Chapter IV: Part 4

“1. That for the last five years, ever _since what is called the
panic of_ 1825, we have found, with very slight intermissions, a
continually increasing depression in the prices of the products of
industry, and more particularly in Pig Iron and Bar Iron, which have
fallen respectively from upwards of 8_l._ _per ton_ to under 3_l._
_per ton_, and from 15_l._ _per ton_ to under 5_l._ _per ton_.

“2. Against this alarming and long-continued depression, we have
used every possible effort in our power to make head. We have
practised all manner of economy, and have had recourse to every
possible improvement in the working of our mines and manufactories.
_Our workmen’s wages_ have, in many instances, been greatly reduced,
and such reduction has been attended with, and _effected by_, _very
great suffering and distress_:—but the royalties, rents, contracts,
and other engagements, under which we hold our respective works and
mines, have scarcely been reduced at all, nor can we get them
effectually reduced, _because the law enforces their payment in
full_.

“3. The prices of the products of our industry having thus fallen
within the range of the fixed charges and expenses which the law
compels us to discharge, the just and necessary profits of our
respective trades have ceased to exist: and in many cases a positive
loss attends them.

“4. Under these circumstances, we have long hesitated in determining
what line of conduct our interest and our duties require us to
adopt:—If we should abandon our respective trades, our large and
expensive outlays in machinery and erections must be sacrificed, at
an enormous loss to ourselves, and our honest and meritorious workmen
must be thrown in thousands upon parishes, already too much
impoverished by their present burdens, to support them:—and if we
should continue our respective trades, we see nothing but the
prospect of increasing distress, and certain ruin to all around us.”

The remaining part of this “Memorial” touching on politics, need not be quoted here.

If the iron of the 3000 miles of railway which Mr. Treasurer Booth, in his book on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway supposes may eventually be laid down in England, should be of the same weight which I understand that of the Birmingham Railway is to be, the whole quantity consumed will be about 800,000 tons. Supposing an equal application of the system here advocated, and that only ten times as much iron should be used in the tunnels as is used in the railways, eight millions of tons, instead of eight hundred thousand, will be the aggregate consumption.

Now as iron, though unquestionably the best, is neither the only, nor the _cheapest_ material of which tunnels can be constructed, it may not, possibly, be unpardonably presumptuous in me to submit to the iron masters, that if they persist in doing, by this proposition, as the Genoese did by that of Columbus, they will also lose an opportunity, which would, to them, prove equally important, as would have been that of Columbus to Genoa.

I _have_ asked, and I _still_ ask of them only one thing: a full, and _fair_ investigation. By the result of that I am content to abide; though I must, in common justice stipulate, that this investigation shall be entered on in a different spirit to what it has hitherto been my lot to meet with. “There is always a proneness” says Washington Irving, “to consider a man under examination as a kind of delinquent, or impostor, whose faults and errors are to be detected and exposed.” Most truly can I say that I have “_always_” experienced the effects of this “proneness” in reference to this subject: and that the object of those who deemed my proposition worthy throwing away a fragment of their time upon, was infinitely less to ascertain its truth and justice, than to display their own penetration and wit, in discovering and turning to ridicule, every part which admitted (as they thought) of being sneered at and made the subject of a jest.

Had it been my good fortune to have met with but one candid examinant of influence, I had been spared years of trouble and anxiety. But my proposition being deemed deserving only of contempt, candid examination has no more been vouchsafed me, than to the wanderings of a lunatic.

Should, however, the iron masters, instead of granting me this candid investigation, continue, “in the pride of half knowledge,” (as Dr. Wells terms it) to condemn what I propose, because they have found that a something has failed, which is as different from it, as would be, saying that it is impossible we can ever get to the North Pole, because Captain Cook could not get within 30° of the _South_, I venture to commit myself to the prediction that they will repent it, as bitterly as Genoa repented her rejection of Columbus’s proposition, to discover, and possess her of America.

“They inconsiderately rejected his proposal, as the dream of a
chimerical projector,” says Dr. Robertson, of the Genoese, “and lost,
for ever, the opportunity of restoring their commonwealth to its
ancient splendour.”

For, equally certain as it is that iron, though the best, is not the _only_ material of which tunnels can be constructed, is it, that unless this proposition is very differently treated by them to what it has hitherto been, will they drive the manufacturing of tunnels from their own line into another: and that, too, notwithstanding that opportunities are arising which, in addition to bringing them to their own doors, would give such facilities as relates to the transmission of the large stocks of iron which the uncertainty, and occasional long interruptions of the present method of conveyance, compel them to keep in London, as to do away with the necessity for keeping those stocks.

The Welch papers announce the plan of a railway which is to connect the iron districts and ports of that country with London. In this plan, Merthyr Tydvil, the centre of the South Wales iron manufacture, is stated to be 176 miles from London.

