CHAPTER XIV.
ITALY—THE EASTERN MAILS—SICILY.
Arrived in Italy, either by the Mont Cenis Railway, or by that through the Tunnel of the Alps, we have in front of us a Peninsula which juts for an extent (taking Susa as the extreme northern point and Otranto as the extreme southern) of 765 miles into the ocean. On the east, the ocean is called the Adriatic; on the south as well as on the west, the Mediterranean, a sea that contains within its limits a surface of 579,000 square miles.
We have already described the mighty railway company, _Alta Italia_, 2,565 miles in length, of which, since the close of the war of 1866, 1,349 belong to the South Austrian Division, and 1,216 to that of _Alta Italia_ proper. If we are on our road to Brindisi, we arrive at the end of _Alta Italia_ at Bologna, and, at that station come upon _Ferrovia Meridionale_. From Bologna, the line, proceeding southwards but also verging towards the eastward, gets to the Adriatic at Rimini, and thence, hugging the shore, it touches at Ancona, distant 127 miles from Bologna. From Ancona it still follows the shore of the Adriatic, except that at the Spur of the Boot it passes inwards through Foggia, 331 miles from Bologna. It is at this point that the line which is to unite Naples by the shortest possible railway connection, with the Adriatic, branches off. Its total length will be 124 miles; 43 are now open for traffic, 68 will be finished in the summer of 1868, leaving only a blank of 12 miles to be continued. Unfortunately, however, on these 12 miles, situated in the very heart of the Apennines, are concentrated the greatest works of the railway—three tunnels, one of which will be 2 miles and 17 yards long, and when completed will be the longest railway tunnel in Italy; the two others will be of the united length of 2 miles and 890 yards.
Reverting to Foggia, the main line, proceeding southerly and easterly for 145 miles, reaches Brindisi, 470 miles from Bologna, 711 from Susa, 1,180 from Paris, and 1,477 from London.
Captain Tyler, in his interesting Report of 1866, reviews the relative capabilities of the several harbours of Italy for the receipt and despatch of our Eastern mails, and without hesitation, names Brindisi as the one that should be selected. The harbour is composed of an outer port of about 1¼ mile long by about half that distance at its greatest width. It is connected by a channel 290 yards, or the sixth of a mile, with two inner harbours or arms, the western of which is to be the Packet Harbour. The Italian Government have important works going on at Brindisi, and their objects are the security of the outer port, the deepening of the channel, and the facing of the channel that connects the outer and inner ports, as well as the sides of the latter, with solid masonry. During 1865 and 1866, 1,800,000 cubic feet of excavation were accomplished and very considerable progress has been made with the masonry, but at the present moment the works rather flag. It is stated, however, by the Government authorities, that as soon as it is decided that the British Contract Steamers carrying the Eastern mails to and from Alexandria, shall make Brindisi their port, the works will be resumed with great vigour. The present depth of the channel is 19½ feet, but this depth is to be increased to 26 feet at low water, not only at the channel, but at the passenger jetty (to which the railway will be extended), and alongside the coal depôt. This depth would be sufficient for the largest steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental, or of any other company, and with the view to affording suitable accommodation for large ships in case of need, it has been decided to construct immediately a dry dock, 380 feet long, at an estimated cost of £100,000. At the entrance of the outer port, and for a quarter of a mile within it, the depth of water will be from 28 to 37 feet. The rise and fall of tide at Brindisi is not more than 1½ foot. A plan of the harbour is appended.
Whilst at Brindisi, it is impossible to omit reference to its future with respect to the conveyance of our Eastern mails to and from Alexandria. This subject is divisible into two portions—conveyance of the fast and conveyance of the heavy mails. These mails go at present respectively _viâ_ Marseilles and _viâ_ Southampton. A contract now in course of completion between the Post Office and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company is about to bind the nation to the Southampton route for _twelve years_. It admits, however, of the transfer of the fast mails _viâ_ Marseilles being likely to take place at a period more or less proximate. If the reader will be so good as to refer to Appendix No. 3 in this volume, he will see a memorandum in which the course of the Eastern mails, both fast and heavy, is indicated, and the vast difference between the time that letters take in their conveyance by the two routes—that is, _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles. This difference will continue until all mails, both fast and heavy, are carried (as eventually they will be) by Brindisi.
The following table exhibits the relative distances between London and Alexandria by the three routes. The computation is in English miles.
Viâ. Land. Water. Total. Southampton 78 3,353 3,431 Marseilles 833 1,701 2,534 Brindisi 1,477 954 2,431
There is therefore a less distance _viâ_ Brindisi than _viâ_ Marseilles of 103 miles; than _viâ_ Southampton of 1,000 miles; but, as Captain Tyler says—“Apart from contingencies, which must be always greater by sea than by land conveyance, the speed on a railway is usually double that at sea,” hence the captain strongly recommends the Brindisi route, not only on account of its being the shortest between London and Alexandria, but likewise because the land portion exceeds that _viâ_ Marseilles by 644 miles, and that _viâ_ Southampton by 1,399 miles. As a question of time, the computation made is as follows:—Southampton fifteen days, Marseilles eight days one hour, Brindisi six days seven hours.[143]
The contrast between the weight of the Eastern mails carried in 1850 and at the present time is marvellous. Then the annual number of boxes despatched, the average weight of each of which was about 60 lbs., was under 2,500; in 1867 it is at the rate of 25,152. It is true that since 1858 the Australian mails are conveyed by the overland route—they are only despatched once a month, both _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles, but then they form nearly two-thirds of the total weight of the mails; they swell the number of boxes from the average of 524 to 1,347.
