99;

their establishment “with the security of the Government,” 100;

is this undoubted? note, ib.;

the business done by them, note, 101.

Saxony, mileage of railways in, note, 297.

Schindermanderscheid, a Luxemburg postal town, note, 144, 194.

Scinde Railway, the, 260;

its traffic, 261;

working expenses, 290.

Scotland, mountains of, note, 9;

railways in, 43;

production of coals in, note, 49;

amounts paid by Post Office to railways in, 108;

locomotive manufacturers in, 192;

north of, distances to Dover and Penzance, 240;

canals of, 368;

railway tunnels in, 371, 373.

Scudamore, Frank Ives, secretary of the Post Office, a distinguished author, note, 104;

not examined before Royal Commissioners on Railways, 133.

Sea-sickness, 15.

Seguier, Baron, his claim as inventor of the Centre Rail System, 337.

Semiramis, founder of Babylon, 358;

her resuscitation required, 435.

Service, Ambulant (postal), of France, the, note, 78.

Sevigny’s, Madame de, journey to Marseilles 1672, 1.

Shareholders, numbers of, in Indian railways, 276.

Sheffield, rainfall in, note, 281.

Ships, of the United Kingdom, statistics of, note, 182.

Shipwreck, losses of life from, 182, note, 183.

[531]

Shoddy-shoebility of Northampton, 233.

Shrewsbury Grammar School, note, 217.

Shropshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Sicily, mountains of, note, 8.

Sierra Nevada Mountain, 19.

Simplon, the, 8;

height of, note, 319.

Skye and Dingwall Railway, note, 239.

Sleeping railway car, note, 303.

Sleepers, railway, iron in India, 282.

Sletvio Pass, the, 11.

Slow trains, difficulty of keeping time with them, 113.

Sœmmering Pass and Railway described, 12;

gradients upon, 344.

Somersetshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

South Australia, railways in, 310.

South Austrian and Alta-Italian Railway, length, 23;

described, ib.;

cost of construction, 27;

traffic receipts, 29;

rolling stock, 37;

engine mileage, ib.

South-Eastern Railway, the, 15;

its locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

South Wales, production of coal in, note, 49.

Southampton, its progress since 1840, note, 259;

distance to Alexandria, 429.

Spain, mountains of, note, 8;

postage stamps in, note, 142;

mileage of railways in, 297;

railway tunnels, 381;

its water canal, Isabel II, 384;

roadway communications, ib.

Speed on railways, 109;

if accelerated, position that Mr. Frederick Hill should take, 132.

Spezzia, the Italian Portsmouth, 433;

unfinished railway to, 438.

Spiers and Pond, Messrs., of buffet celebrity, 228.

Splugen Pass, the, 10;

height of, note, 319.

St. Etienne, population of, note, 31.

St. Germain and Paris, first railway in France, 25.

St. Gothard Alpine Pass, the, 9;

height of, note, 319;

proposed tunnel through, 409.

St. John’s Wood Railway, the, described, 390.

St. Michel, distance from London and Paris, 318.

[532]

St. Paul’s Cathedral, height of, 219, 321.

Staff, the, of Indian railways, its composition—insufficiency of the provident fund for, 292.

Staffordshire, production of coal in, note, 49; canal navigation.

Stage coaches, their speed, 56, 109;

passengers carried by them in 1837, 57.

Stamps, newspaper, note, 80;

letter, first use of, note, 141;

the author of those now in use, 141;

premium for the first design of, note, 142.

Steam Vessels, British, number of, 50;

passengers carried by them in 1837, 57;

statistics of, note, 162.

Steel rails, manufactory of, at Crewe, 201;

value and importance of, note, 202;

use of in India, 284.

