Then came the dangers of it. The dumb animals would never recover from the sight of a locomotive; cows would not give their milk; cattle could not graze, or horses be driven along the track, cried the opposition.
"As to that," said Stephenson, "come to Killingworth and see. More quiet and sensible beasts cannot be found in the kingdom. The farmers there never complain."
"Well," asked one of them, "suppose, now, one of those engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance?"
"Yes," answered Stephenson, with a droll twinkle in his eye, "very awkward indeed—for the coo!"
The inquirer, as you may suppose, was silent.
The danger in other respects was thus dwelt on: "In addition to the smoke and the noise, the hiss and the whirl, which locomotive engines make going at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, and filling the cattle with dismay, what," asked an honourable member, "is to be done with all those who have advanced money in making and mending turnpikes? What with those who may still wish to travel in their own or hired carriages, after the fashion of their forefathers? What is to become of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters and workmen, innkeepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? Iron would be raised one hundred per cent., or more probably exhausted altogether. The price of coal would be ruinous. Why, a railroad would be the greatest nuisance, the biggest disturbance of quiet and comfort, in all parts of the kingdom, that the ingenuity of man could invent."
Not content with decrying his engine, they could not stop short of abusing Stephenson himself. "He is more fit for Bedlam than anywhere else," they cried; "he never had a plan, he is not capable of making one. Whenever a difficulty is pressed, as in the case of a tunnel, he gets out of it at one end; and when you try to catch him at that, he gets out at the other."
"We protest," they said, "against a measure supported by such evidence and founded upon such calculations. We protest against the Exchange of Liverpool striding across the land of this country. It is despotism itself."
What had the friends of steam-power to say?