212 , MR. ALDERSON'S SPEECH. CHAP. XT. 



that most respectable gentleman we have called before 

 you, I mean Mr. Giles, who has executed a vast number 

 of works," &c. Then Mr. Giles's evidence as to the 

 impossibility of making any railway over the Moss that 

 would stand short of the bottom, was emphatically dwelt 

 upon ; and Mr. Alder son proceeded to say, " Having 

 now, sir, gone through Chat Moss, and having shown 

 that Mr. Giles is right in his principle when he adopts 

 a solid railway, and I care not whether Mr. Giles is 

 right or wrong in his estimate, for whether it be effected 

 by means of piers raised up all the way for four miles 

 through Chat Moss, whether they are to support it on 

 beams of wood or by erecting masonry, or whether 

 Mr. Giles shall put a solid bank of earth through it, 

 in all these schemes there is not one found like that of 

 Mr. Stephenson's, namely, to cut impossible drains on 

 the side of this road ; and it is sufficient for. me to suggest 

 and to show, that this scheme of Mr. Stephenson's is 

 impossible or impracticable, and that no other scheme, 

 if they proceed upon this line, can be suggested which 

 will not produce enormous expense. I think that has 

 been irrefragably made out. Every one knows Chat 

 Moss every one knows that Mr. Giles speaks correctly 

 when he says the iron sinks immediately on its being 

 put upon the surface. I have heard of culverts, which 

 have been put upon the Moss, which, after having been 

 surveyed the day before, have the next morning dis- 

 appeared ; and that a house (a poet's house, who may 

 be supposed in the habit of building castles even in the 

 air), story after story, as fast as one is added, the lower 

 one sinks ! There is nothing, it appears, except long 

 sedgy grass, and a little soil, to prevent its sinking into 

 the shades of eternal night. I have now done, sir, with 

 Chat Moss, and there I leave this railroad." Mr. 

 Alderson, of course, called upon the Committee to reject 

 the Bill ; and he protested " against the despotism of the 

 Exchange at Liverpool striding across the land of this 



