But the carriage of food and fuel to London forms but a small part of the merchandise traffic carried by railway. Above 600,000 tons of goods of various kinds yearly pass through one station only, that of the London and Northwestern Company, at Camden Town; and sometimes as many as 20,000 parcels daily. Every other metropolitan station is similarly alive with traffic inward and outward, London having since the introduction of railways become more than ever a great distributive centre, to which merchandise of all kinds converges, and from which it is distributed to all parts of the country. Mr. Bazley, M.P., stated at a late public meeting at Manchester that it would probably require ten millions of horses to convey by road the merchandise traffic which is now annually carried by railway.
Railways have also proved of great value in connection with the Cheap Postage system. By their means it has become possible to carry letters, newspapers, books, and post parcels in any quantity, expeditiously and cheaply. The Liverpool and Manchester line was no sooner opened in 1830 than the Post-office authorities recognized its utility, and used it for carrying the mails between the two towns. When the London and Birmingham line was opened eight years later, mail trains were at once put on, the directors undertaking to perform the distance of 113 miles within 5 hours by day and 5-1/2 hours by night. As additional lines were opened, the old four-horse mail-coaches were gradually discontinued, until, in 1858, the last of them, the "Derby Dilly," which ran between Manchester and Derby, was taken off on the opening of the Midland line to Rowsley.
The increased accommodation provided by railways was found of essential importance, more particularly after the adoption of the Cheap Postage system; and that such accommodation was needed will be obvious from the extraordinary increase which has taken place in the number of letters and packets sent by post. Thus, in 1839, the number of chargeable letters carried was only 76 millions, and of newspapers 44-1/2 millions; whereas, in 1865, the number of letters had increased to 720 millions, and in 1867 to 775 millions, or more than tenfold, while the number of newspapers, books, samples, and patterns (a new branch of postal business begun in 1864) had increased, in 1865, to 98-1/2 millions.
To accommodate this largely-increasing traffic, the bulk of which is carried by railway, the mileage run by mail trains in the United Kingdom has increased from 25,000 miles a day in 1854 (the first year of which we have any return of the mileage run) to 60,000 miles a day in 1867, or an increase of 240 per cent. The Post-office expenditure on railway service has also increased, but not in like proportion, having been £364,000 in the former year, and £559,575 in the latter, or an increase of 154 per cent. The revenue, gross and net, has increased still more rapidly. In 1841, the first complete year of the Cheap Postage system, the gross revenue was £1,359,466, and the net revenue £500,789; in 1854, the gross revenue was £2,574,407, and the net revenue £1,173,723; and in 1867, the gross revenue was £4,548,129, and the net revenue £2,127,125, being an increase of 420 per cent. compared with 1841, and of 180 per cent. compared with 1854. How much of this net increase might fairly be credited to the Railway Postal service we shall not pretend to say, but assuredly the proportion must be very considerable.
One of the great advantages of railways in connection with the postal service is the greatly increased frequency of communication which they provide between all the large towns. Thus Liverpool has now six deliveries of Manchester letters daily, while every large town in the kingdom has two or more deliveries of London letters daily. In 1863, 393 towns had two mails daily from London; 50 had three mails daily; 7 had four mails a day from London, and 15 had four mails a day to London; while 3 towns had five mails a day from London, and 6 had five mails a day to London.
Another feature of the railway mail train, as of the passenger train, is its capacity to carry any quantity of letters and post parcels that may require to be carried. In 1838, the aggregate weight of all the evening mails dispatched from London by twenty-eight mail-coaches was 4 tons 6 cwt., or an average of about 3-1/4 cwt. each, though the maximum contract weight was 15 cwt. The mails now are necessarily much heavier, the number of letters and packets having, as we have seen, increased more than tenfold since 1839. But it is not the ordinary so much as the extraordinary mails that are of considerable weight, more particularly the American, the Continental, and the Australian mails. It is no unusual thing, we are informed, for the last-mentioned mail to weigh as much as 40 tons. How many of the old mail-coaches it would take to carry such a mail the 79 miles' journey to Southampton, with a relay of four horses every five or seven miles, is a problem for the arithmetician to solve. But even supposing each coach to be loaded to the maximum weight of 15 cwt. per coach, it would require about sixty vehicles and about 1700 horses to carry the 40 tons, besides the coachmen and guards.
A few words, in conclusion, as to the number of men employed in working and maintaining railways. According to Mr. Mills,[1] 166,047 men and officers were employed in the working of 13,289 miles open in the United Kingdom in 1865, besides 53,923 employed on lines then under construction. The most numerous body of workmen is that of the laborers (81,284) employed in the maintenance of the permanent way. Being mostly picked men from the laboring class of the adjoining districts, they are paid considerably higher wages, and hence one of the direct effects of railways on the laboring population (besides affording them greater facilities for locomotion) has been to raise the standard of wages of ordinary labor at least 2s. a week in all the districts into which they have penetrated. The workmen next in number is that of the artificers (40,167) employed in constructing and repairing the rolling-stock; the porters (25,381), the plate-layers (12,901), guards and brakesmen (5799), firemen (5266), and engine-drivers (5171). But, besides the employés directly engaged in the working and maintenance of railways, large numbers of workmen are also occupied in the manufacture of locomotives and rolling-stock, and in providing the requisite materials for the permanent way. Thus the consumption of rails alone averages nearly 400,000 tons a year in the United Kingdom alone, while the replacing of decayed sleepers requires about 10,000 acres of forest to be cut down annually and sawn into sleepers. Taking the various railway workmen into account, with their families, it will be found that they represent a total of about three quarters of a million persons, or about one in fifty of our population, who are dependent on railways for their subsistence.
While the practical working of railways has, on the whole, been so satisfactory, the case has been very different as regards their direction and financial management. The men employed in the working of railways make it their business to learn it, and, being responsible, they are under the necessity of taking pains to do it well; whereas the men who govern and direct them are practically irresponsible, and may possess no qualification whatever for the office excepting only the holding of so much stock. The consequence has been much blundering on the part of these amateurs, and great loss on the part of the public. Indeed, what between the confused, contradictory, and often unjust legislation of Parliament on the one hand, and the carelessness or incompetency of directors on the other, many once flourishing concerns have been thrown into a state of utter confusion and muddle, until railway government has become a by-word of reproach.