608 POST-OFFICE, ROADS, AND CONVEYANCE. 



horses, and limited only by safety, may be maintained ; and that it 

 is our conviction that such a project may be undertaken with great 

 advantage to the public, more particularly if, as might obviously be 

 the case, without interfering with the general use of the road, a por- 

 tion of it were to be prepared and kept in a state most suitable for 

 travelling in locomotive carriages.' 



" In consequence of this satisfactory result, a company is now 

 forming under the auspices of Sir Henry Parnell and Mr. Telford, 

 to run steam carriages upon granite tracts on the mail coach line of 

 the Holy head road, whilst other companies are in agitation for Bristol, 

 Brighton, and other districts of the country. 



" The comparative cheapness of steam conveyance upon tramways, 

 which can be laid down at one-tenth of the original outlay for rail- 

 ways ;* the durability and solidity of their material, deposited in 

 long square blocks, the different sides of which, as they become 

 worn, may be presented in rotation ; the superiority of the locomo- 

 tive engines which will run upon them bearing, as regards power, 

 to the engines upon rails the ratio of a pressure upon the square inch 

 of 150 Ibs. and upwards to 50 Ibs.; whilst, as regards economy, the 

 tear and wear of the respective modes is allowed to approximate so 

 closely as three to one,-(- all conspire to render it a matter of moral 

 certainty that in a few years an elementary mode of internal commu- 

 nication will supersede every other for the transit of passengers and 

 light goods. 



st The proposal which we beg to submit to the Legislature, and for 

 which we are anxious to procure the co-operation and support of the 

 nation, is, that the whole administration of affairs connected with 

 Roads and their trusts, with the Post-Office and its revenue, with 

 public Locomotive Conveyance and its returns, should be consolidated 

 under Government, and the funds arising from the same appropriated 

 for the service of the state. 



" In this way, over the face of the whole kingdom, there would 

 shortly be introduced an uniform, simple, cheap, and well organized 

 system of roads, conveyance, and correspondence, instead of the ex- 

 pensive, complex, ill-arranged, and injurious one, which now prevails. 



" It does not fall within the limits of a paper like this to go farther 

 into detail. Our object is simply, in reference to this important 

 matter, to suggest the change, leaving it to Government, should the 

 idea be entertained, to appoint a Special Commission to make inquiry 



* The estimated cost of a tramway to Birmingham is 300,000 ; that for the 

 railway, 2,500,000 ; which is less than what the Manchester and Liverpool 

 Railway cost, mile per mile, by 2,184,295. Journal of Steam Transport, 

 pages 50 and 58. Published by Smith and Elder, Cornhill. 



the 



knowledge, the resistance on a railway is in tlie ratio of one-thircl of that on the 

 best granite road that has yet been formed ; one-seventh of that on the best 

 formed common road, and one-twelfth of that on the ordinary turnpike-roads." 

 If steam carriages can with economy overcome the greater resistance, how 

 much more will they be able to overcome the less ! 



