But the objections in taste, and difficulties in science, have vanished.  On this line, as on all others, tenants are readily found for houses fringing a cutting; locomotives run up even such ascents as the Bromsgrove Lickey, between Worcester and Birmingham, with a load of 500 tons.  So ten minutes have been saved in time, and much expense, by doing away with the rope traction system.  The stationary engines have been sold, and are now doing duty in a flax mill in Russia, and the two tall columns, after slumbering for several years as monuments of prejudices and obstacles overcome, were swept away to make room for other improvements.

It is, however, very odd, and not very creditable to human nature, that whenever a railway is planned, the proprietors are assailed by unreasonable demands for compensation, in cases where past experience has proved that the works will be an advantageous, and often an ornamental addition.

In 1846 a Sheffield line was vehemently opposed by a Liverpool gentleman, on the ground that it would materially injure the prospect from a mansion, which had been the seat of his ancestors for centuries.  The tale was well told, and seemed most pitiful; an impression was produced on the committee that the privacy of something like Hatfield, or Knebworth, was about to be infringed on by the “abominable railway.”  A stiff cross-examination brought out the reluctant fact, however, that this “house of my ancestors,” this beautiful Elizabethan mansion had been for many years let as a Lunatic Asylum at 36 pound per annum.

In another instance a railway director sold a pretty country seat, because the grounds were about to be intersected by a railway embankment; two years after the completion of the railway he wished to buy it back again, for he found that his successor, by turfing and planting the slope, had very much increased the original beauty of the gardens.

CAMDEN STATION.

But thus gossiping, we have reached Camden Station, and must take advantage of an unusual halt to look into the arrangements for building waggons and trucks, and conveying coals, merchandise, goods, and all live stock included between pigs and bullocks.

Not without difficulty did Mr. Robert Stephenson succeed in inducing the directors to purchase thirty acres of land here; it was only by urging, that, if unused, the surplus could be sold at a profit, that he carried out his views.  Genius can foresee results which, to ordinary capacities, are dark and incomprehensible.  Since 1845 it has been found necessary to take in an additional plot of three more acres, all now fully occupied.

In no respect were the calculations of parties engaged in the construction of railways more at fault than with regard to the station accommodation needed for goods traffic, which, on the principal lines, has added full twenty-five per cent. to the original estimates.  George Stephenson calculated the cost of getting over Chat Moss at 40,000 pounds; his opponent proved that it would cost four hundred thousand:  but it was executed at exactly the sum Stephenson set down, while the capital involved in providing Station Room for merchandise at Liverpool and at Manchester, has probably exceeded the original estimate for the whole line.