Now, even supposing that this railway, instead of costing the _many_ thousands per mile which it must cost, could be laid down for nothing, still, the circumstance of the _bare expenses_ of conveyance on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, amounting to 4¼_d._ per ton, per mile, exclusive of the charges necessary to pay one farthing of interest, or return on the capital sunk in laying that railway down—and for which 3¾_d._ per ton, per mile, is charged, in addition to the 4¼_d._ required to cover the _bare expenses_—the mere _expenses_ of railway conveyance, _exclusive_ of interest or return on the capital invested, being so great as this, it appears that, even were this railway laid from their own doors to the metropolis, the iron masters could not, including the charge to pay interest or return upon the money sunk in laying the railway down, get their material to London for less than 4_l._ 10_s._ per ton; which, on an article the selling price of which (pigs) in London is only about the same amount, is in effect a prohibition; especially with the expense of freight for coast conveyance, only 12_s._ per ton from South Wales to London.

But as the expense of carriage by a tunnel would be as much less than this over-sea freight, as that is less than railway conveyance; while, in addition to this superiority over both, a tunnel would save all the _risk_ as well as the delays and uncertainty of over-sea transmission, London and the iron districts might be brought within so few hours of each other, as to obviate the necessity of the iron masters keeping the heavy stocks of their article in London which they are now obliged to maintain, and the capital so locked up become, in consequence, liberated for other purposes: while, were the tunnel extended to Milford Haven, as it has been announced the railway would be, that port, as well as Swansea, might be brought within a few hours of London; and the advantages of its (perhaps) unequalled harbour, rendered fully available to the nation at large for commercial purposes, as well as to Government for our fleets.

This consideration merits the serious attention of the advocates of the Bristol Railway. Swansea and Milford Haven being _both_ more advantageously situated for all vessels from foreign ports that would make Bristol their port of delivery; and their harbours being (particularly the latter) incomparably superior to that of Bristol, a tunnel would, were it to be laid down between either of them and the metropolis, be the certain ruin of any _railway_ from Bristol to London. The mere _expenses_ of carriage on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway being 4½_d._ per ton per mile, and the _whole_ charge 8_d._, it is evident that, supposing the Bristol Railway were to cost only _half_ what the Liverpool and Manchester has cost (the “Capital, 3,000,000_l._” placed at the head of the prospectus of the Bristol Railway, allows 25,000_l._ per mile for each of the 120 miles the map accompanying said prospectus shews the line will be in length) the whole change for carriage along its line could not be less than 6_d._ per ton per mile: the aggregate of which, 3_l._, would be equal to what cargoes have been brought from the East Indies for; and more than equal to freights from the West Indies, Mediterranean, &c. &c.; so that only such cargoes or freights, as stress of weather drove into Bristol, would be sent to London by the railway; while, by a tunnel from Milford or Swansea, they might be sent so cheaply, as actually to command the trade which it is _supposed_ the Bristol Railway will command.

But to return from the long digression, into which the consideration of the question relative to the effect of the friction of the air, and the importance of the subject to the iron trade, has led me.

Supposing the possibility of the Liverpool and Manchester railway proving a failure, that company would have scarcely any more _saleable_ value in their possession, in exchange for the million and a quarter which it has already cost, and the million and a half which it _will_ cost them, than the (about) 5000 tons of iron which is in their rails. Their long, narrow, slip of ground, dear as it has been to them, would be worth nothing; while the labour of taking up the between two and three hundred thousand stone blocks (or bases) they have laid down to carry the rails, would be more than those blocks are worth. Also would the 450,000_l._ expended in levelling the line _and forming the road_, be utterly lost. {52} Whereas, had a tunnel been laid down, not only would the whole of the hundreds of thousands expended in levelling have been saved, but as not one-tenth of the labour would have been required to lay a tunnel down, compared with what the railway required, a large sum would have been saved for that also; while what _was_ laid out, being for _metal_, instead of labour, there would have been from ten to twenty times more saleable value in their hands, than they now have.

And as the same circumstances would, in a similar case, apply to the Birmingham, and Bristol (and indeed to _all_) Railways, as well as to your line, it would, comparatively, be almost as much better, in this particular, to have a tunnel instead of a rail-road or canal, as it would be to hold specie instead of paper, during a run on the bank: though this advantage would be greatest in relation to a canal; the greater proportion of the expense of which, is for that _irrecoverable_ outlay, labour.

In point of the friction of the wheels would the carriages that moved in the tunnel be importantly superior to railway carriages.

Owing to circumstances which it is not necessary to discuss, the height of the wheels of the coaches and waggons on railways is confined to about three feet. Wheels of twice that diameter have been tried, but thrown aside in consequence of their liability to cause accidents by running off the rails: the only thing by which the wheels of all vehicles running on edge railways are kept on them, being a rim, which, projecting _one inch_ beyond the bearing part of the tire of the wheels, keeps them on the rails; as the brim of a hat will keep the body of it from rising on a table, over the edge of which said brim hangs.