But we must ask our reader to continue his land journey a little further south than Brindisi, just for a moment, so that he may get to Leece, twenty-five miles. This is as far as he can go by railway towards Otranto, twenty-nine miles farther at the very extremity of the heel of the boot of Italy, the Castle of which used, in the days of our boyhood, thanks to Horace Walpole, to enchain, enchant, delight and to terrify us. We feel bound to acknowledge the fact that we are exactly forty-five years older than we were forty-five years ago. We fear we must also confess to a sense of terror about Otranto that can only cease with our own cessation. We are therefore not surprised that even Captain Tyler, stout, resolute and brave as he is, did not wish to go to Otranto. “I did not,” says Captain Tyler in his report of 1866, “even consider it worth while to visit Otranto, although I made a personal inspection of all the other Italian Ports to which I have referred, as well as those of Naples and Genoa.” In other words, Captain Tyler visited every Italian Port except one, and that one was Hob-gob-lin!
The connection of the _Ferovia Meridionale_ with the net-work of the _Calabro-Sicula_ is effected by means of a branch given off at Bari, half way between Foggia and Brindisi, and running for seventy-two miles south to Tarento, situated at the very top of the front of Italy’s heel. Whilst Brindisi is intended to be the commercial port of Italy towards its southern extremity, Tarento is to be its great southern port for military purposes. The extent and depth of the outer harbour, its great natural advantage in a military as well as in a naval point of view, and the extent of the “_seno interno_” or inner expanse of deep water, render it admirably applicable for a naval arsenal. It will therefore eventually fulfil for Italy the purposes which Plymouth fulfils for England, while Spezzia on the Mediterranean, half way between Genoa and Leghorn, may be considered as Italy’s Portsmouth.
The main-land as well as the Sicilian portions of the _Calabro-Sicula_ are at the present time very much longer on paper than on _terra firma_. The longest of the Calabrian sections is, when completed, to extend from Tarento all along the undersole of Italy as well as to the ball of the foot, and thence to its very tip-toe at Reggio, a distance of 300 miles; but although ten years have elapsed since the railway works were taken in hand, only the ten miles nearest to Reggio have as yet been completed. As, however, the Italian Government has recently made a loan of £720,000 to the company, the works are carried on actively, and it is probable that half-way in 1868 (portions perhaps earlier) 127 miles, in two sections, of which one from Tarento westward will be 90 miles, and the other will extend the line from Reggio 47 miles, will be ready for traffic. Of the remaining 163 miles to complete the continuous railway tie along the sole of Italy, some slight progress has been made on 56 miles, none on 107.
In reply to a question put by us to a gentleman of the administration of the company, to whom we are mainly indebted for the foregoing information, “Quando sar[=a] terminata la Linea—Tarento—Reggio?” we were told, “Non è dato respondere a questa domanda senza conoscere di quali mezzi la societa potrà disporre;” and we received precisely the same answer in respect of the Sicilian lines of the company.
The distance between Reggio and Messina is exactly 7½ miles. As we are here on the dominions of Scylla and Charybdis, it is no wonder that the steamers of the company, which ply backwards and forwards in connection with its trains, are often impeded by the numerous currents and the heavy gusts of wind that prevail in the Straits of Messina. Nevertheless, the passage from port to port is usually made in less than an hour, although at times the navigation is so difficult and dangerous, that, in winter, the Royal Postal Steamers of the Italian Government are occasionally unable to land their mails at Reggio, and are compelled to carry them on to their next port of call.
We live in an age of wonders. M. Oudry, one of the engineers of the _Ponts et Chaussées_ of France, proposes to cross over the Straits of Messina with a suspension bridge of four spans, each 1,000 metres, or 3,281 feet long. The bridge (which is to be made available for railways) would thus be 4,200 metres, or two miles and five-eighths long, exclusive of the great sustaining piers at each edge of the water. M. Oudry selects this width in preference to the narrowest part of the Straits, which is 3,200 metres, exactly two miles wide, because at the spot of his selection the depth of his two central piers, _under water_, would he only 110 metres; whereas, if he took the narrowest part of the Straits, his two piers must be of the under-water depth of 130.
