Stokers and pokers

OR, THE
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH,
AND
THE RAILWAY CLEARING-HOUSE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘BUBBLES FROM THE BRUNNEN OF NASSAU.’
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1849.
London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.
TO RAILWAY TRAVELLERS, AND TO THE PROPRIETORS OF THE
AND OTHER BRITISH RAILWAYS, THESE ROUGH SKETCHES, DELINEATING THE DIFFICULTIES ATTENDANT UPON THE CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE, AND WORKING OF A RAILWAY, ARE INSCRIBED.
A good many years ago, one of the toughest and hardest riders that ever crossed Leicestershire undertook to perform a feat which, just for the moment, attracted the general attention not only of the country but of the sporting world. His bet was, that, if he might choose his own turf, and if he might select as many thorough-bred horses as he liked, he would undertake to ride 200 miles in ten hours!!!
The newspapers of the day described exactly how “the Squire” was dressed—what he had been living on—how he looked—how, at the word “ Away! ” he started like an arrow from a bow—how gallantly Tranby, his favourite racer, stretched himself in his gallop—how, on arriving at his second horse, he vaulted from one saddle to another—how he then flew over the surface of the earth, if possible, faster than before—and how, to the astonishment and amidst the acclamations of thousands of spectators, he at last came in … a winner!
Now, if at this moment of his victory, while with dust and perspiration on his brow—his exhausted arms dangling just above the panting flanks of his horse, which his friends at each side of the bridle were slowly leading in triumph—a decrepit old woman had hobbled forward, and in the name of Science had told the assembled multitude, that, before she became a skeleton, she and her husband would undertake, instead of 200 miles in ten hours, to go 500—that is to say, that, for every mile “the Squire” had just ridden, she and her old man would go two miles and a half—that she would moreover knit all the way, and that he should take his medicine every hour and read to her just as if they were at home; lastly, that they would undertake to perform their feat either in darkness or in daylight, in sunshine or in storm, “in thunder, lightning, or in rain;”—who, we ask, would have listened to the poor maniac?—and yet how wonderfully would her prediction have been now fulfilled! Nay, waggons of coals and heavy luggage now-a-days fly across Leicestershire faster and farther than Mr. Osbaldestone could go, notwithstanding his condition and that of all his horses.