In consequence of this, all carriages running on open railways are liable to accidents, such as those mentioned in the notes below, _many_ of which have occurred; though, owing to their having happened either in the excavations, on the levels, or on the low embankments, the dashings-to-pieces which _will_ take place when they occur on the high embankments have, hitherto, been avoided. {53a}

But as the carriages inside the tunnel _cannot_ get off the railway in it, as they do on common railways, while, owing to the constantly vertical position in which the wheels can be kept, they may be twice, or three times, as high as on common railways, so great a diminution in the power required to move any load will take place, as to admit of any weight being moved in the tunnel with less than half the power required to move it on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

In point of repairs, too, would the tunnel be importantly cheaper than a railway. Supposing you were to have a railway, there would be, in every mile of it, above seven thousand stone blocks, or bases, to carry the rails; every one of which bases would be liable to sink, and disarrange the level of the line, as they are so constantly doing (vide page 11); while the rails themselves would be liable to bend, and break, between these bases. Sinkings of the bases, and bendings and breakings of the rails, &c. &c. being (like fractures of the harness and apparatus of stage-coaches, or the ropes of ships) matters of constant occurrence, there are, in the whole, and including _every_ liability to disarrangement and repair, above eighty thousand parts or places, in every mile of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, where adjustment or repair _may_ daily be required; while, were that railway to be made a quadruple one, by having two more lines of road (four more lines of rails, i.e.) laid down, these liabilities would increase to above one hundred and sixty thousand per mile; though, for the present, I refer only to fractures and loosenings of the chairs, &c. bendings and breakings of the rails, and sinkings, &c. of the bases, which are _now_ possible to the amount of above 40,000 per mile; whereas, in a tunnel, the corresponding disarrangements would be possible to the amount of only 1056 per mile: an advantage which time will prove to be of much greater importance than it may at first be considered; owing to the small expense of repair it will occasion. Supposing the London and Birmingham Railway were to have the “quadruple line” adverted to when the capital was raised to three millions, there would, in its whole length, be nearly twenty millions of parts or places where repair, or adjustment, _might_, daily, be necessary: a number which might well double the 488_l._ per mile, per annum, charged under the item “Maintainance of way,” in the half-yearly accounts of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad.

But neither is this the last circumstance with respect to which a tunnel would be superior to a railway.

From the statements laid before Parliament, it appears that in the half-year ending the 31st December, 1831, “the number of trips of 30 miles” made on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was 5392. Now as the _whole_ weight carried during this half-year was _under_ 91,000 tons, it appears that the average _profitable_ weight (passengers, or merchandise) carried each trip, was _less_ than 17 tons.

The average weight of an engine and its tender, with fuel and water, being, I believe, not less than 12 tons, while there is the weight of the coaches and waggons additional to this, it would appear that for every ton which pays any thing, that is carried on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, they also carry a ton which pays nothing.

Now, owing to the manner in which the carriages that move in the tunnel can be constructed, and owing to there being no locomotive engines, and tenders carrying fuel and water, required to move them, this proportion of dead and unprofitable weight will be so much reduced, as for it not to amount to more than one-fifth of the similar weight on the railway.

The _whole_ expense of conveyance on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway during the six months ending the 31st December, 1831, was, it appears by the statement laid before the Lords’ Committees on the London and Birmingham Railway bill, fourpence farthing per ton, per mile; while the whole _charge_ for it was eightpence per ton, per mile. Coal being nearly ten times dearer here than it is there, there is no reason to suppose that what it might cost you for conveyance along a line of railway would be less than this; while it may be presumed that it would be so much more as, perhaps, and of itself, totally to counteract the advantages afforded by the shortness of your line, compared with the present route.

In addition to the advantages which I have stated a tunnel would hold out to the Company I have the honour to address, there would be one of a peculiar nature. It is generally understood, and appears from evidence to be the fact, that a considerable portion of the income of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company has arisen from persons who have visited and paid for riding over their line, solely from curiosity; while it is well known that the income derived from visitors to their tunnel, by the Thames Tunnel Company, is considerable; the average annual amount having been 1200_l._ per annum.

The curiosity excited by the public relative to the tunnel I constructed at Brighton, surprised me. Thousands manifested a desire to see it: hundreds applied to be permitted to do so; and when they found I would not let them, offered guinea after guinea to be allowed to gratify their curiosity, under the idea that mercenary motives gave rise to the orders I left that _no one_ should be admitted; while many of the very highest rank (including _every_ class of our nobility) made personal application to me to oblige them with a sight of it.

As I could convey persons in your tunnel (supposing you were to have one) most safely at the rate of a mile in a minute, and as a velocity of that kind being attained near the metropolis, by a method so novel as this, would induce very many thousands to visit and ride through it for curiosity, it may be expected that a considerable part of what it would cost to lay a tunnel down would be returned from this source; enough (in the end) I am bold to say, to pay for the cost of the iron whereof it would be constructed.

The Thames Tunnel, supposing it never should be completed, will for years bring in the 1200_l._ per annum, which is the average of what has been received from people visiting it; and I am fully satisfied that proper measures would, in the end, bring in, from this source alone, perhaps, more than would cover the coat of the iron, of which the tunnel I propose to you would be constructed.