The lower surface of the platforms should, in M. Oudry’s opinion, be 50 metres above high water, and to that elevation he proposes they should be carried. The towers of the piers being, say, 40 metres higher, the total pier elevation to be constructed, exclusive of foundations, would be about 200 metres, exactly half as high again as the top of the cross of St. Paul’s. Semiramis, after a repose of nearly 4,900 years, should be started into life again, together with her two millions of Assyrians. Her greatest elevation, however, was only 350 feet—the walls of Babylon—270 feet short of the piers of M. Oudry. To be sure the walls were said to be seventy miles long, and wide enough at top for five chariots.
Of the total length of railways contemplated and sanctioned for Sicily—347 miles, 82 are opened for traffic, of which 59½ are from Messina (passing in its course at the foot of Mount Etna) to Catania, in the direction of Syracuse; and 22½ from Palermo to Marsala. It is a striking illustration of the rapid development which takes place through the opening of railways in a fertile country, that the traffic receipts per mile on the Sicilian sections opened have, since the commencement of 1867, been at the rate of £640 per annum. The directors of the company consider (apparently with justice) this amount as indicating very satisfactory results for the future.
Whilst upon the railways in the extreme Southern Italy, we wish to mention a non-feasible theory that has been propounded to us during a visit we paid to Italy in July last. As England is to have her overland route to her Eastern possessions through Brindisi, why should not France find her way to Algeria by Reggio, and thence to Marsala, from which latter port the city of Tunis is only separated by some 90 miles of water? From Tunis to Constantine, and thence to Algiers, the measurement is 400 miles. But while the distance from Paris to Algiers, _viâ_ Marseilles, is 1,100 miles, that _viâ_ Reggio is 2,297, in which are comprised 500 miles of intended railway, the construction of which is not likely to be accomplished for several years to come.
“The world,” says the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in its recent review of Alfred Von Reaumont’s Work, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_,[144] “may be divided into those who have been to Rome, and those who wish to go there, with more or less of looming hope that the wish may be gratified.” For the wishful and the hopeful there are facilities that did not exist even twelve months ago. The “Roman Railways” Company is the second, both in length and importance on Italian soil, as it consists of 1,024 miles “_en exploitation_,” and by it, not only Rome, but Naples may be approached from the north, either _viâ_ Florence or _viâ_ Ancona, and there is a net-work of lines running farther south than Naples, which will ultimately join at the Sole of the Boot, with the Calabro-Sicilian Railways. Summed up, the railway mileage of the whole Italian Peninsula now open for traffic is 3,040 miles. There will be further openings of them, to the extent of about 250 miles before the end of 1868; but as regards lines projected, or to which even the words “_en construction_” may be applied, we must wait for their realisation until the whole system of Italian finance and of Italian credit has been put upon a more solid basis than that upon which it is at present founded. But thanks to railways as they now exist towards and in Italy, the traveller, bent on tip-top speed, can leave London on any morning of the week, and even now, before the opening of the Mont Cenis Railway is accomplished, he can reach Turin before the chimes of the innumerable, and not always correctly-going public clocks in that city have struck twelve the following night. Of these clocks it is said that a person knowing them well, may start on a perambulation through the city as the first commences striking twelve and complete a circuit in which he shall never be out of public clock hearing, just as that from which he started is striking one. “When the Mont Cenis Railway is opened, the traveller in search of haste can reach Turin in time to start that night for Florence, and arrive there at eight o’clock the following morning—forty-eight hours from London to Florence—What distance? 1,122 miles. Resting in the city for thirteen hours, he can proceed at 9.10 p.m. to Rome, the distance of which from Florence, 233 miles, he can accomplish in nine hours and twenty minutes, which includes Frontier Visa, both of luggage and of passport. If he be determined not to tarry at the Eternal City more than four hours, he can proceed on his way for Naples, 163 miles farther, and be there 21 hours after he has left Florence, and (including his 13 hours pause there) 44 after he has left Turin, 70 after he has left Paris, 83 after he has left London; from which Naples is distant by railway measurement exactly 1,518 miles.
The railway distance from Florence to Rome will be lessened some thirty miles by the opening early next year of the line _viâ_ Orvietto. It will also, of course, lessen to the same extent the journey between Florence and Naples, but in some years hence the railway between Southern and Northern Italy, avoiding Florence altogether, will be shortened by 93 miles, that is, when two unfinished portions of line along the west coast of Italy, one between Genoa and Spezzia 57 miles, and the other, the portion of the line between Civita Vecchia and Leghorn, nearest to the former, 36 miles, are completed. The works required upon these lines will be extremely heavy and extremely costly. How the money is to be found for them passes even conjecture, at the time of our present writing.
“_Vede Napoli e mori._” We have seen her; we obey the injunction, and we depart in peace with but one word on dying lips,
FINIS.
APPENDIX, No. 1.
REPORT BY MR. EDWARD PAGE, INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF MAILS, ON SOME POINTS CONNECTED WITH THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT AND RAILWAY COMPANIES.
(_See page_ 85.)
GENERAL POST OFFICE, _29th February, 1856_.
SIR,
In the First Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, presented to Parliament last year, it is stated by Lord Canning as one of the reasons for instituting such a report, that “many misapprehensions arise from an imperfect knowledge of matters which might, without any inconvenience, be placed before the public.”
