sizes to suit convenience. The practicability of this plan does not seem to be doubtful. Its advantages are obvious. Instead of having to purchase, as for a railway, the whole line of track passed over, the company for a balloon-way would only have to procure those spots of ground on which they proposed to erect stationary engines; and these need in no case be of peculiar value, since their being a hundred yards one way or the other would make little difference. Viaducts of course would never be necessary, cuttings in very few occasions indeed, if at all. The chief expense of balloons is their inflation, which is renewed at every new ascent; but in these balloons the gas once in need never to be let out, and one inflation would be enough.”
The same writer a few years later on observes:—“One feature of the air-way to supersede the railway would be, that besides preventing the destruction of the architectural beauties of the metropolis, now menaced by the multitudinous network of viaducts and subways at war with the existing thoroughfares, it would occasion the construction of numerous lofty towers as stations of arrival and departure, which would afford an opportunity of architectural effect hitherto undreamed of.”
PREJUDICE AGAINST CARRYING COALS BY RAILWAYS.
Rev. F. S. Williams in an article upon “Railway Revolutions,” remarks:—“When railways were first established it was never imagined that they would be so far degraded as to carry coals; but George Stephenson and others soon saw how great a service railways might render in developing and distributing the mineral wealth of the country. Prejudice had, however, to be timidly and vigorously overcome. When it was mentioned to a certain eminent railway authority that George Stephenson had spoken of sending coals by railway: ‘Coals!’ he exclaimed, ‘they will want us to carry dung next.’ The remark was reported to ‘Old George,’ who was not behind his critic in the energy of his expression. ‘You tell B—,’ he said, ‘that when he travels by railway, they carry dung now!’ The strength of the feeling against the traffic is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that, when the London and Birmingham Railway began to carry coal, the wagons that contained it
were sheeted over that their contents might not be seen; and when a coal wharf was first made at Crick station, a screen was built to hide the work from the observation of passengers on the line. Even the possibility of carrying coal at a remunerative price was denied. ‘I am very sorry,’ said Lord Eldon, referring to this subject, ‘to find the intelligent people of the north country gone mad on the subject of railways;’ and another eminent authority declared: ‘It is all very well to spend money; it will do some good; but I will eat all the coals your railway will carry.’
“George Stephenson, however, and other friends of coal, held on their way; and he declared that the time would come when London would be supplied with coal by railway. ‘The strength of Britain,’ he said, ‘is in her coal beds; and the locomotive is destined, above all other agencies, to bring it forth. The Lord Chancellor now sits upon a bag of wool; but wool has long ceased to be emblematical of the staple commodity of England. He ought rather to sit upon a bag of coals, though it might not prove quite so comfortable a seat. Then think of the Lord Chancellor being addressed as the noble and learned lord on the coal-sack? I’m afraid it wouldn’t answer, after all.’”
AN EPITAPH ON THE VICTIM OF A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
A correspondent writes to the Pall Mall Gazette:—“Our poetic literature, so rich in other respects, is entirely wanting in epitaphs on the victims of railway accidents. A specimen of what may be turned in this line is to be seen on a tombstone in the picturesque churchyard of Harrow-on-the-Hill. It was, I observe, written as long ago as 1838, so that it can be reproduced without much danger of hurting the feelings of those who may have known and loved the subject of this touching elegy. The name of the victim was Port, and the circumstances of his death are thus set forth:—
Bright was the morn, and happy rose poor Port;
Gay on the train he used his wonted sport.
Ere noon arrived his mangled form they bore
With pain distorted and overwhelmed with gore.
When evening came and closed the fatal day,
A mutilated corpse the sufferer lay.”