In the prospectus of the Greenwich Railway Company is the following paragraph:—“Moreover, when it is considered that the population of London, Westminster, and the Borough, is about one million and a half, and that the population of the surrounding towns and villages, within a circuit of from forty to fifty miles round the Capital, amounts to nearly double that number; and that, in short, the number of persons visiting London during each year, make up a total exceeding five millions of persons, it is not unreasonable to expect that, through mere curiosity alone, two millions of persons will gratify the same, when it can be accomplished at a low price, suppose only one shilling, to go and return,—yet if so, that item alone would produce 100,000_l._”

Now, as supposing that the curiosity excited by my _novel_ proposition, will produce only one quarter of what the Greenwich Railroad Company calculate may come into their pockets from the same source, will, I think, be allowing sufficient pre-eminence to the _superior_ curiosity which an old method of conveyance _must_ excite, I trust that my idea, that the cost of the iron composing the tunnel may be repaid from this source, will be considered a not immoderate one.

In the Thames Tunnel there is nothing but the bare arch to see; while in this there would be the tunnel itself, the largest air-pumps, &c. &c. in the world, and a ride to and fro at the rate of sixty, or more, miles an hour.

Nor would the objection which, it may be imagined, must arise from the want of daylight in the tunnel, prove an objection in point of fact. So trifling is the degree of exhaustion and pressure required to move a load of 100 tons, that, but that the advantages which would arise, as relates to cheapness of site, and evasion of opposition on the part of the land-owners and occupiers, from carrying the tunnel under ground, prevent it, I could window light the tunnel throughout its whole, length: that which I constructed at Brighton having light admitted into it through windows of common thin glass; strong plate-glass not being required. Indeed, so far as relates to possibility, the upper half of the tunnel might be one continued window (like the top of a green-house), throughout its whole length. But as, even if this was done, artificial light _must_ be had for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four in the winter; as the tunnel might be gas-lighted throughout its whole length; or as, instead of thus wasting light unnecessarily, each carriage might carry lights before and behind, the objection that the tunnel being underground would render it dark as midnight, is no more a serious objection than it would be, were the Thames tunnel finished, that it would be better to cross the river by London Bridge, than through that tunnel, because on the bridge you would have _natural_, while in the tunnel you must have artificial light.

It is true that there could be no “view of the country” by this method of conveyance. But, as the object of it is the perfection of travelling, in the three particulars of safety, expedition, and economy; as even the comparatively low rates attained on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway prevent objects that are by the road-side being distinctly seen, owing to the velocity with which the passengers are whirled by them; and as the much greater velocity at which conveyance may be effected in the tunnel, would render any attempt to look on what was _passed_ productive of the effects experienced by a child who looks on the ground while leaning out of the window of a coach, no _real_ loss, as relates to “seeing the country,” would result from transmission taking place inside the tunnel instead of outside it: though, even if it should, it might be submitted to, when economy of both time and money, and complete obviation of the dangers attendant on breaking down, being overturned, run away with, or driven against any thing, became the equivalents.

Have we occasion to travel to Edinburgh by the mail, we unrepiningly submit to the inconvenience of passing two nights (32 hours in mid winter) not only in total darkness, but also “cabinned, cribbed, confined” to a degree which prevents us even from “changing a leg,” except by previous arrangement with our opposite fellow-passenger. But when it is proposed that we shall go in vehicles which, in addition to being as large and commodious as the cabins of many steam-vessels, will be as much shorter a time in going, as they are larger and more convenient than the inside of mail-coaches, and in which the most brilliant light may be enjoyed, we proclaim it to be “impossible” to consent to go by such vehicles, because they would move inside a tunnel: not considering that this very circumstance, of being _inside_ said tunnel, would as certainly secure us from being overturned, driven against any thing, run away with, breaking down, or any other of the dangers to which turnpike-road travelling is liable, as it would give us the ease, comfort, and accommodations of the cabin of a steam-vessel, instead of the privations and endurances experienced in mail-coaches.

And as the valves which have been adverted to as fixed at every quarter, or half, or whole mile, would, in point of effect, be doors, by means of which exit from the tunnel could be effected, the bugbear of being “shut up in a tunnel many miles long, with no place to get out of it, if any thing should happen,” need not be seriously replied to.

Such are some of the benefits which laying down a tunnel, instead of a railway would procure you. But the most important of all is yet to be mentioned.

As it does not follow that, because you may think proper to lay a railway down, the public will think proper to use it, it becomes vital to your interest, that some inducement which shall lead them to use it, and cause them to prefer the more circuitous route to the Birmingham Railway by your line, to the more direct one by the Edgeware Road, should be laid before them. This inducement will be furnished by the tunnel which I propose to your adoption.

The carriages which would go in said tunnel, may be rendered so superior in point of size, of the room they will give to each passenger, of comfort, and of general accommodation, as to be more like the cabin of a steam-vessel, rather than any thing else I can compare them to.

In one of those I used in the tunnel I constructed at Brighton, above twenty people have sat with a table between them, covered with provisions, plates, dishes, &c. &c. which provisions were consumed according to the usual course of a dinner table: so that accommodations (even to that of a sofa for each person) which could not be thought of in coach or omnibus travelling, _might_ be given to passengers.

