xcii REPORT — 1875. 



Ediiiburgli iu coaches in seven daj-s, and bring us back in seven more, sbonld 

 •we not vote him to Bedlam? " 



In spite of short-sighted opposition, coaches made their way ; but it ■was not 

 until a century later, in 1784 (and then, I believe, it was in this city of Bristol), 

 that coaches were first established for the conveyance of mails. Those here who 

 have experienced, as I have, what the discomforts were of long journeys in- 

 side the old coaches, will agree with me that they were very great ; and I 

 believe, if returns could be obtained of the accidents which happened to 

 coaches, it would be found that many more pcox^le were injured and killed 

 in proportion to the number that travelled by that mode, than by the rail- 

 ways of to-day. 



No sooner had our ancestors settled down with what comfort was possible 

 in their coaches, well satisfied that twelve miles an hour was the maximum 

 speed to be obtained, or was desirable, than they were told that steam con- 

 veyance on iron railways would supersede their " present pitiful " methods 

 of conveyance. Such was the opinion of Thomas Gray, the first promoter of 

 railways, who published his work on a general iron railway in 1819. Gray 

 was looked on as littlo better than a madman. " When Gray first proposed 

 his great scheme to the public," said Chevalier Wilson, in a letter to Sir 

 Bobert Peel in 1845, " people were disposed to treat it as an effusion of in- 

 sanity." I shall not enter on a history of the struggles which preceded the 

 opening of the first railway. They were brought to a successful issue by the 

 determination of a few able and far-seeing men. The names of Thomas 

 Gray and Joseph Sandars, of William James and Edward Pease, should 

 always be remembered in connexion with the early history of railways, for 

 it was ihej who first made the nation familiar with the idea. There is no 

 fear that the name of Stephenson will be forgotten, whoso practical genius 

 made the realization of the idea possible. 



The Stockton and Darlington Eailway was opened in 1825, the Liverpool 

 and Manchester Eailway in 1830 ; and in the short time which has since 

 elapsed, railways have been extended to every quarter of the globe. No 

 nation possessing wealth and population can aff'ord to be without them ; and 

 though at present in different countries there is in the aggregate about 

 160,000 miles of railway, it is certain that in the course of a very few years 

 this quantity, large as it is, wiU be very greatly exceeded. 



Kailwaj'S add enoimously to the national wealth. More than twenty-five 

 years ago it was proved to the satisfaction of a committee of the House of 

 Commons, from facts and figures which I then adduced, that the Lancashire 

 and Yorkshii-e Eailway, of which I was the engineer, and which then formed 

 the principal railway connexion between the populous towns of Lancashire 

 and Yorkshire, effected a saving to the public using the railway of more than 

 the whole amount of the dividend which was received by the proprietors. 

 These calculations were based solely on the amount of trafiic carried by the 



