218 TRAVELLING 



depute it to craftsmen who, like the artificers at Ephesus, 

 when persuaded that their craft was in danger, cried, 

 " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " 



It has been said that, in the early part of this great 

 social revolution, money was given to two or three of the 

 great men in London, to share and distribute amono- 

 others who were equally entitled to it. If this were so, 

 these gentlemen knew pretty well how to appropriate 

 it. 



If a stranger or foreigner were to land in this country, 

 like Goldsmith's " Citizen of the World," the first thino- 

 that would be most likely to attract his notice is the ease, 

 safety, and expedition of our mode of travelling ; and he 

 could not be too lavish in his j)raise of the skill, industry, 

 enterprise, and wealth of the nation that had constructed 

 the vast number of miles and the various ramifications of 

 our railroads. 



He would not perhaps, like the French philosopher, set 

 them down as the cause, but as the effects of our civiliza- 

 tion. Neither would he discover, in his admiration of 

 their adaptation to the wants of a great trading 

 community, that, for the most jDart — they were conceived 

 in error — born in misrepresentation and falsehood — 

 reared in malversation and fraud — and attained their 

 present growth by monopoly and injustice. 



But the injury done to those who have suffered by 

 the change is as nothing compared to those deluded 

 victims who first became the dupes of designing men, 

 in being induced to risk their little, or their all, in 

 extravagant speculations that were at once to insure 

 fortune to the lucky adventurer, but resulted only in 