That such misapprehensions do exist as to several matters connected with the railway branch of the Post Office Service has lately been exemplified in an address by Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., on his election as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In that address Mr. Stephenson (no doubt without any intention whatever to mislead) puts forward, in effect, the following statements, which I believe to be inaccurate:—
1st. That the scheme of penny postage, to the extent to which it has so far been developed, would have been impracticable, or, if practicable, unremunerative, but for the facilities afforded by railways for conveying bulk.
2nd. That railway companies, instead of being liberally treated by the Post Office, are called upon to perform the service of that department at a rate of remuneration which affords little or no profit.
3rd. That the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates.
My object in this Report is to direct your attention to the facts on which, in my opinion, the Post Office is entitled to rely in opposition to the above allegations, the last of which has likewise been recently adopted in the Report of the Committee of Consultation of the London and North-Western Railway. It may perhaps be the desire of the Postmaster-General to furnish, in his Report for the current year, some corrections of these misconceptions, the more especially as Mr. Stephenson states, in the very outset of his address, that his chief object is to suggest topics for communications and discussion at future meetings over which he may have to preside. Such a correction is the more necessary, because there is reason to apprehend that these and other similar opinions which have been at various times promulgated have, by being made the ground for claiming special additional payment for the mail service, affected to a certain extent the arbitrations between the Post Office and railway companies, and have thus acquired practical importance.
On the first point (taking the subjects in the order in which they are named above), it is hardly to be wondered at that the public generally should be led to form erroneous impressions, seeing how imperfectly the details of the Post Office are usually understood. But it will not be difficult to prove that the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Stephenson cannot be supported, and to show that the increase which has taken place in the weight of the mails would have presented no difficulty to their conveyance by mail coaches, and that since the transfer of the mails from coaches to railways, the cost of transmission has increased in a _far greater degree_ than it would probably have done had railways never been constructed.
I should premise that it has been ascertained from returns kept by the department, that while the whole number of chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom has increased about six-fold, the increase has been about nine-fold with respect to letters to and from London; and the same remark applies, although the increase is in a somewhat different ratio, to newspaper and book parcels. If, therefore, it can be shown that the weight of mails at present despatched from London (which greatly exceeds that of mails brought to London) could have been carried by mail coaches, it follows that no difficulty would have arisen with the mails in other parts of the country, where the increase of weight has not been so large.
The actual increase in the weight of the mails has been much less than is generally believed. It is often supposed that, because the whole number of letters has, since the introduction of penny postage, increased six-fold, therefore the whole weight of the mails has also increased six-fold. But when it is recollected that by far the larger portion of the mails has always consisted of newspapers, which were not in any way affected by the scheme of penny postage, it will be obvious that it would require a very large increase in the weight of the small or letter portion of the mails before the total weight would exhibit more than a small per centage of increase.[145]
In 1838 the gross weight of the night mails despatched from London in a single evening was about 4 tons 6 cwt. 1 qr. At the present time the total weight of the night mails despatched in a single evening may be stated at about 12 tons 4 cwt. 3 qrs. It will be seen, therefore, that the total increase in the weight has been only 183 per cent., or less than three-fold.
Mr. Stephenson correctly states that in 1838 the number of mail coaches leaving London each evening was twenty-eight, giving an average load for each coach of 3 cwt. 9 lbs., supposing the weight to have been equally distributed, which I am far from assuming was the case. Taking the present weight of mails, and assuming that these twenty-eight mail coaches were still running, the average load for each coach would be 8 cwt. 3 qrs. Now a reference to the Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage in 1838, pages 48 and 50, will show that, according to the testimony of the Post Office witnesses[146] (the general tendency of whose views was certainly not at that time favourable to the practicability of penny postage), a weight of bags amounting to 18 cwt., or more than double what the present average load would have been, was sometimes carried on one mail coach, and that a load of 15 cwt., in addition to the usual limited number of passengers and luggage, was by no means too high a maximum to fix for mail coaches generally.
Admitting, however, that the weight was not equally distributed over all the mail coaches, and recollecting, at the same time, that this average load of 8 cwt. 3 qrs. would be above the average ordinary load on any other than weekly newspaper nights, when it would no doubt be higher, the inference is still a fair one that the greater part of the mail coaches would have borne the increase of weight without any difficulty, although there can be no doubt that, on some of the lines, additional coaches would have been required for a portion of the distance.
But the result which the above calculations justify is a great deal more favourable than is at all necessary for the purpose of disproving Mr. Stephenson’s argument, that the expenses of carrying out penny postage would have been so large as to have entailed a certain loss.
Let us suppose that, partly to meet the increase of weight, either daily or on the heavy newspaper night only, and partly to provide for the establishment of additional day mails (they were already in existence on some of the lines), the number of mail coaches would have been doubled all over the kingdom, and that their cost would also have been doubled (an improbable supposition, considering the increase in the number of passenger coaches which must, in the absence of railways, have necessarily taken place to meet the increase of traffic). The expenditure of the department for mail-coach service would in that case have been advanced from £155,000[147] to only £310,000 per annum, while the present expenditure for the railway and mail coach service of the department is £443,000, of which sum £400,000 is paid to railway companies alone. Not only, therefore, would penny postage without railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but it would have been even more profitable (assuming the existing increase of letters) than it now is.
