THE EFFECTS OF RAIL-ROADS. 
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once lost sight of, the members of the veterinary profession may 
bid adieu not only to every feeling of good-fellowship between 
themselves, but to feelings of respect, as a chartered body, from 
everybody else. 
Chequered as the face of our beautiful country will, at no very 
remote period, certainly become by railways — made, making, and 
in prospect of being made — the question forces itself upon us, what 
the effect of this mode of travelling is likely to be on the employ- 
ment of horses, or of carriages drawn by horses 1 So long as only 
main or trunk lines of railway exist, it is said that actually more 
horses find employment in public vehicles — omnibusses espe- 
cially — than before, there being pressing demand for them in 
fetching persons from and carrying them to the different termini. 
When, however, branch and cross railways come to be made in 
every locality, it is evident that the same number of omnibuses and 
other vehicles cannot be required for such purposes. That we 
shall ever have — at all events we do not seem likely very soon to 
have — steam carriages running upon our common roads, and that 
the person who now keeps his horse and chaise may retain the 
chaise — with a steam apparatus fitted to it — and dispose of the 
horse, or that we shall ever see steam hobby-horses — these things 
seem to us more improbable still ; and yet, such is the rapid march 
of improvement in this restless wonder-working age in which we 
live, that the wisest of us can hardly conjecture where it will all end. 
That railways are now become, for all purposes of transport, ap- 
proved and established concerns, admits of no question whatever. 
And, we repeat, as they appear likely to spread over the surface 
of the country after the manner of a network, cutting and inter- 
secting it in every direction where traffic, either of men or merchan- 
dize, is called for, the ultimate if not the proximate effect must 
be, the discharge, from stage-coach and omnibus work at least, of a 
greater or less number of horses. Granting this to be the case, 
have we, or are we likely to have, employment for them in other 
ways'! It was certainly not foreseen that, on the completion of 
some of the main trunk lines of railway, actually more horses 
would be required by the public vehicles than before ; and so, 
following the same blind line of argument, we may say, it is 
