CHAP. XIV. HORROR OF RAILWAYS. 2tl3 



created in the minds of the country gentlemen. They 

 did not relish the idea of private individuals, principally 

 resident in the manufacturing districts, invading their 

 domains ; and they everywhere rose up in arms against 

 the " new-fangled roads." Colonel Sibthorpe openly 

 declared his hatred of the " infernal railroads," and said 

 that he " would rather meet a highwayman, or see a 

 burglar on his premises, than an engineer ! " Mr. 

 Berkeley, the member for Cheltenham, at a public 

 meeting in that town, re-echoed Colonel Sibthorpe's 

 sentiments, and "wished that the concoctors of every 

 such scheme, with their solicitors and engineers, were at 

 rest in Paradise ! " The impression prevailed amongst 

 the rural classes, that fox-covers and game-preserves 

 would be seriously prejudiced by the formation of 

 railroads ; that agricultural communications would be 

 destroyed, land thrown out of cultivation, landowners I 

 and farmers reduced to beggary, the poor-rates increased 

 through the number of persons thrown out of employ- 

 ment by the railways, and all this in order that Liver- 

 pool, Manchester, and Birmingham shopkeepers and 

 manufacturers might establish a monstrous monopoly in 

 railway traffic. 



The inhabitants of even some of the large towns were 

 thrown into a state of consternation by the proposal 

 to provide them with the accommodation of a railway. 

 The line from London to Birmingham would naturally 

 rnre passed close to the handsome town of Northamp- 

 tpn, and was so projected. But the inhabitants of the 

 e, urged on by the local press, and excited by men 

 of influence and education, opposed the project, and 

 succeeded in forcing the promoters, in their survey of 

 the line, to pass the town at a distance. The neces- 

 sity was thus involved of distorting the line, by which 

 the enormous expense of constructing the Kilsby Tunnel 

 was incurred. Not many years elapsed before the 

 inhabitants of Northampton became clamorous for rail- 



