Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various

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"It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made
her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her
extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took
of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly
for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at
a glance, or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or
a prejudice. Hence, also, her lofty undeviating justice; her
regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous, that every one
within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with
unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of
those she loved best were involved, have cast a shadow of doubt
over her stainless impartiality.

"She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always
to conceive the objects of base minds:--

"'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
Where no ill seems.'
_Paradise Lost._

"Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and
insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often
believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely.
Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to
prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the
misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite
justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it
became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.

"She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life,
nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she
partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the
splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined,
apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved,
she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means
unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was
surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time
oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy.
She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an
advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime
of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the
excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her
in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her
opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which
she had lived!--hours that exalted the feelings, informed the
understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds,
who found that forty years of difference between their age and
hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and
rare delight to their intercourse.

"But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent
and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness,
that to them had been given a living evidence of the true
Christian spirit, for if hers were not true, than many errors be
more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps,
they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with
which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models
that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with
the charity she always taught."

Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity?
who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to lead armies,
not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, and armies
led, and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible
infirmity the frail, and as yet spotless creature whose moral, no less
than his physical, being must be derived from her; to inspire those
principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments,
which generations yet unborn, and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to
bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honour into refinement,
to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the
anguish of the body, and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her
tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to
cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the
ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that
are blighted, for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has
passed away. Such is her vocation--the couch of the tortured sufferer, the
prison of the deserted friend, the scaffold of the godlike patriot, the
cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence,
these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved.
Such is her destiny--to visit the forsaken, to attend to the neglected;
amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember--amid the execrations of
multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when
justice persecutes, when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken
and unchanged; and to exhibit, on this lower world, a type of that
love--pure, constant, and ineffable--which in another world we are taught
to believe the best reward of virtue.

* * * * *

A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS.

It is impossible to look, without surprise, to the progress of the railway
system since the first experiment in 1830. The Liverpool and Manchester
line was opened in the September of that year, at an expense of
L.1,200,000; and in the thirteen years since that period, line after line
has been laid down and opened for traffic, till the completed railways
amount to many hundred miles in length, and the expenditure of capital has
been many millions of money.

The advantages of a line between Manchester and Liverpool were obvious. It
connected the two towns--the importing and the manufacturing--which needed
connexion the most; and, in fact, the harbour gained an enormous
manufacturing population, and the population gained a harbour. The outlay,
prodigious as it was, was found a profitable investment; but the benefits
of the improvement were so great that the mere profits on the undertaking,
as a pecuniary speculation, were lost sight of, in the higher view of the
impetus given to the trade of these two main seats of our commercial
enterprize. It became a national undertaking; Birmingham and the other
wealthy towns were determined to have the same advantage; London became,
of course, the great centre to which every new line tended; and in an
incredibly short space of time, at an incredible expenditure of money, the
iron and cotton emporiums of the north, the packet stations of the south
and south-west, the agricultural and manufacturing districts of the
north-east, all were moved into the actual neighbourhood of the capital.
The beautiful Southampton water flowed within three hours of the Bank.
Ipswich was not much further off than Hammersmith; and Bath and Bristol
were but a morning's drive from Buckingham palace or Windsor.

What has been the effect of all these improvements, and to what do they
all tend?

If the whole prosperity of a nation depended on rapidity of conveyance,
there could be but one answer to the enquiry--but even in that case the
prosperity must depend on rapidity of conveyance between the particular
places which the railway unites--Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham and
London, and generally the great towns at the _termini_, and some
throughout all of the intermediate stations, have cause to rejoice in the
improvement. And land and houses in the neighbourhood have increased in
value, their correspondence is conducted in half the time, and money is of
course distributed in fertilizing rills by the crowds of travellers who
pass through them on their way to join the train. But these advantages are
local, and an opinion is now gaining ground that they are obtained at the
expense of other places. What possible benefit can accrue to a town or
neighbourhood near which the railway passes, but where there is no
station? Can it encourage the trade of such a town as Dangley or Standon
to know, that the five or six thousand beings who are whirled past them,
with almost invisible rapidity, every day, arrive in Liverpool in ten
hours after leaving London? On the contrary, is it not found to be
directly injurious to them by the encouragement it gives to towns and
villages more favourably situated; while their inns become deserted, their
tradespeople are drifted out of the great stream of business, their
turn-pikes are ruined, and grass grows in their streets. Let us take any
one of the great lines, and see the number of towns whose ancient
prosperity it has destroyed. From London to York a few years ago, ten or
twelve coaches gave life and animation to all the places they passed
through. Their hotels and commercial rooms were filled at every blowing
of the guard's horn; tradespeople looked out from behind their counters
with a smile, as, with a dart and rattle, the four thoroughbred greys
pulled the well-known fast coach up the street, loaded inside and out.
They became proud of their Tally-ho, or Phenomenon; they got their
newspapers and parcels "with accuracy and despatch," and enjoyed the
natural advantages of their situation. Now the case is altered; a
two-horse coach, or perhaps an omnibus, jumbles occasionally to the
railway station, and the traveller complains that it takes him longer
time to go the ten or twelve miles across the country than all the rest
of the journey. Then he grumbles at the inconvenience of changing his
mode of conveyance, and only revisits the out-of-the-way place when he
cannot avoid it.

