[226] Preface to the ‘Lives of the Engineers,’ p. 7, 1st Ed.
[227] Johnson was a declared enemy of canals, believing that they would interfere with country seclusion, make living dearer, displace pack-horses and waggons, and injure the trade of towns near which they might be carried.
[228] ‘History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool.’
[229] Some particulars of this controversy will be found in the work entitled, ‘The Jubilee Memorial of the Railway System,’ which the writer prepared, at the request of the North-Eastern Railway Board, for the occasion of the jubilee of the first passenger railway, held at Darlington, September 1885.
[230] Poor’s ‘Manual of Railroads for 1881,’ p. xxvii.
[231] Ibid., p. xxx.
[232] One of the advocates of the canal, as against the railroad, remarked that, “very possibly it may be vital, as it certainly is characteristic, for a live American to hurry his person at racehorse speed across the continent; but it certainly is not vital, nor in any respect necessary or expedient, thus to hurry his fuel, his timber, his building materials, his food, nor any very large proportion of his merchandise or manufactures.”
[233] Poor’s ‘Manual for 1881,’ p. xxxiii.