Stephenson, the late Robert, M.P., extract from his inaugural address to the Institution of Civil Engineers, 83;

upon railway tunnels, 370;

answer to the report of Mr. Page, Inspector General of mails, 454;

tendency of his report, 455;

errors respecting the Dover day mail train, 456;

travelling post offices, 457;

payments to railways not higher than to mail coaches, ib.;

services to the Post Office and the public compared, 460, 464;

cost of running trains, 461;

mail bags by ordinary trains, 463;

argument that the penny postal system would be cheaper by horse than by railway power, refuted, 465;

unjustifiable competition of the Post Office, 470;

Post Office threats against the railways, 475;

alleged monopoly, 476;

treatment of the railways by Government, 477;

unjustifiable tone towards railways, 478.

“Stokers and Pokers,” by Sir Francis Head, Bart., quotations from, 196, 197, 198, 224.

Storrow, Mr. Charles, his interesting information upon tunnel ventilation, 411;

his report upon the tunnel of the Alps, 426.

Strasbourg, population of, note, 31.

[533]

Stratford locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Strickland, Miss Agnes, on crinoline, note, 210.

Strike upon the Eastern Counties Railway in 1849, note, 161.

Strikes, their injurious effects upon workmen, note, 159, note, 161.

Sturgey, the immaculate, note, 243.

Styria, mountains of, note, 8.

Subways and tunnels between France and England, 396.

Suez Canal, note, 95, note, 265.

Suez, Isthmus of, Railway, 95;

Eastern mails, how conveyed upon, note, 269;

iron sleepers upon, 282.

Sugar, imports of, 72.

Suicide upon Railways, 177.

Sultan, the, his views on railways, 270.

Susa, Porta Cæsaris Augusti, at, 6;

the centre rail at, 352.

Sutherland Railway, the, 239.

Sweden, mountains of, note, 8;

postage stamps in, 142.

Swindon, locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.

Switzerland, mountains of, note, 8;

postage stamps in, note, 142;

locomotive building establishment in, 194;

railway tunnels in, 380;

Hauenstein Tunnel described, 415.

Tarento, the Italian Plymouth, 433.

Tea, imports and consumption of, 71;

passage of, between London and Liverpool, 155.

Telegraph between London and California, 19.

Telegraphs in India, great expenses and difficulties connected with them, note, 281.

Tenders of engines, their water holding capacities, 219.

Teneriffe, Peak of, its height, note, 10.

Thames subway, Mr. Barlow’s, 395.

Thames Tunnel, the, 376.

Third class carriages used by people for whom they were never intended, note, 61.

Third class passengers, their enormous increase on British railways, 47;

cause, 61.

[534]

Thouvenot, M., his colossal engine, 190.

Thull Ghaut, the, 254.

Thurn and Taxis, postal privileges of the house of, note, 143.

Thurso, sleepy, 240;

the most northern town in Scotland, its postal facilities, note, 241.

Timber, advantages of railways in the conveyance of, 155;

inapplicable for sleepers in India, 282.

Timbromaniacs, note, 142.

Time, difference of, between London and Dublin, note, 111;

between London, Paris and Rome, note, 158.

Tinsley, Brothers, Messrs., publishers of “Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes,” 205.

Toulouse, population of, note, 31.

Traffic, receipts of English railways incorrectly published, note, 3;

of South Austrian and Alta Italia, 29;

of Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean, ib.;

of Orleans Company, ib.;

London and North-Western, 39;

of British railways, 40.

Trains behind time, 113, 166;

accidents to, 175;

cost of running them, 461.

Transmission, postal, gives value to letters, 141.

Travelling post offices, their introduction on English railways, note, 77;

superiority of arrangements connected with them all over the continent, as compared with those in England, ib.;

staff of, 78;

their advantages, 453, 457.

Trespassers on railways, killed and injured, 177.

Trinidad Railway, the proposed, 311.

Trollope, Anthony, 104.

Trotting horses, American, the pace of, 188.

Trough for watering engines, 111, 232.

Tunnel of the Alps, the, described, 403;

progress, 404;

ventilation, 405;

gradients, 406;

their effects in working the railway, 417;

time to be occupied in going through, 418.

