THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. 



Stockton and Darlington opened in 1825, and the Liver- 

 pool and Manchester line opened in 1830. The yellow 

 post-chaise, without any driving seat, but with a postilion 

 dressed like a jockey riding one of the pair of horses, 

 was among the commonest sights on our main roads ; and 

 together with the hundreds of four-horse mail and stage 

 coaches, the guards carrying horns or bugles which were 

 played while passing through every town or village, gave 

 a stir and liveliness and picturesqueness to rural life 

 which is now almost forgotten. 



When I first went to London (I think about 1835) 

 there was still not a mile of railroad in England, except 

 the two above-named, and none between London and 

 any of our great northern or western cities were even 

 seriously contemplated. The sites of most of our great 

 London railway termini were then on the very outskirts 

 of the suburbs; Chalk Farm was a genuine farmhouse, 

 and Primrose Hill was surrounded by open fields. 



A few years later (in 1837-38) I was living near 

 Leighton Buzzard while the London and Birmingham 

 Railway, the precursor of the present London and North- 

 Western system, was in process of construction; and 

 when the first section was opened to Watford, I travelled 

 by it to London, third-class, in what is now an ordinary 

 goods truck, with neither roof nor seats, nor any other 

 accommodation than is now given to coal, iron, and mis- 

 cellaneous goods. If it rained, or the wind was cold, 

 the passengers sat on the floor and protected themselves 

 as they could. Second-class carriages were then what 

 the very worst of the third-class are or were a few years 

 ago closed in, but low and nearly dark, with plain 

 wooden seats while the first class were exactly like the 



