Railway Expansion 247 



to intersect our beautiful valleys ; the noise and stench of 

 locomotive steam-engines are to disturb "^the quietude of the 

 peasant, the farmer and the gentleman ; and the roaring of 

 bullocks, the bleating of sheep and the grunting of pigs to 

 keep up one continual uproar through the night along the 

 lines of these most dangerous and disfiguring abominations. . . . 



" Railroads . . . will in their efforts to gain ground do 

 incalculable mischief. If they succeed they will give an un- 

 natural impetus to society, destroy all the relations which 

 exist between man and man, overthrow all mercantile regula- 

 tions, overturn the metropolitan markets, drain the provinces 

 of all their resources, and create, at the peril of life, all sorts 

 of confusion and distress. If they fail nothing will be left 

 but the hideous memorials of public folly." 



In " Gore's Liverpool Advertiser " for December 20, 1824, 

 mention is made of some of the objections then being raised 

 against railways, these being described as " exceedingly 

 trifling and puerile." " Elderly gentlemen," it is said, " are 

 of opinion that they shall not be able to cross the rail-roads 

 without the certainty of being run over ; young gentlemen 

 are naturally fearful that the pleasant comforts and con- 

 veniencies of their foxes and pheasants may not have been 

 sufficiently consulted. Ladies think that cows will not graze 

 within view of locomotive engines, and that the sudden and 

 formidable appearance of them may be attended with pre- 

 mature consequences to bipeds as well as quadrupeds. Farmers 

 are quite agreed that the race of horses must at once be ex- 

 tinguished, and that oats and hay will no longer be market- 

 able produce." 



Other alarmist stories were that a great and a scandalous 

 attack was being made on private property ; that there was 

 not a field which would not be split up and divided ; that 

 springs would dry up, meadows become sterile and vegetation 

 cease ; that cows would give no milk, horses become extinct, 

 agricultural operations be suspended, and houses be crushed 

 by the railway embankments ; that ruin would fall alike 

 on landowners, farmers, market gardeners and innkeepers ; 

 that manufacturers' stocks would be destroyed by sparks 

 from the locomotives ; that hundreds of thousands of people, 

 including those who had invested in canals, would be beggared 

 in the interests of a few ; and that (as an anti-climax to all 



