few passengers, hoped to lower the rates of the canals, and had not made up their minds whether to employ locomotives or horses; George Stephenson looked forward confidently at that same period to conveying the greater portion of the goods and passenger traffic by a complete railway system; but he either would not or could not explain the grounds of his confidence, and therefore we find Mr. Harrison, the most eminent Parliamentary counsel of that day, speaking in the following insolent strain of a man whose genius he and his friends were unable to appreciate:—­

“Every part of this scheme shows that this man (George Stephenson) has applied himself to a subject of which he has no knowledge, and to which he has no science to apply. . . . .  When we set out with the original prospectus, we were to gallop at the rate of twelve miles an hour, with the aid of the devil in the form of a locomotive, sitting as postillion on the fore horse.  But the speed of these locomotives has slackened.  The learned Sergeant would like to go seven, but he will be content with six miles an hour.  I will show that he cannot go six.  Practically, or for any useful purposes, they may go at something more than four miles an hour.  The wind will affect them:  any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey, would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam until the boiler burst.  A shower of rain retards a railway, and snow entirely stops it.”

In reply, Mr. Adams modestly observed, “I should like my learned friend to have pointed out any part of the publication in favour of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which justified his statement that we professed that goods were to be carried at the rate of twelve miles an hour; we have proved that they can be carried at seven miles an hour, and it was never intended they should be conveyed at a higher rate.”

In the following year the Liverpool and Manchester Bill was carried, and in 1830 the career of the civilizing locomotive commenced, but it took many more years to convince “Practical men” that the Railway would successfully compete with the Coach and Canal.

When, in 1831, the scheme of a Railway between London and Birmingham was made public, a very clever pamphlet appeared under the title of “Beware the Bubbles,” in which we find the following comical prognostications of the results of Railways:—­

“After all, what advantage does the London and Birmingham Railway hold out?  Only one,—­celerity of motion; and, after all, the ten miles an hour is absolutely slower than the coaches, some of which go as fast as eleven or twelve miles an hour; and, with the length of time that the engine and its cumbrous train requires ere it can stop, and the other contingencies, there would be little difference in the time of a twelve miles an hour coach and a fifteen miles an hour engine, supposing twenty or thirty stoppages, to pick up little parcels, between London and Birmingham.  The conveyance is not so safe as by coach.”