CHAPTER VI.
THE TWO CITIES TRYING AGAIN—BUGBEARS.
One, two, three years passed by, and the Liverpool and Manchester project started up again. It was not dead, it had only slept; and the three years had almost worn out the patience of both merchants and manufacturers. Trade between the two cities must have speedier and easier transit. Trade is one of the great progressive elements in the world. It goes ahead; it will have the right of way; it will have the right way—the best, safest, cheapest way of doing its business. Yet it is not selfish; its object is the comfort and well-being of men. To do this, it breaks down many a wall which selfishness has built up, it cuts through prejudices, it rides over a thousand "can't be's" of timid and learned men; for learned men are not always practical. They sometimes say things cannot be done, when it only needs a little stout trying to overcome difficulties and do them.
A learned man once said that crossing the Atlantic by steam was impossible.
"For the good of the race, we must have something truer than wind and tougher than sails," said Trade. And it was not many years before ships steamed into every port.
"Carriages travelling at twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty miles an hour! Such gross exaggerations of the power of a locomotive we scout. It can never be!" cries a sober Quarterly.
"You may scout it as much as you please," rejoins Trade; "but just as soon as people need a cheaper, pleasanter, swifter mode of travel, it will be done." And now the railway carriages thread the land in their arrowy flight.
"The magnetic telegraph! a miserable chimera," cries a knowing statesman. "Nobody who does not read outlandish jargon can understand what a telegraph means."
"You will soon find out," answers Trade. And now it buys pork by the hundred barrels, and sells grain by the thousand bushels; while armies march and fleets sail at its bidding. Treaties are signed at its word; and the telegraph girdles the world.