444 THE COACHING AGE. 



is made of very soft material, or, in the Colonel's 

 words, was always ' like a fea,tlier-bed.' Notwith- 

 standing that it was covered with loose gravel from 

 top to bottom, the Colonel went up it at the rate of 

 eight miles an hour. He travelled from the Regent 

 Circus in Oxford Street to Watford; and went four 

 times a day up and down Oxford Street, slow or fast, 

 or sometimes standing still, according to the state of 

 the traffic and carriages. Locomotive carriages, it 

 was said, were perfectly safe on common roads, and 

 capable of ascending the loftiest hills ; and as at that 

 time railways did not aspire to going more than 

 twenty miles an hour, the locomotive would not only 

 supersede the road- coaches, but would be able to 

 compete with any railway in the kingdom. The 

 persons advocating the introduction of steam-loco- 

 motives on the roads were few in number, and some 

 of them having expended all their available capital 

 in experiments and perfecting new inventions and 

 improvements, the public in general did not seem 

 to give the subject much encouragement ; mean- 

 while it had been rapidly becoming manifest that 

 railways were likely to be a great success, and that 

 their advantages and capabilities were only just 

 beginning to be developed. The result of this was 

 that capital all went towards their construction, and 

 the locomotive projects naturally failed for want of 



