EARLY DAYS OF RAILWAYS. 445 



pecuniary support. Subsequent experience has shown 

 how utterly impossible it would have been for the 

 road-locomotives ever to compete with the railways. 



That everyone was not as successful as Colonel 

 Maceroni in the endeavour to work steam-carriages 

 on ordinary roads, appears from the following account 

 of an experimental trip made in September, 1841 : 



' On Thursday morning last a new steam- carriage 

 built by a company of gentlemen at the West-end of 

 the town started on an experimental trip from 

 London to Hastings ; they arrived in the after- 

 noon a mile from Hastings, when unfortunately the 

 boiler burst. The carriage was brought into the 

 town, and on Friday it was repaired ; on Saturday 

 morning the party left Hastings on their return to 

 London. In descending the long and steep hill 

 within one mile of Sevenoaks the skid or drag- 

 chain broke, and they descended the hUl at the rate 

 of sixty-three miles an hour, and fortunately reached 

 the bottom of it undamaged in person, although 

 they every moment expected to be dashed to 

 pieces. On their attempting to proceed up the 

 opposite hill into Sevenoaks, it was found impos- 

 sible — the whole of the machinery being broken and 

 out of place. With the assistance of ten horses it was 

 conveyed to the Crown Inn at Sevenoaks, where it 

 remained, much damaged.' 



