CHAP. X. STEPHENSON'S ISOLATION. 199 



doubt, will be strongly supported, and for what ? Some 

 thousands of passengers, you say but a few hundreds / 

 should say in the year." He accordingly urged that 

 passengers as well as speed should be kept entirely out of 

 the act ; but if the latter were insisted on, then he re- 

 commended that it should be kept as low as possible 

 say at five miles an hour. 



The idea thrown out by Stephenson, of travelling 

 at a rate of speed double that of the fastest mail-coach, 

 appeared at the time so preposterous that he was unable 

 to find any engineer who would risk his reputation in 

 supporting such " absurd views." Speaking of his iso- 

 lation at the time, he subsequently observed, at a public 

 meeting of railway men in Manchester : " He remem- 

 bered the time when he had very few supporters in 

 bringing out the railway system when he sought 

 England over for an engineer to support him in his 

 evidence before Parliament, and could find only one 

 man, James Walker, but was afraid to call that gentle- 

 man, because be knew nothing about railways. He had 

 then no one to tell his tale to but Mr. Sandars, of 

 Liverpool, who did listen to him, and kept his spirits 

 up ; and his schemes had at length been carried out 

 only by dint of sheer perseverance." 



George Stephenson' s idea was at that time regarded 

 as but the dream of a chimerical projector. It stood 

 before the public friendless, struggling hard to gain 

 a footing, and scarcely daring to lift itself into no- 

 tice for fear of ridicule. The civil engineers generally 

 rejected the notion of a Locomotive Railway ; and when 

 no leading man of the day could be found to stand for- 

 ward in support of the Killingworth mechanic, its chances 

 of success must indeed have been pronounced but small. 



When such was the hostility of the civil engineers, no 

 wonder the reviewers were puzzled. The * Quarterly,' 

 in an able article in support of the projected Liverpool 

 and Manchester Railway, while admitting its absolute 



