THE STAGE-WAGGONS 143 



Providence had thus raised up railway engineers 

 and cajntalists at the psychological moment ; hut 

 the views of coach-proprietors, coachmen, guards, 

 ostlers, innkeepers, and the innumerahle others 

 depending in one way or another upon the road 

 for a living, did not, it is to be feared, look so 

 complacently upon the new era which in many 

 instances ruined them. Nor, perhaps, did those 

 who were financially interested in canals ascribe 

 the new order of things to providential inter- 

 position. 



That, indeed, is providential Avhich advances 

 one's own interests and preserves one's well-being, 

 but misfortunes are generally given a very different 

 ascription. The providential interpositions that 

 benefited one class inflicted very great hardship 

 and loss upon another. The canals that were, 

 before the introduction of railways, very great and 

 keen competitors Avith the waggons, were frozen 

 up in severe winters, and all traffic along them 

 stopped, and thus the whole of the carrying trade 

 went by road, greatly to the advantage of the turn- 

 pike trusts and the owners of waggons. Indeed, 

 severe winters, if unaccompanied by snow, were in 

 every way advantageous to the waggons, because 

 the li-ost-bound roads gave good going, Avhile 

 " open " winters made the highways a sea of mud 

 and almost impassable. 



Although with the coming of the railways the 

 stage-waggons swiftly disappeared from such direct 

 commercial routes as those between London and 

 Birmingham and London and Manchester, this 



