After enumerating a series of theoretical dangers, he proceeds.  “Another consideration, which would deter invalids, ladies, and children from making use of the Railway, would be want of accommodation along the line, unless the Directors of the Railway chose to build inns at their own expense.  But those inns the Directors would have, in great part, to support, because they would be out of the way of any business except that arising from the Railway, and that would be trifling.  Commercial travellers would never, by any chance, go by the Railroad.  The occasional traveller, who went the same route for pleasure, would go by the coach-road also, because of the cheerful company and comfortable dinner.

“Not one of the nobility, the gentry, or those who travel in their own carriages, would really like to be drawn at the tail of a train of waggons, in which some hundreds of bars of iron were jingling with a noise that would drown all the bells of the district, and in momentary apprehension of having his vehicle broken to pieces, and himself killed or crippled by the collision of those thirty-two ton masses.  Even if a man had no carriage of his own, what inducement could he have to take so ungainly a conveyance.  Three hours is more than the maximum difference by which the ordinary speed of coaches could be exceeded; and it is not one traveller in a thousand to whom an arrival in London and Birmingham three hours sooner would be of the slightest consequence.

“Then as to goods.  The only goods that require velocity in coming to London, are ribands from Coventry.  Half the luggage room of a coach, on a Saturday night, is quite adequate to the conveyance of them.  The manufacturers of Coventry will never be such fools as to send their property on an errand by which it must travel further and fare worse.  For heavy goods, the saving by canal would be as twelve to one, beside the perfect safety.  In the canal boat there is no danger of fracture, even to the most delicate goods; whereas, if fine China goods were to be brought by the rapid waggons, the breakage would probably be twenty-five per cent.

“As to the profits of the undertaking let us be extravagantly liberal.  Suppose that the Railway was to get one-third of the goods, as well as one-third of the passengers, see what they would make of it:—­

One-third of the Goods . . . 96,540 pounds
One-third of the Passengers . 30,240
          
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                                                     126,780 pounds
          
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Annual expenses . . . . . 385,000 pounds
Returns. . . . . . . . 126,780
          
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Annual deficiency . . . . 258,220 pounds
          
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        To meet an outlay of 7,500,000 pounds.