A person settling in one of these towns twenty years ago, establishing
trade, buying or building premises, in the belief that, however business
may alter from other causes, his geographical position must, at all
events, continue unchanged, must be as much astonished as was Macbeth at
the migratory propensities of Birnam forest, when he perceives that towns
a hundred miles down the road have actually walked between him and London;
get their town parcels much earlier, and have digested and nearly
forgotten their newspaper, while he is waiting in a fever of expectation
to know whether rums is much riz or sugars is greatly fell. He calls for a
branch railway to put him on equal terms; but a vast hill, perhaps, rises
between him and the main line--it would cost forty thousands pounds a
mile--he must bore an enormous tunnel, and fill up a prodigious valley,
and the united wealth of all the shopkeepers in the town would fall far
short of the required half million. He sinks down in sheer despair, or
takes to drinking with the innkeeper, who has already had an attack of
_delirium tremens_, gives up the _Times_ newspaper for the _Weekly
Despatch_, and thinks Mr Frost a much injured character, and Rebecca a
Welsh Hampden. The railway has touched his pocket, and the iron has
entered into his soul. He feels as if he lived at the Land's-End, or had
emigrated to the back woods of America. All the world goes at a gallop,
and he creeps. Finally, he is removed to Hanwell, and endeavours to
persuade Dr Conolly that he is one of Stephenson's engines, and goes
hissing and spurting in fierce imitation of Rapid or Infernal. And all
this is the natural consequence of having settled in an ancient city
inaccessible to rails. A list could easily be made out that would astonish
any one who had not reflected on the subject before, of cities and towns
which must yield up their relative rank to more aspiring neighbourhoods on
whom the gods of steam and iron have smiled. It will be sufficient to
point out a few instances in some of the main lines of mail-coach
travelling, and see what their position is now.

Let us go to Lincoln, region of fens and enterprize, of fat land and jolly
yeomen. The mail is just ready to start; we pay our fare, and, after
seeing our luggage carefully deposited in the recesses of the boot, we
mount beside the red-faced, much-becoated individual who is flickering his
whip in idle listlessness on the box; the guard gives a triumphal shout on
his short tin horn, the flickering of the whip ceases, the horses snort
and paw, and finally, in a tempest of sound and a whirlwind of dust, we
career onward from the Saracen's head, and watch the stepping of the
stately team with pride and exultation--a hundred and forty miles before
us, and thirteen hours on the road.

In fifty-five minutes we are at Barnet--pick up a stout gentleman and
plethoric portmanteau in the green shades of Little Heath lane; and
dashing through Hatfield, as if we were announcing Waterloo, change horses
again at Stanborough. Away, away, the coach and we, with two very jolly
fellows on the roof, and cross in due time the beautiful river Lea,
scattering letter-bags at every gentleman's lodge as we pass, with a due
proportion of fish-baskets and other diminutive parcels. Hedges, row
after row, dance past us with all their leaves and blossoms--milestone
after milestone is merrily left behind--we have crossed the Maran, the
Joel; the sluggish Ouse, trotted gaily on under the shadow of the
episcopal towers of Buckden, and perform wonders with a knife and fork, in
the short space of twenty minutes, in the comfortable hotel at Stamford.
Refreshed and invigorated with a couple of ducks and a vast goblet of
home-brewed--for it is well known we and all other good subjects are rigid
anti-Mathewsians--we continue our course through unnumbered villages and
market towns, Coltersworth, Spittlegate, Ponton, Grantham, till Newark
opens her hospitable gates; and finally, as "the shades of eve begin to
fall," we descend from our proud eminence and commit ourselves to the
tender attentions of a civil landlord, two waiters, and a stout
chambermaid, in the chief inn of the good town of Lincoln.

