RESIDENCE AT NEATH 243 



a dozen surveyors, draughtsmen, and clerks in a big hotel in 

 the Haymarket, where we had a large room upstairs for work, 

 and each of us ordered what we pleased for our meals in the 

 coffee-room. Towards the end of November we had to work 

 very late, often till past midnight, and for the last few days 

 of the month we literally worked all night to get everything 

 completed. 



In this year of wild speculation it is said that plans and 

 sections for 1263 new railways were duly deposited, having a 

 proposed capital of £563,000,000, and the sum required to be 

 deposited at the Board of Trade was so much larger than the 

 total amount of gold in the Bank of England and notes in 

 circulation at the time, that the public got frightened, a panic 

 ensued, shares in the new lines which had been at a high 

 premium fell almost to nothing, and even the established lines 

 were greatly depreciated. Many of the lines were proposed 

 merely for speculation, or to be bought off by opposing lines 

 which had a better chance of success. The line we were at 

 work on was a branch of the Great Western and South Wales 

 Railway then making, and was for the purpose of bringing the 

 coal and iron of Merthyr Tydfil and the surrounding district 

 to Swansea, then the chief port of South Wales. But we had 

 a competitor along the whole of our route in a great line 

 from Swansea to Yarmouth, by way of Merthyr, Hereford, 

 Worcester, and across the midland agricultural counties, 

 called, I think, the East and West Junction Railway, which 

 sounded grand, but which had no chance of passing. It 

 competed, however, with several other lines, and I heard that 

 many of these agreed to make up a sum to buy off its opposi- 

 tion. Not one-tenth of the lines proposed that year were ever 

 made, and the money wasted upon surveyors, engineers, and 

 law expenses must have amounted to millions. 



Finding it rather dull at Neath living by myself, I per- 

 suaded my brother to give up his work in London as a jour- 

 neyman carpenter and join me, thinking that, with his practical 

 experience and my general knowledge, we might be able to do 

 architectural, building, and engineering work, as well as sur- 

 veying, and in time get up a profitable business. We returned 