In order to show the impracticability of carrying out the penny postage system without the use of railways, Mr. Stephenson states, while speaking of the mails now carried by the London and North-Western Railway, that “not one mail coach alone, but fourteen or fifteen mails would have been needed to carry on with regularity the Post Office traffic.” It is probable that Mr. Stephenson is not very far wrong in this assumption, although he deduces from it the erroneous conclusion that penny postage must have entailed a certain loss. The facts of the case are, that in 1838 twelve or thirteen mail coaches from London were actually employed to carry the mails which now leave London by the London and North-Western Railway; so that, on Mr. Stephenson’s own estimate, only two or three additional mail coaches would have been required for forwarding those mails, which, it may be observed, constitute about one-half of the whole of the night mail leaving London.
The mail coaches which formerly carried the mails now leaving London in a concentrated form by the London and North-Western night mail train, were as follows, viz.:—
London and Edinbro’ Night Mail. London and Leeds ” London and Halifax ” London and Holyhead ” London and Liverpool ” London and Manchester ” London and Glasgow ” London and Carlisle ” London and Derby ” London and Birmingham ” London and Birmingham } ” (Dublin Express) } London and Hull }[148] ” London and Worcester }
In alluding to the advantages which have been conferred by railways, Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration, the cheap transmission of the printed proceedings of Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings _were conveyed by post free of all charges_. On the introduction of penny postage, a postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, and this charge has continued up to the present day.
Referring to the relations between the Post Office and railway companies as to the remuneration for mail service, I should observe, that under the old mail-coach system, the Post Office was protected from undue demands for the transmission of its mails along the public highways of the kingdom by means of _competition_. The principle of free trade in locomotion operated as a safeguard against extravagant charges. Coach proprietors, who had established themselves on any road, were prevented from taking advantage of their occupation of the line to levy unreasonable charges for either passengers or mails, by a wholesome fear of opposition. The result was, that by constantly offering its contracts to public competition, the Post Office insured the performance of its service on terms which afforded only a fair and moderate profit to the contracting parties.
The introduction of railways practically destroyed competition, and placed large monopolies in the hands of a few private companies; but, to compensate for this, Parliament took the precaution of insuring moderate charges for passenger conveyance, by special provision in each Railway Act. Strange to say, a similar provision as regards the remuneration for Post Office service was omitted, and it was deemed sufficient to specify that the remuneration should be “reasonable;” a most indefinite term, and one which has given rise to infinite variety of opinion.
It is true that, failing an amicable settlement, provision is made for a reference to arbitration; but, in the absence of any general principles to guide the arbitrators or umpire in their judgment of what is or is not reasonable, the question resolves itself into one of individual opinion, and the consequence has been that the most conflicting decisions have been arrived at in cases which, if not identical, have been so nearly alike as to render it impossible to reconcile the strange variation in the rates awarded.
Without, however, dwelling upon the uncertainty of arbitration, which is by no means its least objectionable feature, it can readily be shown that this mode of determining payments has led to results very different from those implied by Mr. Stephenson, who states that for trains put on to suit the Post Office service, very little remuneration is allowed beyond the absolute outlay which the service entails, and that the Post Office insists on the right of travelling at the mere actual cost.
It can hardly be necessary to point out that the Post Office has no more power than a railway company has to fix any particular rate, or to insist upon any principle of its own in regard to payment. The department can do no more than give expression to the views which it believes to be fair and just, leaving the final decision to the umpire. But that those decisions have allowed to railway companies the mere actual outlay, with little or no profit, is a misapprehension which a brief examination of some recent awards will suffice to remove.
It fortunately happens that Mr. Stephenson furnishes in his address the data for checking his own accuracy on this particular point. He says that locomotive expenses on railways do not on an average exceed 9½d. per mile, and that the cost of running a train may be assumed in most cases to be about 15d. per mile. Compare this with some of the rates actually paid by the Post Office to different companies at various periods within the last few years, amounting, it will be seen, in one instance to the enormous price of 4s. 6d. per single mile.
