218 SIR ISAAC COFFIN'S SPEECH. CHAP. XL 



mittee on the 6th of March, and on the 16th the 

 preamble was declared proved by a majority of forty- 

 three to eighteen. On the third reading in the House 

 of Commons, an animated, and what now appears a 

 very amusing, discussion took place. The Hon. Edward 

 Stanley moved that the bill be read that day six months ; 

 and in the course of his speech he undertook to prove 

 that the railway trains would take ten hours on the 

 journey, and that they could only be worked by horses. 

 Sir Isaac Coffin seconded the motion, and in doing so 

 denounced the project as a most flagrant imposition. 

 He would not consent to see widows' premises invaded ; 

 and " What, he would like to know, was to be done 

 with all these who had advanced money in making and 

 repairing turnpike-roads ? What with those who may 

 still wish to travel in their own or hired carriages, after 

 the fashion of their forefathers ? What was to become 

 of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters and 

 coachmen, inn-keepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? 

 Was the House aware of the smoke and the noise, the 

 hiss and the whirl, which locomotive engines, passing 

 at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, would occa- 

 sion ? Neither the cattle ploughing in the fields or 

 grazing in the meadows could behold them without 

 dismay. Iron would be raised in price 100 per cent., 

 or more probably exhausted altogether ! It would be 

 the greatest nuisance, the most complete disturbance of 

 quiet and comfort in all parts of the kingdom, that the 

 ingenuity of man could invent ! " 



Mr. Huskisson and other speakers, though unable to 

 reply to such arguments as these, strongly supported 

 the bill ; and it was carried on the third reading by a 

 majority of eighty-eight to forty-one. The bill passed 

 the House of Lords almost unanimously, its only oppo- 

 nents being the Earl of Derby and his relative the Earl 

 ^ of Wilton. The cost of obtaining the Act amounted to 

 the enormous sum of 27,000/. 



