448 THE COACHING AGE. 



the utilization of the main roads. The plan was to 

 partition off one part of the road by a high fence 

 running longitudinally, one side to be .used by the 

 locomotives running, and the other in the ordinary 

 way for road-travelling by carriages and carts, etc. 

 That the company or proposed company collapsed, 

 is not to be wondered at ; but it does certainly 

 seem rather surprising that any persons should have 

 been found sufficiently bold to issue a prospectus for 

 such a palpably unworkable scheme, or incur any 

 expense at all in connection with it. 



When the country was thoroughly flooded with 

 railway schemes of every character, both practicable 

 and impracticable — remunerative prospectively pro- 

 bably, in some instances, but in many without the 

 slightest belief, or even hope, on behalf of the 

 promoters that they could ever be carried out— a 

 reaction began to take place which led to the great 

 panic about the year 1848. 



As in every panic, numbers of persons were utterly 

 ruined, and it was not until the visionary and rotten 

 schemes had collapsed, leaving only the hond-fide 

 undertakings, that the more healthy state of affairs 

 returned ; but many even of the schemes which 

 were ultimately completed, failed to be productive of 

 any profit or advantage to the original shareholders. 



With a view, it would seem, of somewhat neutraliz- 