s. d. Chester to Birkenhead 2 0 per single mile. Dublin to Drogheda 2 0 ” Leeds to Selby 2 0 ” London to Bristol & Gloucester 2 0¼ ” Ipswich to Colchester 2 0½ ” Ely to Yarmouth 2 1 ” Peterboro’ to Grimsby 2 2 ” London to Dover 2 3 ” Londonderry to Strabane 2 4 ” Arbroath to Aberdeen 2 6 ” Lancaster to Carlisle 2 6 ” Southampton to Dorchester 2 8¼ ” Perth to Dundee 3 0 ” Dublin to Galway 3 0 ” York to Berwick 3 0 ” Dundee to Arbroath 3 1 ” Preston to Liverpool 3 1 ” Dundalk to Castleblayney 3 2 ” Parkside to Preston 3 6 ” Exeter to Plymouth 3 7 ” Grange Court (near Gloucester) to Haverfordwest 3 7 ” Drogheda to Dublin 3 9 ” Drogheda to Dundalk 4 0 ” Dublin to Cork 4 6 ” Limerick Junction to Limerick 4 6 ”
In these cases it will be seen that the rates paid by the Post Office for the use of only a fraction of the train exceeded the whole cost of running, as calculated by Mr. Stephenson himself, by from 60 to 260 per cent. But these rates, while they no doubt include in some cases special elements of expense not covered by the average of 15d. per mile, are independent of the receipts obtained from passengers, parcels, and in some cases from goods, earnings which, added to the Post Office allowance, have, in many instances, rendered the mail train one of the most profitable trains on the line.
It should be mentioned that the rates of payment quoted above applied, in some few of the cases, to trains which were running as passenger trains before the Post Office employed them for the mails, the times of departure and arrival, places of stopping, &c., being adopted by the Post Office almost exactly as the company had arranged them for their own convenience. In these instances the extravagance of the charge for the mails becomes of course the more remarkable.
I should imagine that the Post Office department would be well satisfied if those mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by notice, were conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of the actual running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for the benefit derived by the company from the train, and adding, on the other hand, compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected by the requirements of the Post Office, together with a full allowance for profit. I believe that some basis such as this has long been considered a desideratum by this department, and it is to be hoped that Parliament may see fit ere long to place the question on a footing of this nature.
It may not be inappropriate to mention here, in further refutation of Mr. Stephenson’s charge of illiberal treatment, that although the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion that Government can claim exemption from toll on railways, such claim has for many years been abandoned by the Post Office. The arbitrators acting for the department always considered the railway companies both as carriers and proprietors of the road, and from their calculations accordingly. It may also be observed that the strongest desire is usually evinced by railway companies to obtain the conveyance of the mails, a desire which is certainly incompatible with the assumption that no profit is allowed for that service, and strangely at variance with Mr. Stephenson’s theory that railway companies are indifferent to postal traffic.
Before dismissing this branch of the subject, I must refer to a description of postal service by railway which has now become very extensive throughout the kingdom. I allude to the cases in which the Post Office sends a certain weight of mail in charge of the companies’ guards, by an ordinary train, over the working of which no control whatever is claimed by the department. For a service of this nature, the payment awarded under arbitration has, in a recent case, amounted to the exorbitant sum of 7d. per single mile, the weight of the mail averaging for the whole line not more than 1 cwt., or about half that of a second-class passenger and his luggage. For this trifling weight of mail the Post Office was thus made to bear very nearly half of the whole cost of running the train; while it has been ascertained that the average charge made by various railway companies for ordinary parcels carried beyond short distances very little exceeds one half-penny per cwt. per mile, the average charge for ordinary goods being of course even less.
I may add, that, although in a few cases, railway companies have been induced to accept moderate sums either for the use of one or two passenger trains, or for the general use of all their trains, it constantly happens that the department is prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the occasional transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.
At page 7 of his address, Mr. Stephenson gives the total earnings of railways from passengers, for the year 1854, at £9,170,000. The sum paid to railway companies by the Post Office during the year was about £392,000, or about 1/23 part of the gross earnings of all the passenger trains. He estimates the gross weight of passengers conveyed during the year at 8,000,000 of tons; while the gross weight of mails for the entire kingdom (including guards, clerks, &c.) was considerably under 20,000 tons, a large portion of which was not conveyed by railways at all. Assuming, however, that the whole of it had gone by the railways, it would appear that the Post Office paid 1/23 part of the total earnings for the conveyance of less than 1/400 part of the total weight.
In connection with this branch of the subject, it may not be immaterial to mention, that in the finance accounts printed by order of Parliament last year, the gross amount of the passenger tax paid to the Government by railway companies in the preceding year is stated to have been £309,000. As the amount paid by the Post Office to railway companies for the postal service of the year 1854 was £392,600, it follows that the Government paid to railway companies for the carriage of the mails very nearly one-third more than it received from them in the shape of passenger tax.
The third allegation of Mr. Stephenson is that the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates.
Without stopping to inquire whether railway companies (most of whose Acts of Incorporation are of a later date than the Penny Postage Act, and several of whose lines have been opened since the commencement of the book parcel regulations) have any legal or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic, it may be sufficient to state, that with very trifling exceptions it is only to books and other printed matter (the general circulation of which is so intimately connected with the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of education), that any reduction below the ordinary postal charges for letters has been applied. Now, even assuming for a moment, that every book parcel that the Post Office carries is abstracted from parcels which would otherwise be conveyed by railway, it is obvious that the companies would not sustain any loss by such parcels becoming part of the mail, if the Post Office paid to the companies for its mail rates only as high as the booksellers pay them for their parcels, in which, for the most part, such books would be conveyed, if they were sent at all. But it is a matter of fact, that the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels. It follows, therefore, that the companies, instead of being injured, would be benefited by any such abstraction, seeing that, besides receiving a higher rate of remuneration for the carriage of those book parcels, they are entirely relieved of the cost of collection and delivery, a cost which, as Mr. Stephenson shows, renders goods traffic less profitable to railway companies than passenger traffic.