Owing also to the size and construction of these carriages admitting of my using the air for springs, their motion would be soft and (as relates to the avoidance of all jolting) air-balloon-like, to a degree which you cannot conceive; and which no railway carriage, far less any common road vehicle, could compare with.

In point of safety, too, would they be incomparably superior; since, instead of being liable to break down, to be driven against any thing, to be run away with, or to be overturned, &c. &c. these accidents would be so impossible, that absolute immunity from danger, and certain security to life and limb, would be consequent on this method of conveyance; while the rate of transit under which this safety would be secured, being so great as to admit of the journey being effected in as few minutes as you thought proper, your route might be rendered as much shorter as you pleased in point of time, than the route by the Edgeware road could be rendered. The expense of the power too, by which your passengers would be conveyed, being above twenty times cheaper than coaches or omnibuses could convey them along the Edgeware Road, you would have a still greater advantage in this particular. It remains, therefore, only to point out how the public may be caused to take your circuitous line, in preference to the nearer route by the Edgeware Road.

In order to effect this, and to save the public from having to go from Hyde Park Corner to your line, as must be done were you to lay a railway down, I propose bringing your line to Hyde Park Corner, by extending the tunnel; branching it eastward from your basin, either through Kensington and Knightsbridge, under the turnpike road; or (in order to avoid all interference with, or opposition from, the Turnpike Commissioners) along the shorter line across the vacant grounds to the south of the road, at the back of Kensington and Knightsbridge; across (though beneath, and indeed underground all the way) Earl’s Court Lane, Gloucester Road, Grove Lane, the Brompton Road, and Sloane Street, to the vacant ground on the North and East of Wilton Crescent.

I am not, at present, prepared to point out either the best route, or the best spot for the termination towards Hyde Park Corner; having investigated only so for as to satisfy myself that such a course is practicable.

You will, at first, be startled at, and disposed to object to this extension, because you will suppose that it involves the outlay which would be required for two additional miles of tunnel, without bringing in any more return than would be received from passengers to the Birmingham Railway. This conception, however, is an erroneous one.

Were a method of conveyance in operation, by which the inhabitants of the west end of Kensington, of Earl’s Court, of North End, of Walham Green, of Brook Green, of Hammersmith, of Turnham Green, of Chiswick, &c. &c. could be carried (more safely than by coaches) from your basin to Hyde Park Corner in two or three minutes, instead of the twenty minutes or nearly half an hour which it now takes to get over that ground, they would so prefer your method of conveyance, as to render the additional outlay required for said two extra miles of tunnel, the most remunerating portion of your whole line; while, in addition to enabling you thus to convey passengers, said branch would enable you also to deliver coals, and other goods at Hyde Park Corner from your canal, for an expense of less than a penny per ton carriage from your canal thither; so that you would rival the Grosvenor Canal, and add importantly to the tonnage trade of your own canal by it.

Should the Birmingham and Bristol Railways be completed, this branch would also enable you to convey goods, as well as passengers, to and from them, and to and from the western parts of town, more cheaply than could any how else be done; an accommodation which laying down your railway could not give. And as I _could_ so construct these two extra miles of tunnel, as to render their cost—the cost of the tunnel itself, i.e.—not more than about five thousand pounds per mile, the expense of this branch would not prove any ruinous addition to your contemplated outlay.

Therefore, for these reasons, I recommend you to prevent its being necessary that people should pay omnibus (or other) proprietors, to carry them from Hyde Park Corner to your basin at Kensington, in order that you may _then_ convey them to the Birmingham (or Bristol) Railway, by extending your line towards Hyde Park Corner, in the manner I have pointed out.

Your case, brought into a focus, is as follows. You have expended a large sum in opening a line of conveyance which, owing to its not being carried far enough at first, does not combine all the advantages your situation admits of. You are, naturally, desirous that it should do this. If you open a communication for goods with the Grand Junction Canal, by extending your own canal, you will do this in degree. You have, therefore, for some years, contemplated carrying your canal up the height between your basin and the Grand Junction Canal. But the enormous expense of this has prevented you from doing it.

Being now informed that your object may be better effected by a railway, you entertain that idea; and as, were you to lay a railway down, passengers, as well as goods, might be conveyed by it, you are desirous of, if possible, bringing the “passenger trade,” between the Birmingham Railway and the west end of London, to your line.

Owing, however, to the distance of your line from the west end of Town; and to the Edgeware Road, offering a shorter and cheaper communication from the Birmingham Railway to that part of the metropolis, your laying down a railway, will, for the reasons I have pointed out, certainly prove a losing speculation.

As the method I propose would be most importantly cheaper than a railway, in point of first cost, and still more importantly cheaper in point of current expenses, I venture to offer it to your notice. And as it would obviate the objection which your distance from Hyde Park Corner would occasion, supposing you were to have a railway, I presume to recommend it to your consideration, as more worthy notice than any thing else you can have laid before you; for the reasons, that it will, in the first place, be much cheaper in point of first cost than any other method of conveyance you can lay down: second, because it will be still more economical in point of current expenses: third, because, in addition to being incomparably safer, as relates to life and limb, than any other method of conveyance, it will be so much more expeditious as to render your circuitous route quicker, _in point of time_, than the shorter route by the Edgeware Road, as well as cheaper, in point of charge: and, fourth, because it will be productive of an important profit, additional to, and exclusive of, what a railway will bring in; and which will return no inconsiderable proportion of what it costs to lay it down.

