REVERIES ON RAIL-ROADS. 47 



ruption of one day's labour brings the unfortunate artisan to the verge 

 of starvation. There is no class of men whose labours have been 

 more fatal to the prosperity of England than the modern political 

 economists ; they fondly imagine it possible to reduce the laws of 

 their science to simple geometrical propositions, equally applicable to 

 every country on the face of the globe. But this axiom of modern 

 philosophy, when too late, has been discovered to be an absurd 

 ideality ; and men are now slowly convincing themselves that every 

 country must possess a system founded upon its own peculiar and 

 inherent circumstances. Thus it is that their favourite theory, in this 

 country at least, is found to be glaringly false in its practical appli- 

 cation. With all our colonial outlets, notwithstanding our prodigious 

 industry, we behold on every side more labourers than can find em=- 

 ployment more artificers than can earn a scanty subsistence; and 

 where there is scarcely trade sufficient for the support of one trades- 

 man, it is competed for by five or six. If facility of communication 

 alone were sufficient to contribute to the material comforts of a people, 

 what country in the world can be compared with our own ? Why 

 not attempt to improve our present hydrographical system, which has 

 already cost the nation so many millions, rather than seek to create a 

 new one, that would shake the social system to its very foundation, 

 and further increase the misery of our already distressed people, by 

 the substitution of a power that would entirely supersede horse- 

 power, greatly diminish human labour, and thereby fearfully extend 

 the sphere of action of that moral gangrene in our social system a 

 redundant unemployed population ! 



That the application of steam to locomotive machines is yet in its 

 infancy, is, we believe, a position that no one will contest. The 

 splendid success that has attended the trial of Sir C. Dance's steam- 

 coach which, upon a common turnpike-road, and dragging after it a 

 weight of several tons, moved with a velocity of ten to fifteen miles an 

 hour, and which has actually performed the journey from London to 

 various places, far and near, with perfect ease, over every variety of 

 ground affords the strongest grounds for presuming that, in a me- 

 chanical age like the present, such a simplification in their machinery 

 will sooner or later be effected as to admit of their application to 

 the system of roads now in use. 



There is likewise another important and but recently-disco- 

 vered fact, that we think will make the nation pause ere they 

 invest an immense capital in the construction of railways which is 

 the rather startling one that we have long overlooked a means of 

 conveyance by our canals, nearly equal to them in rapidity, and, at 

 the same time, much cheaper. It was long imagined that to propel 

 a vessel along a canal at a great velocity would not only destroy the 

 banks, but that also a greater expense would be incurred than the 

 profits would cover. This universally received opinion has, however, 

 by recent experiments, been found to be erroneous. On the Paisley 

 canal, boats drawn by horses have been moved at the rate of ten or 

 twelve miles an hour. These results are certainly of the greatest 

 importance, shewing, as they do, that our present hydrographical 

 system is capable of producing all the advantages attributed to 

 railways. 



