Under the railway system the certainty and rapidity with which merchandise can be transmitted, changes and simplifies more and more every year the operations of trade.  For instance, Southampton is the great port for that part of our Indian, South American, and Mediterranean trade which is conducted by steamers.  When a junction has been effected between the London and North Western and the South Western, costly packages of silk, muslin, gold tissue, jewellery, may be sent under lock from the Glasgow manufacturers to the quay alongside at Southampton in a few hours, without sign of damage or pilferage, and at the last moment before the departure of the steamer.  The communication between the docks on the Thames and Camden Town, will enable a grocer in Manchester to have a hogshead of sugar or tobacco sent in answer to a letter by return of post, at a saving in expense which may be imagined from the fact, that it costs more to cart a butt of sherry from the London Docks to Camden Town, than to send it by rail all the way to Manchester.

To provide for the enormous and annually increasing traffic in passengers and merchandise, there are:—­

1 State carriage. 260 Horse boxes.
555 Locomotives and tenders. 132 Sheep vans.
494 First-class mails. 7385 Goods waggons.
420 Second-class carriages. 14 Trolleys.
342 Third-class. 1155 Cribb rails.
25 Post-offices. 5150 Sheets.
242 Carriages,—­trucks for 162 Cart horses.
letters and newspapers. 41 Parcel carts.
201 Guards’ brakes. 
Making a grand total rolling stock of 10,663.

The passenger carriages afford eleven miles of seat room, and would accommodate 40,196 individuals, or the whole population of two such towns as Northampton.

The loading surface of the goods equals eleven acres, and would convey 40,000 tons.

If the tires of all the company’s wheels were welded into one ring, they would form a circle of seventy-two miles.

To keep this rolling stock up in number and efficiency, there are two establishments, one at Camden Town, and one at Wolverton.

Camden Town is the great coach house of the line, where goods waggons are built and repaired in one division, where sound locomotives, carriages and trucks are kept ready for use in another.

The waggon building department of Camden is worth visiting, especially by railway shareholders.

Every one is interested in railways being worked economically, for economy gives low rates and increased profits, which both increase trade and multiply railways.  Hitherto the details of carrying, especially as to the construction of waggons and trucks, have been much neglected.

On one line running north, it is said that the loss in cheese stolen by the railway servants, amounts to as much as the whole sum paid for carrying agricultural produce, and on the line on which we are travelling, breakages have sometimes amounted to 1,200 pounds a-month.