But a more careful consideration of this question will establish good grounds for the opinion that by far the larger portion of the book parcels which the Post Office carries would not be sent at all, but for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the Post Office, contrasted with which the facilities which railway companies can of themselves afford sink into insignificance.
As bearing strongly upon this comparison of facilities, I may mention the somewhat remarkable fact, that copies of the very Report of the Committee of Consultation of the London and North-Western Railway, in which the Post Office is represented as unduly competing with railway companies for the carriage of books and parcels, were extensively circulated to that company’s shareholders through the medium of the Book Post, not merely to towns and villages at a distance from their railway, but even to Liverpool to which the company’s own trains might have carried them without any charge whatever. When it is recollected that there are about 10,500 Post Offices scattered throughout the United Kingdom, that there is scarcely a village without a Post Office, and scarcely even a hamlet without a regularly-established official means of communication with a Post Office, and that consequently persons even in the most secluded districts, can communicate by post with all parts of the kingdom with tolerable certainty, and with very little trouble or expense, it will readily be seen that such facilities as these must lead to the transmission of books and documents which otherwise would never be sent.
In fact, the book post service is one so different in its character and objects from that to which the parcel arrangements of the railway companies are adapted, that it may fairly be assumed it would hardly exist at all, but for the extensive facilities for its development which the Post Office possesses. The evidence given before the Select Committee on Conveyance of Mails by Railways (1854), especially that of Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent publisher, is very decided on this point. He says (3872) that the cases in which books are sent by post may be nearly all considered as exceptional cases to the ordinary commercial operations of publishing; and again (3870 and 3892) that the book post may be looked upon as a mere auxiliary to the conveyance of parcels by other means; and (3860) that if the existing regulations were stopped, the public would not be able to derive the same advantages through any other channel. The Select Committee, in their Report, admitted their conviction that “a large proportion of the parcels would not be sent but for the facilities offered by the Post Office in their distribution.”
Following, however, another line of argument, let us again assume for a moment that all the book packets conveyed by Post have been abstracted from the companies’ vans. It can on the other hand, be shown, that the imposition of a postal charge on Parliamentary proceedings,—the limitation as to size of packets passing through the Post,—and lastly (the most important alteration of all), the abolition of the compulsory newspaper stamp,—are changes, the combined operation of which must have been to give to the companies a far greater weight of parcel traffic than the weight of the whole of the book packets passing through Post Office. It has been ascertained, with regard to the night mails from London, by which by far the largest proportion of books is conveyed, that the reduction in the number and total weight of newspapers conveyed by these mails since the alteration in the Newspaper Stamp Act is more than six times the total number and weight of all the book parcels. To show the extent to which weight has thus been abstracted from the mails, I may mention that the number of carriage-loads of bags sent from the General Post Office to the Euston Square Station on Friday nights, has, since the recent Newspaper Stamp Act took effect, been five less than previously; and that the average nightly reduction of weight of newspapers despatched from London is upwards of two tons and a half. At the same time it is beyond doubt that the effect of the Act in question has been largely to increase the newspaper circulation of the kingdom, and consequently to add still further to the earnings of the railway companies.
If, as Mr. Stephenson states, uncertainty, irregularity, and delay are observable in the service at the Post Office, they result to a great extent from the irregularity which often occurs in the working of the mail trains by the companies, and not from any difficulties experienced at the Post Office in dealing with its vastly and rapidly increasing business.
Admitting, however, that slight detentions do occasionally occur from pressure of Post Office work, it is right to mention that the Post Office has long since urged upon the principal companies the adoption of a plan by which they and the Post Office shall be mutually bound to pay certain penalties for delay, from whatever cause; the Post Office further offering to pay in addition a premium to the companies in every instance in which the prescribed time is not exceeded. This proposal was, however, rejected at the time by every company to whom it was submitted, and since that date (1851) it has only been agreed to by one of the Scotch companies. It should be mentioned, that the Post Office offered in each case to reopen the award, and to readjust the payment by an arbitration, in which the proposed agreement for fines and premiums should be taken into consideration, the object being to render the arrangement as equitable as possible to the companies. I believe that the department is willing to renew this offer on the former basis, or, indeed, to adopt any equitable scheme for insuring greater punctuality.
Before concluding this report, it is but just to record a brief admission of the points in regard to which railways have, to a material extent, improved the postal communication of the kingdom.
