Even at the risk of seeming trite, prosy, and common-place, it is right to remind the young generation who consider the purchase of a railway ticket gives them a right to grumble at a thousand imaginary defects and deficiencies in railway management, how great are the advantages in swiftness, economy, and safety, which they enjoy through the genius, enterprise, and stubborn perseverance of George Stephenson and his friends and pupils in 1825.

EUSTON STATION.

This station was an after-thought, the result of early experience in railway traffic.  Originally the line was to have ended at Camden Town, but a favourable opportunity led to the purchase of fifteen acres, which has turned out most convenient for the public and the proprietors.  It is only to be regretted that it was not possible to bring the station within a few yards of the New Road, so as to render the stream of omnibuses between Paddington and the City available, without compelling the passenger to perspire under his carpet-bag, railway-wrapper, umbrella, and hat-box, all the way from the platform to the edge of Euston Square.

The great gateway or propylaeum is very imposing, and rather out of place; but that is not the architect’s fault.  It cost thirty thousand pounds, and had he been permitted to carry out his original design, no doubt it would have introduced us to some classic fane in character with the lofty Titanic columns:  for instance, a temple to Mercury the winged messenger and god of Mammon.  But, as is very common in this country,—­for familiar examples see the London University, the National Gallery, and the Nelson Column,—­the spirit of the proprietors evaporated with the outworks; and the gateway leads to a square court-yard and a building the exterior of which may be described, in the language of guide books when referring to something which cannot be praised, as “a plain, unpretending, stucco structure,” with a convenient wooden shed in front, barely to save passengers from getting wet in rainy weather.

[Euston square, London:  ill1.jpg]

As Melrose should be seen by the fair moonlight, so Euston, to be viewed to advantage, should be visited by the gray light of a summer or spring morning, about a quarter to six o’clock, three-quarters of an hour before the starting of the parliamentary train, which every railway, under a wise legislative enactment, is compelled to run “once a-day from each extremity, with covered carriages, stopping at every station, travelling at a rate of not less than fifteen miles an hour, at a charge of one-penny per mile.”  We say wise, because the competition of the Railway for goods, as well as passengers, drove off the road not only all the coaches, on which, when light-loaded, foot-sore travellers got an occasional lift, but all the variety of vans and broad-wheeled waggons which afforded a slow but cheap conveyance between our principal towns.