Were the statements I have given relative to the cost and expenses of a railway, from my own estimates only, they might be doubted by you. In order, however, to avoid this, I have been careful to quote only the “evidence,” which was laid before Parliament, and other documents; which leave no doubt that the first cost and current expenses will be, at least, _equal_ to what I have stated, though they by no means prove that they will not be _more_.

Indeed, it appears susceptible of proof that they will be more. Mr. Grahame, in his “Letter to the Traders and Carriers on the Navigations, connecting Liverpool and Manchester,” relative to that railway, says, “I pledge myself, however, to prove (in case the fact be denied by the Directors) that the aggregate expenditure of the half year, ending on the 31st December, 1832, bears a higher proportion to the income of that period than the expenses of _any_ preceding half-year bear to the income of the same.”

Mr. Graham also says, “The Railway Corporation keep two separate accounts of expenditure, “_ordinary_” and “_extraordinary_.” The “ordinary expenditure” is paid from the annual returns received from working the railway; and the “extraordinary” is paid by borrowing money, or a creation and sale of shares; which is termed “adding to the capital account.” The ordinary expenditure, only, affects the dividend; and it is the interest of every one concerned to make _that_ expenditure appear as low as possible; and, whenever the outlays are commingled, or doubtful, to throw the burden on the obnoxious shoulder. This “extraordinary outlay,” or, as it is termed, “outlay on the railway and works,” or “Capital Account,” has been as great since the railway was opened, as during the period when it was forming. The amount thus laid out in the first fifteen months after the opening of the railway, amounted to nearly 200,000_l._ The outlay on this account in 1832 is not stated; but the interest on borrowed money paid in that year, is given as 10,522_l._ 10_s._ 6_d._, while the interest paid in 1831 was only 5647_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._”

Railway advocates may dispute this; but _that_ I shall not heed. Should they, however, _disprove_ it, I shall not be able to deny that I am liable to the censure due to him who investigates in the spirit of a partisan, rather than in that of a candid examinant.

It may be objected, in answer to the advantages which I have stated would result from your substituting this Pneumatic Railway for the common railway you contemplate, that you have never heard of it before, except in the way of ridicule and contempt; while not only have the engineers of the day condemned it, but also do even some of yourselves entertain doubts as to the sanity of the man who can propose such a thing to you.

In allusion to objectors of this latter description, the M. D. who did me the honour to propose the first Resolution at the “Town Meeting” at Brighton, said, in the course of his speech on the occasion, that “Mr. Vallance had had to contend with the greatest difficulties; such as were enough to appal any man: he had been derided and ridiculed: his system had been treated as visionary, theoretical, and fantastic: he had been called a wild projector—nay, some had even gone so far as to say that he was mad. If so, he (Dr. Yates) must say, with Polonius, ‘there was method in his madness.’ And to such insinuations he (Dr. Y.) would reply, in the words of Hamlet, there was that which ‘sense and sanity scarce could be delivered of.’”

With my defence against insinuations of this kind thus provided, I may turn to the more serious objections of the engineers whom you may consult: who, I am well aware, will treat the proposition only as Brindsley’s proposal to carry the canal over the Irwell was treated by the engineers of his day.

Were this any thing new, I might feel it. But when we have it on record that the professed engineers of the period have done the same by _every_ proposition that has been brought forward, until its being established by others, caused them to see that money might be made by imitating, instead of continuing to decry the inventor, their exclamations of “impossible,” “absurd,” and “madness to think of,” may well be disregarded.

Had Telford, or Stevenson, or Rennie, or Brunel, or any other first-rate man, originated the proposition, then, indeed, they might have had some faith in it! But for an unknown nobody to do such a thing, is of itself enough to prove that it _cannot_ be worth attention.

To these gentlemen I reply, by asking them—to whom are we indebted for the steam-engine in its application to steam-vessels, and locomotive purposes, as well as a first mover for machinery? Savary, its first inventor, was a miner. Newcomen and Beighton, its first improvers, were, one of them a country blacksmith, and the other a plumber, while its grand improver, the great Watt, was a mathematical-instrument maker. To whom are we indebted for our canals—for our nationally-important cotton machinery—for the public application of the gas-light principle—for the system of railway transmission—for the hydrostatic press—and the other manifold improvements, which have raised us to the station we fill? Is it to men, who, at the periods when these improvements were first devised, were of high name, and established reputation as civil engineers? Hear what one whose situation enabled him to decide, says on the subject:—

“What has been the means of raising our native country to that
eminence in civilization which renders her the admiration of the
world? Her improvements in the arts and sciences.

“From whom have those improvements chiefly sprung? From men who have
emerged from the humbler walks of life.

