286 THE ENGINE-DKIVEKS. CHAP. X1Y. 



of coach-driving. Mr. Stephenson merely adopted the 

 same course in selecting his drivers and firemen ; and 

 though Durham and Northumberland supplied a con- 

 siderable proportion of them in the first instance, he could 

 not always find skilled workmen enough for the im- 

 portant and responsible duties to be performed. It was 

 a saying of his, that " he could engineer matter very 

 well, and make it bend to his purpose, but his greatest 

 difficulty was in engineering men!' 



Mr. Stephenson did not think it necessary to vindicate 

 himself from the above charge, but Mr. Hardman Earle, 

 one of the directors of the Company, did so in an 

 effectual manner, showing that of the six hundred per- 

 sons employed in the working of the Liverpool line, 

 not more than sixty had been recommended by their 

 engineer, and of these a considerable number were per- 

 sonally unknown to him. Some of them, indeed, had 

 been brought up under his own eye, and were men 

 whose character and qualifications he could vouch for. 

 But these were not nearly enough for his purpose ; and 

 he often wished that he could contrive heads and hands 

 on which he might rely, as easily as he could construct 

 railways and manufacture locomotives. As it was, 

 Stephenson' s mechanics were in request all over Eng- 

 ~)land ; the Newcastle workshops continuing for many 

 /years to perform the part of a training school for en- 

 i gineers, and to supply locomotive superintendents and 

 * drivers, not only for England but for nearly every 

 country in Europe ; preference being given to them by 

 the directors of railways, in consequence of their pre- 

 vious training and experience, as well as because of 

 their generally excellent ( qualities as steady and indus- 

 trious workmen. 



The success of the Liverpool and Manchester experi- 

 ment naturally excited great interest. People flocked to 

 Lancashire from all quarters to see the steam-coach run- 

 ning upon a railway at three times the speed of a mail- 