Many coaches followed our track. Like the waves of the summer, as one
rolled away, another as bright and as shining, came on. Every lane formed
a "terminus," where a motion of the hand gave notice to the coachman that
a passenger wished to get in; and it is impossible to doubt that the
traffic along that smooth and wide highway was a source of prosperity to
the whole neighbourhood.

The coaches are now off the road--the letters are carried by a mail train,
and forwarded across in a high gig with red wheels, and the liveliness and
bustle of all the villages and country towns are gone--a few more years,
and the ruin of every turnpike trust in England will be another proof of
the irresistible power of steam.

It is not contended that rapid intercommunication is an evil; or even that
the towns we have mentioned, and hundreds of others, in all parts of the
country, do not participate in the advantage, to the extent of being
within a shorter distance of London than they were before; for it is
evident, that to go to Lincoln would occupy less time if you went to
Leicester by the railroad, and travelled the remaining miles by coach. But
this is what we maintain--that towns or lines of road through which the
railway runs, have an undue advantage--and that the prosperity so
acquired, is at the expense of the towns which are not only at a distance
from the new mode of communication, but are deprived of the old. Twelve
years ago, upwards of a hundred coaches passed through Oxford in the
four-and-twenty hours. We will be bound to say, not half a dozen pass
through it now; and whatever the _University_ may think upon the subject,
it is certain that the alteration is of great detriment to the _town_,
and makes little less difference to the Corn-market and High Street, than
the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping.
Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair?
And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns
along the line? Will the prosperity of Steveton bring back the gaieties
of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield, and the numerous villages within an easy
distance of the road? We repeat it--the towns which formerly enjoyed the
natural advantages of their geographical position, are now deprived of
them; they become subordinates instead of principals, and will sink more
and more, as new competitors arise in the towns which will infallibly
gather round every railway station.

In every county there are numbers of towns whose fate is sealed, unless
some great effort is made to preserve their existence: Marlborough,
Devizes, Hindon, Guildford, Farnham, Petersfield, the whole counties of
Rutland and Dorset, and the greater part of Lincoln, besides hundreds, or
probably thousands, of other places of inferior note.

But what is the effort that should be made, and how are the parties
interested to bring their powers to bear in staving off the destruction
that threatens them? It is to these points we are now about to address
ourselves; and we trust, in spite of the lightness of some parts of this
paper; the real weight of the subject will command the notice of all who
feel anxious to benefit any neighbourhood in the position of some of those
we have mentioned. And the attention of the trustees of high-roads
throughout the kingdom is solicited to the following suggestions.

It is conceded on all hands, that where speed is required in draught, the
horse cannot compete with mechanical power. At three miles an hour, the
horse is the most perfect locomotive machine; but if his velocity be
increased to ten, most of his power is consumed in moving himself. The
average exertion in each horse in a four-horse heavy coach, is calculated
by the author of the excellent Treatise on Draught, appended to the work
published on the Horse by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, not to be equal to a strain of more than 62-1/2 lbs., and at
twelve miles an hour to be barely 40 lbs. It is therefore useless to rely
oh horse-power to enable a neighbourhood to retain its advantages in
competition with a railway. To meet this difficulty many ingenious men
turned their attention to the possibility of inventing a steam-engine
applicable to common roads; and although, in several instances, their
experiments succeeded, and many of the difficulties were overcome, still
it is not to be denied that, on the whole, macadamized roads are not
adapted to locomotive machines. Even when the road is in the best possible
condition, the concussion is found so great as materially to interfere
with the action of the machinery; and if the road be slightly muddy, or
sandy, or newly gravelled, the draught will be double, or even treble what
it is on the same road when free from dirt or dust. The author of the
_Treatise on Draught_, accordingly, concludes against the use of
steam-carriages on common roads, chiefly on account of their want of
uniform hardness and smoothness, and the consequent wear and tear of the
coach. "Perfection in a road," he says, "would be a plain, level, hard
surface;" and in another passage--"Hardness, therefore, and consequently
the absence of dust and dirt, which is easily crushed or displaced, is
the grand desideratum in roads."

These opinions were published in 1831, and since that period the
desideratum has been supplied. A method of preparing a road has been
discovered, uniting all the qualities required for the perfection of a
highway. We allude to the system recently introduced of paving a road with
wood. On this smooth and hard surface a steam coach goes more easily than
on iron rails, and the expense of laying it down is trifling in
comparison.

