276 COACHING. 



its weary course at about five miles an hour, and 

 a letter posted in London would reacli Edinburgh 

 perha2)s in a week. In 1824 the father said 

 to the son : — 



"I tell you what I think, my lad. You 

 will live to see the day, though I may not, 

 when railroads will supersede all other modes of 

 conveyance ; when mail coaches will go by rail- 

 way, and railways become the great highway 

 for the King and his subjects. The time 

 is coming when it will be cheaper for a work- 

 ing man to travel by railway than to walk on 

 foot." 



A bold, a daring, but a great social and 

 patriotic prediction : both father and son lived 

 to see it fulfilled. These wonderful changes 

 have been brought about through the perseve- 

 rance of a quintuple alliance — the Stephensons, 

 Brunels, and Locke — of each of whom it may 

 be said, if you seek his monument, " Look not at 

 the place of his birth, his abode, or his death, 

 but survey his works throughout the greater part 

 of the habitable globe." 



In 1824 the first locomotive constructed by 

 George Stephenson travelled at the rate of six 

 miles an hour; in 1829 the '' Rocket" travelled 

 at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and obtained 