“What was Sir Richard Arkwright; a man to whose genius this country
is indebted for very much of its commercial prosperity; to whose
improvements in the machinery for spinning cotton, we are indebted
for being enabled to keep the cotton trade chiefly confined to
ourselves. What, I say, was the great Arkwright? A barber. Yet do
we owe our proud superiority in this department of our national
greatness to the unassisted efforts of Dick the barber.

“Who was Ferguson? A simple peasant; a man, who, wrapped in his
plaid, passed the winter nights on the ground in contemplating the
heavens; and who, by arranging his string of beads on the cold heath,
at length completed a map of the stars, and raised himself to the
knowledge of our late sovereign.

“Who was Dr. Herschel, the discoverer of so many important
astronomical facts? A boy who played the pipe and tabor in a foreign
regimental band. Who was the great Watt? A mathematical instrument
maker.

“Who was Smeaton, the builder of the Eddystone lighthouse, and the
first engineer of his day? An attorney.

“Who was the great Brindsley, whose canals have given such an
accession of power to our commerce, by the facilities of internal
communication? A country millwright.

“Nicholson was a cabin boy: and Ramadge, the best maker of reflecting
telescopes in the world, was a cutler.”

In continuation of this list of “nobodies,” to whom we owe so much of our national greatness, I ask, to whom are we indebted for the very inventions which the engineers of the present day claim as their own, with justice equal to that wherewith the organ-_blower_ considered the tones of the instrument _his_?

Railways have been in use among us for a century and a half; and, notwithstanding that those of this remote date, were no more comparable with those of the present day, than the matchlocks of the same period are with a modern gun, the _principle_ was equally developed in the one case as in the other. Yet is there no engineer who can claim the credit of having said “As this principle admits of most important benefits being conferred on society, provided it be worked out, and carried to the perfection it admits of, I will devote myself to such working out and perfecting.”

Locomotive engines have been seen among us for these thirty years. Yet did the engineers of the day no more perceive and seize _their_ advantages than they did those of railways. But, after the perception and talent of various persons, who were in business had, for the purpose of adapting them to the necessities of their different trades, so improved railways and locomotive engines, as to have rendered the latter capable of running _regularly_ upon the former, at rates of from five to eleven miles an hour, forth came our engineers, and, claiming both inventions as their own, set themselves up as having enlarged the boundaries of science, enabled man to outstrip the fleetest animals, and almost to vie with the winds!

And, last of all, I ask, to whom are we indebted for the latest important discovery, by which unprofessional perception has shewn, that what _every_ engineer of the present day had pronounced to be, not only a mathematically-demonstrated, but also a _practically_-proved “impossibility,” is as perfectly, and as easily practicable, as it was for Columbus to make the egg stand on its end.

We have nearly 3000 miles of canals in the island; the draught on which being twenty times easier than on common roads, and the “wear and tear” equally less, it has, ever since they were first cut, been an important object to render the rate of conveyance along them rapid enough to induce persons to travel from place to place _on_ them, as well as to send their goods by them.

This became more particularly important, when, in consequence of the rapidity attained on railways, it was found that they could combine the conveyance of passengers with that of goods; and I do not hesitate to say, that any engineer, who had, in 1825, informed the Canal interest that he had discovered a method by which conveyance could be effected on canals at the same rate as by mail-coaches, or post-chaises on turn pike-roads, and for one-tenth of their expense of draught, might have made terms with them for the adoption of this method, which should have brought him in above 100,000_l._ sterling.

But, so far from the engineers of the day informing the canal interest that they could do any thing for them in this case, they universally preached despair with respect to it; satisfying them, by mathematical demonstration, that, owing to the resistance of fluids to bodies moving through them, increasing according to the square of the velocity, rapidity of transmission along canals was no more possible than for a coal-barge to beat to windward like a cutter.

It is true they admitted that the steam-engine gave them power enough to more vessels on canals as rapidly as steamers move on rivers. But, they said, owing to the surge which it was _unavoidable_ such rapid motion _must_ create, the banks of the canals would be so soon washed down, that it was impossible to avoid ruining the canals, if rapid conveyance were attempted on them. Therefore, though steam has been in use as a moving power on our rivers for above these twenty years, it has never yet been employed for a similar purpose on our canals, except in the way of experiment.

In consequence of these things, they could do nothing to meet the wishes of the canal interest: and, in the evidence on the Birmingham Railway, before the Lords’ Committees, on the 29th June, 1832, it is stated, in answer to an inquiry as to what was the quickest kind of canal communication between London and Birmingham, that “The fly boats go by the shortest route, and they are three days and three nights on the road.” Now as this “shortest route” is 152½ miles, it appears that the quickest rate of canal conveyance by “fly boats” was less than 2⅛th miles an hour; while in answer to the question, “What time is occupied by the slow boats?” it is replied, “About six or seven days: they seldom travel at night.”

