Could the directors accept a project without consulting him? Again they met. What had he to say concerning it? Fight it he did. He dwelt upon its complicated nature, the liability of the ropes and tackling to get out of order, the failure of one engine retarding and damaging and stopping the whole line—a phase of the matter which did not fail to make an impression. The directors were moved. Friend Cropper, however, headed the stationary-engine party, and insisted upon adopting it. "But," answered the others, "ought we to make such an outlay of money without first giving the locomotive a fair trial?" And Stephenson pleaded powerfully, as you may suppose, in its behalf. "Try it, try it," he urged; "for speed and safety there is nothing like it." And the words of a man with strong faith are strong words. "Besides," he said, "the locomotive is capable of great improvements. It is young yet; its capacities have never been thoroughly tested. When proper inducements are held out, a superior article will be offered to the public."
Never were directors in a greater strait. There was no withstanding Stephenson, for he knew what he was talking about. All the rest were schemers. At last one of the directors said, "Wait; let us offer a prize for a new locomotive, built to answer certain conditions, and see what sort of engine we can get."
That was fair. It was right his engine should be properly tested. All agreed; and in a few days proposals were issued for the building of one. There were eight conditions, two of which were, that if the engine were of six tons' weight it should be able to draw twenty tons at a speed of ten miles an hour. The prize was five hundred pounds.
The offer excited a great deal of attention, and many people made themselves merry at its expense. The conditions were absurd, they said; nobody but a set of fools would have made them. It had already been proved impossible to make a locomotive engine go at ten miles an hour, and one gentleman in his heat even went so far as to say that if it ever were done, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine wheel for his breakfast. As that condition was answered, it is to be hoped he was relieved from his indigestible dish.
More candid minds turned with interest to the development of this new force struggling into notice. Stephenson felt how much depended on the issue. And the public generally concluded to suspend its verdict upon the proper working of railways until time and talent gave them better means of judging.
