III. 



A 'PRACTICAL' BEGINNING. 



IT was urged by Mr. Brunei, as a justification for 

 more attention and expense in laying the rails 

 of the Great Western than had been ever thought 

 of upon previously-constructed lines, that all the 

 embankments, and cuttings, and earth-works, and 

 stations, and law and parliamentary expenses, 

 in fact, the whole of the outlay encountered in 

 the formation of a Railway, had for its main and 

 ultimate object a perfectly smooth and level LINE OF 

 RAIL ; that to turn stingy at this point, just 

 when you had arrived at the great f ultimatissimum ' 

 of the whole proceedings, viz. the Iron Wheel-track, 

 was a sort of saving which evinced a want of per- 

 ception of the true object of all the labour that had 

 preceded it. It may seem curious to our expe- 

 riences, in these days, that such a doctrine. could ever 



