CHAP. XIV. THE RAILWAY A WONDER. 287 



coach, and to enjoy the excitement of actually travelling 

 in the wake of an engine at that incredible velocity. 

 The travellers returned to their respective districts full 

 of the wonders of the locomotive, considering it to be 

 the greatest marvel of the age. Eailways are familiar 

 enough objects now, and our children who grow up in 

 their midst may think little of them ; but thirty years 

 since it was an event in one's life to see a locomotive, 

 and to travel for the first time upon a public railroad. 



In remote districts, however, the stories told about 

 the benefits conferred by the Liverpool railway were 

 received with considerable incredulity, and the pro- 

 posal to extend such roads in all directions through- 

 out the country caused great alarm. In the districts 

 through which stage-coaches ran, giving employment 

 to large numbers of persons, it was apprehended 

 that, if railways were established, the turnpike-roads 

 would become deserted and grown over with grass, 

 country inns and their buxom landladies would be 

 ruined, the race of coach-drivers and hostlers would 

 become extinct, and the breed of horses be entirely 

 destroyed. But there was hope for the coaching interest, 

 in the fact that the Government were employing their 

 engineers to improve the public high roads so as to 

 render railways unnecessary. It was announced in the 

 papers that a saving of thirty miles would be effected by 

 the new road between London and Holyhead, and an 

 equal saving between London and Edinburgh. And to 

 show what the speed of horses could accomplish, we find 

 it set forth as an extraordinary fact, that the " Patent 

 Tallyho Coach," in the year 1830 (when the Birming- 

 ham line had been projected), performed the entire 

 journey of 109 miles between London and Birmingham 

 breakfast included in seven hours and fifty minutes ! 

 Great speed was also recorded on the Brighton road, the 

 " Red Rover " doing the distance between London and 

 Brighton in four hours and a half. These speeds were 



