466 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 



dry others (as those of traffic-takers, reference-takers). Con- 

 sider, next, the yet more marked changes implied in railway 

 construction the cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diver- 

 sions of roads ; the building of bridges and stations ; the lay- 

 ing down of ballast, sleepers, and rails; the making of 

 engines, tenders, carriages, and wagons: which processes, 

 acting upon numerous trades, increase the importation x>f 

 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 \heRailway 

 Times j and call into being some new classes of workers 

 drivers, stokers, cleaners, plate-layers, &c. &c. Then come 

 the changes, more numerous and involved still, which rail- 

 ways in action produce on the community at large. The 

 organization of every business is more or less modified ; ease 

 of communication makes it better to do directly what was 

 before done by proxy; agencies are established where pre- 

 viously they would not have paid; goods are obtained from 

 remote wholesale houses instead of near retail ones; and 

 commodities are used which distance once rendered inacces- 

 sible. The rapidity and small cost of carriage, tend to spe- 

 cialize more than ever the industries of different districts 

 to confine each manufacture to the parts in which, from local 

 advantages, it can be best carried on. Economical distribu- 

 tion equalizes prices, and also, on the average, lowers prices: 

 thus bringing divers articles within the means of those be- 

 fore unable to buy them, and so increasing their comforts 

 and improving their habits. At the same time the practice 

 of travelling is immensely extended. Classes who before 

 could not afford it, take annual trips to the sea; visit their dis- 

 tant relations ; make tours ; and so we are benefited in body, 

 feelings, and intellect. The more prompt transmission of 

 letters and of news produces further changes makes the 

 pulse of the nation faster. Yet more, there arises a wide 

 dissemination of cheap literature through railway book- 

 stalls, and of advertisements in railway carriages: both of 