At a meeting of the South-eastern Railway Company in July 1843, a branch
line to Maidstone, ten miles in length, was proposed; and as the directors
were satisfied it would be beneficial to the parent line, they determined
to raise L.149,300, on loan notes or mortgage, to complete it. This gives
an expenditure of L.15,000 a mile, and, judging from the estimate of other
lines, the estimate is exceedingly low. For less than a third of the sum,
the distance could have been laid down in wood without interfering with
the traffic of the present road; for one great advantage of the proposed
method consists in this, that by setting aside a portion of the present
highway, where it is wide enough, or widening it a few feet where it is
too narrow, the turnpike would derive a considerable income from the
steam-coaches, and the traffic would continue in its accustomed channels.
Where a portion of the road was set apart for the sole use of the
steam-coaches, they could travel at a very considerable rate, and at a
third of the expense of horse-power. And even if the wooden lines were
laid down on the common road, with no exclusive barriers between them and
other vehicles, a speed of fifteen or sixteen miles an hour could be
maintained with perfect safety to themselves and the public. On the 27th
of April last year, Mr Squire tried his steam-carriage in the streets of
London, and ran along the macadamized part, then in fine condition, at
the rate of fifteen miles an hour. On coming to the wooden pavement the
difference was at once perceptible; and he pronounced that on such roads
he should have no difficulty in keeping up a velocity of thirty miles an
hour. In other respects, his carriage appeared to be perfect, and was
guided with much greater facility than an ordinary coach.

This gentleman had run his carriage on common roads with great success;
and the experiments made in 1831 had attracted so much notice, that a
Parliamentary Committee was appointed in that year; and another in 1834,
to examine into the subject. As the decision of these committees was
eminently favourable, in spite of the difficulties, at that time generally
thought insurmountable, arising from the nature of the highways to be
travelled on, we shall quote some portion of their reports, from which it
will be seen that all other difficulties were overcome.

Mr Goldsworthy Gurney, the first inventor of steam-coaches adapted for
common roads, says in his evidence--

"I have always found the most perfect command in guiding these carriages.
Suppose we were going at the rate of eight miles an hour, we could stop
immediately. In case of emergency, we could instantly throw the steam on
the reverse side of the piston, and stop within a few yards. The stop of
the carriage is singular; it would be supposed that the momentum would
carry it far forward, but it is not so; the steam brings it up gradually
and safely, though rather suddenly--I would say within six or seven yards.
On a declivity, we are well stored with apparatus: we have three different
modes of dragging the carriage."

"You stated in your former evidence, that you anticipated that passengers
would be carried at one-half the rate by your steam-carriages that they
are by the common carriages; what difference in the ordinary expences of
carriage would it make, if you had a paved road for this purpose?

"I think it would reduce the expense to one-half again."

"To what velocity could you increase your present rate of travelling with
your engine?"

"I have stated that the velocity is limited by practical experience only;
theoretically it is limited only by quantity of steam. Twelve miles, I
think, we could keep up steadily, and run with great safety. The extreme
rate that we have run, is between twenty and thirty miles an hour."

"What is the greatest number of passengers you have taken on that
carriage?"

"Thirty-six passengers and their luggage. The greatest weight we could
draw by that carriage, at the rate of ten miles an hour, is from forty to
fifty hundred-weight. The greatest weight we ever drew on the common road,
at a rate of from five to six miles an hour, was eleven tons. We made the
experiment on the Bristol road. The weight of the drawing carriage was
upwards of two tons; it drew five times its own weight. The eleven tons
included the weight of the drawing carriage, and I did not consider that
its maximum power."

In a very scientific and interesting Treatise on Locomotion, by Mr
Alexander Gordon, a civil engineer of eminence, we find an account given
of the trial of power alluded to by Mr Gurney. A pair of three feet wheels
were used on the hind axle, and the engine drew with ease a large waggon
loaded with cast-iron. After going about a mile and a quarter, a cart also
loaded with cast-iron was attached to the waggon. The engine started with
these loaded carriages, and returned to Gloucester. The additional weight
made so little apparent difference to the engine, that on the way back
several persons among the spectators got up and rode; the number
altogether amounted to twenty-six. The united weight amounted to ten tons.
Going into Gloucester, there is a rise of one foot in twenty, or
twenty-five.

Two great objections were advanced by the opponents of the proposed
innovation, which are most emphatically answered by the Report of the
Committee of 1834. Even in 1831, the Committee reported as follows:--

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