3o6 THE COACHING AGE. 



'That your petitioner, not actuated by selfish 

 motives alone, but viewing with deep sympathy the 

 distress, the discontent, the poverty and the ruin that 

 has lately, and does now, partially pervade the land, 

 would humbly point out to your Honourable House 

 how much the invention and use of railroads has had 

 to do with their increase. 



' That your petitioner, passing over the large 

 amount invested in turnpike trusts, now become 

 bankrupt, in consequence of substituting railroad for 

 stage-coach travelling, which has been more than 

 once mooted in your Honourable House, would pro- 

 ceed at once to show the direct injury, the devastating 

 ruin that has fallen, not only on those immediately 

 connected with stage-coach business (with the excep- 

 tion of a few, and those of an extraordinary character), 

 but through them on every class of tradesmen in- 

 habiting towns situate in any of our great thorough- 

 fares, whether they be north, south, east or west. 



' That your petitioner would further proceed to 

 show that this injury has its ramifications from one 

 end of the island to the other, threatening the 

 depreciation of property to a ruinous extent, as 

 a proof of which your petitioner need only point 

 to every town in the kingdom which a railroad has 

 approached, except two or three of our largest cities 

 and towns, and even to them the benefit would 



