54: PEOGEESS: ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 



tion, the trial section, the parliamentary survey, the litho 

 graphed plans, the books of reference, the local deposits and 

 notices, the application to Parliament, the passing Standing- 

 Orders Committee, the first, second, and third readings : 

 each of which brief heads indicates a multiplicity of transac- 

 tions, and the development of sundry occupations — as those 

 of engineers, surveyors, lithographers, parliamentary agents, 

 share-brokers ; and the creation of sundry others — as those 

 of traffic-takers, reference-takers. Consider, next, the yet 

 more marked changes implied in railway construction — the 

 cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diversions of roads ; the 

 building of bridges and stations ; the laying down of bal- 

 last, sleepers, and rails ; the making of engines, tenders, 

 carriages and waggons : which processes, acting upon nu- 

 merous trades, increase the importation of timber, the 

 quarrying of stone, the manufacture of iron, the mining of 

 coal, the burning of bricks : institute a variety of special 

 manufactures weekly advertised in the Railway Times ; 

 and, finally, open the way to sundry new occupations, as 

 those of drivers, stokers, cleaners, plate-layers, &c., &c. 

 And then consider the changes, more numerous and in- 

 volved still, which railways in action produce on the com- 

 munity at large. The organization of every business is 

 more or less modified : ease of communication makes it bet- 

 ter to do directly what was before done by proxy ; agencies 

 are established where previously they would not have paid ; 

 goods are obtained from remote wholesale houses instead 

 of near retail ones ; and commodities are used which dis- 

 tance once rendered inaccessible. Again, the rapidity and 

 small cost of carriage tend to specialize more than ever the 

 industries of different districts — to confine each manufac- 

 ture to the parts in which, from local advantages, it can be 

 best carried on. Further, the diminished cost of carriage, 

 facilitating distribution, equalizes prices, and also, on the 

 average, lowers prices : thus bringing divers articles within 