In this state of despair on the part of the canal interest, and amid this chorus of “impossible,” on the part of the whole of the engineers of the present day, a private gentleman (William Houston, Esq. of Johnstone Castle) became impressed with the opinion that, equally as we can, by giving it rapid motion, cause a flat stone to skim over the surface of the water (as boys do, when playing at what they call “making ducks and drakes”) so might we, by giving rapid motion to a properly constructed boat an a canal, cause it, not only to skim _over_ the water, so as to avoid raising the wave which the engineers had pronounced equally unavoidable as it would be fatal to the banks of canals, but also much more easily than boats can be drawn _through_ the water.

On putting this thought into practice, Mr. Houston found the result to be what he had anticipated; and the consequence is, that it is now established by actual and _daily_ practice on the Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, that boats which carry more passengers than (on an average) the locomotive engines, of twenty and thirty horse power each, draw on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, at rates of from 15 to 20 miles an hour, {62} are drawn from Johnstone to Glasgow at the rate of ten miles an how by _two_ horses only; while a velocity so high as 15 miles an hour has been attained: “and this speed was not limited by _the labour of the draught_, but by _the power of speed_ of the horses.”

In other words, that which the whole of the engineers of the present day had pronounced and _demonstrated_ to be utterly impossible, is now constantly done, several times every day, as a regular passenger-carrying business, on the Paisley and Ardrossan Canal.

And, although the charges for this rate of conveyance are “just one-half, and one-third, of the fares in the Liverpool Railway coaches, the profits are such, as to have induced the proprietors to quadruple the number of boats on the canal;” while the passengers, instead of being boxed up as in the railway coaches, and exposed to the weather, as in the railway “second class carriages,” may either take exercise on the decks, or seat themselves in the long cabins of these passenger-boats.

As this method of rapid canal conveyance is becoming generally adopted, this simple idea of a private gentleman, has not only put to shame the whole of the engineering talent of the present day, but has also possessed the kingdom of nearly 3000 miles of liquid way, which, as if by the stroke of a wand, are raised from the low value of heavy, miry, cross country roads, on which no greater velocity than that of a carrier’s waggon could be attained, to the high value, not merely of the best turnpike-roads, on which the conveyance of persons, at mail-coach and post-chaise rates, can be effected, but also of routes on which two horses can (and daily do) draw one hundred people as fast and (I understand) _more_ easily than four draw sixteen persons on our best mail-coach roads, with less than one-twentieth the wear and tear to the vehicles than takes place as to coaches on roads: on advantage, the money value of which will be inadequately expressed by saying, that as it would cost above thirty thousand pounds per mile to give us roads on which the same power could do the same work, with the same small expense of wear, tear, and current expenses, the simple thought of a private gentleman, whom the engineers of the day would have pronounced a “nobody” in point of scientific authority, has possessed the nation of what it would have cost above one hundred millions sterling to purchase, had said engineers been employed to procure an equal amount of roads, of equally easy draught, and little “wear and tear” for us.

Yet are these gentlemen looked up to as infallible; and allowed to fulminate their anathemas with respect to what they please to pronounce “impossible” as if they were omniscient.

The actual charges the passenger-boats, which now run daily (at the rate of ten miles an hour) between Johnstone and Glasgow, are, one penny per head per mile in the first cabin, and three farthings per head per mile in the second cabin.

How much less these charges are than turnpike-road fares, need not be pointed out: my object being to submit, that equally as our canals having for these three-quarters of a century remained only routes for goods at carriers’-waggon rates, when they might, all along, have been routes for passengers at the highest rates whereat it is possible for horses to go, proves that the engineers of the day knew nothing whatever of a subject which they professed _fully and entirely_ to understand—so may they be equally ignorant of the merits of the proposition which they have so ridiculed and condemned me for presuming to bring forward; and which is, as exactly what _they_ term it, as they _demonstrated_ it to be “impossible” to be conveyed at mail-coach and posting-rates along canals.

Now, great as is the honour due to the engineers of the present day, for thus permitting the accidental thought of a private gentleman to possess the nation (as it were by the stroke of a wand) of 3000 miles of liquid way, over which conveyance may take place at rates of from 10 to 15 miles an hour, for one-tenth the expense, and less than one-tenth of the wear and tear that takes place on roads, after they had _demonstrated_ that no greater rate than two or three miles an hour could be attained on said routes; and, greatly as the canal interest must be indebted to them, for suffering them (the canal interest), in consequence of said _demonstration_, to lose the millions upon millions they might have received of the public, for conveyance at these rates of 10 or 15 miles an hour, during the three-quarters of a century canals have been in operation among us—equally as the engineers _thus_ deserve public gratitude, do they also deserve it for the manner in which they have suffered the law of motion, by means of which the stage-coachman “swings” his vehicle up the first part of a hill, to remain useless with respect to that improvement of our turnpike-roads which it admits of; and which, though not equal in money-value to the “idea” of Mr. Houston, which has just been described, is yet highly important.

The law itself is “old as the hills;” and, notwithstanding that the advantage taken of it by stage-coachmen when coming to the bottom of a rise, is not _quite_ of such long standing, yet is it old enough to have pointed out an advantageous alteration in the arrangement of all our turnpike roads, had the engineers under whose direction said roads were laid out, but availed themselves of it.