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POPULARITY OF RAILWAYS.

[PART II. soft seat-sitting now with the face to the wind, rain, or sun, and now with the back-without any shelter such as the commonest penny-a-mile Parliamentary train now daily provides—was a miserable undertaking, looked forward to with horror by many whose business required them to travel frequently between the provinces and the metropolis. Nor were the inside passengers more agreeably accommodated. To be closely packed in a little, inconvenient, straight-backed vehicle, where the cramped limbs could not be in the least extended, nor the wearied frame indulge in any change of posture, was felt by many to be a terrible thing. Then there were the constantly-recurring demands, not always couched in the politest terms, for an allowance to the driver every two or three stages, and to the guard every six or eight; and if the gratuity did not equal their expectations, growling and open abuse were not unusual. These désagrémens, together with the exactions practiced on travelers by innkeepers, seriously detracted from the romance of stage-coach traveling, and there was a general disposition on the part of the public to change the system for a better.

The avidity with which the public at once availed themselves of the railways proved that this better system had been discovered. Notwithstanding the reduction of the coach-fares on many of the roads to one third of their previous rate, the public preferred traveling by the railway. They saved in time, and they saved in money, taking the whole expenses into account. In point of comfort there could be no doubt as to the infinite superiority of the locomotive train. But there remained the question of safety, which had been a great bugbear with the early opponents of railways, and was made the most of by the coach-proprietors to deter the public from using them. It was predicted that trains of passengers would be blown to pieces, and that none but fools would intrust their persons to the conduct of an explosive machine such as the locomotive. It appeared, however, that during the first eight years not fewer than five millions of passengers had been conveyed along the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and of this vast number only two persons had lost their lives by accident. During the same period, the loss of life by the upsetting of stage-coaches had been immensely greater in proportion. The public were not slow, therefore, to detect the fact that trav

CHAP. XV.]

STEPHENSON'S COACH ACCIDENT.

389

eling by railways was greatly safer than traveling by common roads, and in all districts penetrated by railways the coaches were very shortly taken off for want of support.

George Stephenson himself had a narrow escape in one of the stage-coach accidents so common thirty years since, but which are already almost forgotten. While the Birmingham line was under construction, he had occasion to travel from Ashby-de-laZouch to London by coach. He was an inside passenger with several others, and the outsides were pretty numerous. When within ten miles of Dunstable, he felt, from the rolling of the coach, that one of the linchpins securing the wheels had given way, and that the vehicle must upset. He endeavored to fix himself in his seat, holding on firmly by the arm-straps, so that he might save himself on whichever side the coach fell. The coach soon toppled over, and fell crash upon the road, amid the shrieks of his fellow-passengers and the smashing of glass. He immediately pulled himself up by the arm-strap above him, let down the coach-window, and climbed out. The coachman and passengers lay scattered about on the road, stunned, and some of them bleeding, while the horses were plunging in their harness. Taking out his pocket-knife, he at once cut the traces and set the horses free. He then went to the help of the passengers, who were all more or less hurt. The guard had his arm broken, and the driver was seriously cut and contused. A scream from one of his fellow-passenger "insides" here attracted his attention: it proceeded from an elderly lady, whom he had before observed to be decorated with one of the enormous bonnets in fashion at the time. Opening the coach-door, he lifted the lady out, and her principal lamentation was that her large bonnet had been crushed beyond remedy! Stephenson then proceeded to the nearest village for help, and saw the passengers provided with proper assistance before he himself went forward on his journey.

It was some time before the more opulent classes, who could afford to post to town in aristocratic style, became reconciled to the railway train. It put an end to that gradation of rank in traveling which was one of the few things left by which the nobleman could be distinguished from the Manchester manufacturer and bagman. But to younger sons of noble families the convenience and cheapness of the railway did not fail to com

390

CONVENIENCE OF RAILWAYS.

[PART II. mend itself. One of these, whose eldest brother had just succeeded to an earldom, said to a railway manager, "I like railways -they just suit young fellows like me, with 'nothing per annum paid quarterly.' You know, we can't afford to post, and it used to be deuced annoying to me, as I was jogging along on the boxseat of the stage-coach, to see the little earl go by, drawn by his four posters, and just look up at me and give me a nod. But now, with railways, it's different. It's true, he may take a firstclass ticket, while I can only afford a second-class one, but we both go the same pace."

For a time, however, many of the old families sent forward their servants and luggage by railroad, and condemned themselves to jog along the old highway in the accustomed family chariot, dragged by country post-horses. But the superior comfort of the railway shortly recommended itself to even the oldest families; posting went out of date; post-horses were with difficulty to be had along even the great high roads; and nobles and servants, manufacturers and peasants, alike shared in the comfort, the convenience, and the dispatch of railway traveling. The late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, regarded the opening of the London and Birmingham line as another great step accomplished in the march of civilization. "I rejoice to see it," he said, as he stood on one of the bridges over the railway, and watched the train flashing along under him, and away through the distant hedgerows—“I rejoice to see it, and to think that feudality is gone forever: it is so great a blessing to think that any one evil is really extinct."

It was long before the late Duke of Wellington would trust himself behind a locomotive. The fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson, which had happened before his eyes, contributed to prejudice him strongly against railways, and it was not until the year 1843 that he performed his first trip on the Southwestern Railway, in attendance upon her majesty. Prince Albert had for some time been accustomed to travel by railway alone, but in 1842 the queen began to make use of the same mode of conveyance between Windsor and London. Even Colonel Sibthorpe was eventually compelled to acknowledge its utility. For a time he continued to post to and from the country as before. Then he compromised the matter by taking a railway ticket for the long journey,

CHAP. XV.] SIBTHORPE ON THE "INFERNAL RAILROAD."

391

and posting only a stage or two nearest town; until, at length, he undisguisedly committed himself, like other people, to the express train, and performed the journey throughout upon what he had formerly denounced as "the infernal railroad."

GEORGE STEPHENSON'S COAL-MINES-APPEARS AT MECHANICS' INSTITUTES HIS OPINION ON RAILWAY SPEEDS-ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEM -RAILWAY MANIA-VISITS TO BELGIUM AND SPAIN.

WHILE George Stephenson was engaged in carrying on the works of the Midland Railway in the neighborhood of Chesterfield, several seams of coal were cut through in the Claycross Tunnel, when it occurred to him that if mines were opened out there, the railway would provide the means of a ready sale for the article in the midland counties, and even as far south as the metropolis itself.

At a time when every body else was skeptical as to the possibility of coals being carried from the midland counties to London, and sold there at a price to compete with those which were sea-borne, he declared his firm conviction that the time was fast approaching when the London market would be regularly supplied with North-country coals led by railway. One of the great advantages of railways, in his opinion, was that they would bring iron and coal, the staple products of the country, to the doors of all England. "The strength of Britain," he would say, "lies in