156 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



average distance of about one hundred miles, and which occu 

 pied a week in its performance, that a beef animal so driven lost 

 one hundred pounds in weight ; and then he usually came into 

 market foot-sore, sunken, in a state of fever, and looking like the 

 victim of cruelty, and the picture of misery and exhaustion. 

 Where steam power is employed, a journey of excessive fatigue 

 and labor, which formerly occupied seven days, scarcely occupies 

 now as many hours, and the animals are transported without 

 fatigue or labor, or loss of substance.* 



A farmer at Ware told me that the driving of a fat beast to 

 Smithfield, about twenty-six miles, occupied, formerly, two days. 

 The animal now goes by railroad in two hours, at a cost, I 

 think, of not more than 2s., and conies into the market fresh 

 and sleek, like a new bonnet from the band-box. But there is 

 another animal benefited besides the quadruped ; and that is the 

 drover himself, who, instead of spending eight or ten days or 

 more upon the road, at a great expense of money, and not a little 

 increased hazard of morals every day he is away from his fam 

 ily, finds his business now accomplished, and his money received, 

 and himself returned to his home in three days. These are 

 considerations of immense importance.! 



* I cannot say that they have not even some pleasure in the transit. This, 

 perhaps, might be very well ascertained by an inquiry of the passengers in the 

 third class cars, who, through the extraordinary disinterestedness of the railroad 

 directors and corporations, are conveyed with the same advantages of the open 

 air, the refreshing showers, and the full enjoyment of the rural scenery, and, in 

 general, in the same affectionate aggregation, and in precisely the same circum 

 stances of position and comfort, in which the cattle are transported. 



f In a recent debate in Parliament, a member, otherwise of considerable clever 

 ness, in referring to the practice of the railroads in rendering the transits of second 

 and third class trains less frequent, and much slower than first class trains, was 

 pleased to say that &quot; it was well enough ; for the time of the poorer classes was 

 not of much consequence, and they might as well pass it in the cars as any where 

 else.&quot; It would be difficult to say what, to any one but himself, is the vaAie of the 

 time of a man who could make so heartless an assertion. The poor man s time 

 and labor are his only capital. Enable him to do as much again in half the time 

 employed, and you quadruple his power of serving the community, and supporting 

 himself and family. As for the rich man, who made this declaration, I %vish him 

 nothing worse than to travel in a third class car attached to a slow night freight 

 train, so that, in one of the long tunnels between Liverpool and London, his pleas 

 ant imaginations might be rectified by sober facts, and himself have time for 

 reflection and repentance. 