Tunnels, their antiquity, 358;

under the Euphrates, 359;

at Jerusalem, 360;

[535]

the earliest in Europe, 364;

the first under the Alps, 366;

canal tunnels, 368;

Highgate, 369;

length of, in Great Britain, 370;

the chief enumerated, 371;

cost, 375;

the Thames Tunnel, 376;

tunnels in France, 377;

Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, 380;

Spain, 381;

United States, 385;

New Zealand, 386;

Metropolitan Railway, 387;

Metropolitan district, 388;

St. John’s Wood, 390;

Britannia Tubular Bridge, 391;

Victoria ditto, ib.;

tunnels suggested under the Mersey, 393;

the Liffy, the Thames, 394;

at Attock, 395;

tunnels in mines, 396;

between France and England, 397;

under the Atlantic, 400;

ventilation of, 411.

Turkey, railways for, 270.

Turpin’s ride to York, note, 215.

Tyler, Captain, R.E., his experiments on the Mont Cenis, 339;

practical deductions therefrom, 342;

his comparisons of working expenses, 346;

of costs of construction, 347;

extract from his Report to the Board of Trade, ib.;

his views on costs of the tunnel of the Alps, 408;

his opinion as to the Brindisi route, 430;

does not visit Otranto, 432.

Ulcers, Post Office, remedies suggested to cure them, 146.

Undertakers at Crewe, 204.

Union Pacific Railroad, the, described, 17;

by whom constructed, 21;

cost, ib.

United States Mails in 1839 and 1855, 91;

railway mileage of, note, 211;

proportion to population, 305;

railway tunnels, 385.

Utah, contribution of, to the Union Pacific Railroad, 21.

Vandal, Monsieur, Directeur-General des Postes Françaises, note, 98;

on railway distances in France and England, 240;

his views upon contract packet services, 268.

Varne, Islet de, its proposed sub-aqueous railway station, 398.

[536]

“Vede Napoli e Mori,” 438.

Ventilation of tunnels, 411;

means to ensure its efficiency in the Metropolitan Railway, 423.

Vesuvius, height of, note, 9.

Victoria Bridge, Montreal, the, described, 391.

Victoria, railways in, 308;

amount of traffic, 310.

Vignoles, Mr. Charles B., first patentee of the centre rail, 336.

Volcano, extinct, railway tunnel through, 386.

Volcanoes in the world, 10.

Von Reaumont, Alfred, History of Rome, 436.

Wales, North and South, production of coal in, note, 49;

unpronounceable post towns in, note, 144.

Wallis, the late Robert, Esq., M.P., his committee on postal reform, 137.

Warren, Lieut., R.E., his explorations at Jerusalem, 360.

Warwickshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Watches and engines compared, 244.

Water supply to Crewe in 1849, 197, in 1867, 205.

Water supply to Madrid described, 384.

Water tower, the, of the Crystal Palace, railway tunnel under, note, 375.

Weedon, its deadly liveliness, 234.

Wellington, the Duke of, sends to Rome in 1834;

time occupied in the journey, 157.

West India mails, the, in 1839 and 1855, 91.

Westbourne, its frequent use in London street nomenclature, note, 36.

Westminster school, note, 217.

Widows from Wolverton, 229;

married, “no cards,” 230.

Winchester school, note, 216.

Worcestershire, production of coal in, note, 49.

Word-coining approved of by the Archbishop of Dublin, note 167.

Wolverton carriage establishment, 199;

station and repairing shops, 221;

[537]

statistics of, ib.;

churches and schools, 222;

the refreshment rooms, 224.

Working expenses of British railways, 40, 147;

per centage of, to receipts, 55;

rate per cent. for twelve leading companies, 56.

Working expenses of Indian railways, causes why they must be high, periodical inundations, 280;

iron sleepers, 282;

fuel, 284;

differ very much on different lines, 289;

[538]

on the Alpine and Apennine railways, 346.

Workman’s trains, 62.

Wynter, Dr., the London Commisseriat, 70.

Yard, its proportion to the French metre, 331.

Yates, Edmund, note, 104.

Yonge, the Rev. T. E., note, 169.

York, the locomotive and carriage establishment of the North-Eastern Company at, 209.

Yorkshire, production of coal in, note, 49.

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FOOTNOTES: