220 RAILWAYS 



and justice, of considering travelling by rail a fair and 

 legitimate object of taxation. 



Mr. Pitt raised the stage-coach duty (if he did not 

 originate it) from Id. to Qd. per mile, and it then 

 furnished a considerable item of the revenue ; and now, 

 when travelling has multiplied more than a hundredfold, 

 it contributes a mere trifle to the exigencies of the State. 

 As it partakes of the nature both of a poll and a property 

 tax, it comes recommended by all writers on political 

 economy, who have declared that to be the legitimate 

 basis on which all national revenues should be founded. 

 As the subject may be ventilated in higher quarters, 

 I will not pursue it further, but return to ray own 

 immediate concerns. 



The first attempt at forming a line of rail from 

 Cambridge to London was, by the folly of some and 

 the knavery of others, a failure ; and what was intended 

 for and called the North-Eastern, which, if properly 

 carried out, would have precluded the necessity of the 

 Great Northern from Huntingdon to the metropolis, 

 was committed to and amalg-amated with the Eastern 

 Counties. After a considerable time had been lost in 

 preliminaries, and enormous expenses incurred in Parlia- 

 ment, the company succeeded in getting the line down 

 to Broxbourne, about fifteen miles by the turnpike from 

 Shoreditch Church. For that short distance it was not 

 thought desirable to be at the trouble of putting on the 

 coach with which I was concerned, though the Wisbech 

 and one of the early Cambridge coaches took advantage of 

 it. After far more than necessary time had been spent, 

 in which the incapacity of the directors and the want of 