The most important of those benefits is unquestionably the increased rapidity of communication, which has practically brought Edinburgh and Dublin almost as near to London as Birmingham and Bristol were in the days of mail coaches. But the acceleration of speed, great as it has been, has not been the sole cause of the saving of time; for the use of railways has led to the avoidance of many of the stops which formerly took place at what were termed “forward offices,” for sorting purposes, that duty being now performed in travelling sorting offices, during the progress of the train. For this boon the public are clearly indebted to railways, and the Post Office is equally indebted to them for the consequent simplification of its system. The chief of the other benefits which railways have given to the Post Office and the public is greater frequency of postal communication; for, although there would no doubt have been established more numerous day mails, as well as frequent postal communication between certain large towns, if coaches had remained the fastest means of transit, it is scarcely probable that we should ever have been able to concede the very extensive additions to the number of communications throughout the kingdom generally, of which the use of railways has admitted; and the effect of which has doubtless been to cause a greater increase in the number of letters than would otherwise have taken place.
The vast advantages comprised in those two improvements can scarcely be overrated; but, having briefly acknowledged them, it hardly devolves upon me, in the present Report, to dilate upon them at any greater length.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient faithful servant,
EDWARD J. PAGE, _Inspector-General of Mails._
To ROWLAND HILL, Esq., &c. &c. &c.
APPENDIX, No. 2.
REPLY OF ROBERT STEPHENSON, ESQ., M.P., PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, TO OBSERVATIONS IN THE SECOND REPORT OF THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL. DELIVERED AT THE MEETING OF MAY 20TH, 1856.
GENTLEMEN,
You will no doubt remember, that on taking this chair for the first time after election to it, I addressed you, according to the custom of the President of the Institution, upon matters of interest connected with civil engineering. The special points to which I directed your attention, were connected with the rise and progress of the railway system in this country; and amongst other matters referred to, were the facilities afforded by railways to the Post Office, which were described “as of the highest public consequence.” In enumerating those facilities, I observed that speed might, at first sight, appear to be the greatest item in the catalogue. But I said, “it may be doubted if it is the most important”:—“What is really of the greatest value to the Post Office, is the facility afforded of carrying bulk.” And then I went on to state that, “without railway facilities, it was not too much to say, that the excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction of the rates of postage, could not have been carried out to their full extent,” and to give a variety of reasons in support of that position.
I had hoped that throughout the section of the Paper in which this subject was considered, I had guarded myself very carefully against the slightest appearance of impugning the merit of Mr. Hill’s plan, or its influence for good upon the British people, as no one can appreciate more thoroughly than I do the value of the penny postage system, and the boon it confers upon the public. It has been, therefore, with regret that I have seen in the “Second Report of the Postmaster-General on the Post Office,” dated the 30th January 1856, observations upon the Railway companies of England and upon my own statement, which appear to misconstrue the object of my remarks.
The tendency of the Post Office Report is to depreciate the advantages afforded to the Post Office by Railways. It is said that the railway working is “so irregular as to require from the Post Office serious and repeated remonstrances,” and also that against the advantages afforded by railways “there is an important set-off in increased expenses,” that “that change, which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons, or goods, has had precisely the reverse effect as regards the conveyance of mails.” It is also alleged, that the claims of the companies are often exorbitant, and that the loss inflicted upon the companies by the Post Office, in undertaking the carriage of parcels by their book post, is not, as the railways allege, “an injury, but is, in reality, a benefit,” and that even if it were otherwise, the companies “are compensated by the law relieving newspapers from the compulsory stamp, which has largely transferred the conveyance of newspapers from the mail bags to the luggage vans.” Annexed to the Report, which contains these statements, is a letter from Mr. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails, who carries these allegations still further.
I shall endeavour in reply, not only to sustain my own argument, but to show, that the assertions contained in the Report are fallacious; and that on the contrary, railways, viewed in reference to postal facilities, are “the great public instructors and educators of the day.”
The Post Office Report commences with certain admissions. It introduces the subject by the following sentence:—“Increased use has been made of several of the railways.”
Now, if the railways are so irregular, if their claims are so exorbitant, and if, as the Report says, the same work could be done by the old mail coaches at much less expense, why is “increased use made of the railways?”
The next sentence states, that “By means of the establishment of an additional express mail train from London to Dover, ... a much later despatch from London of the day mail to France has been afforded, the time being now as late as 1·30 p.m. This change, besides affording to the merchants in London the opportunity of replying, the same morning, to letters from France, received by the night mail, admits of letters from Scotland, Ireland, and the north and south-west of England, which arrive in London by the day mail, being sent forward by the day mail to France, instead of being detained, as previously, for the night mail.”
The Post Office claims the merit of this. Nothing is said of the facilities afforded by the railway. The mail, here referred to, leaves London at half-past one in the afternoon. It stops only at the four junction stations on the line;—Reigate, Tunbridge, Ashford, and Folkestone;—reaching Dover at four o’clock, and thus, in two hours and a-half, carrying all the correspondence with Europe to the confines of England. Twice a month this train carries the Indian Mail. It conveyed, last year, nearly two million letters, exclusive of newspapers, to and from the army and navy in the Crimea. It will thus be seen, that this train performs important services for the Post Office and the public, and that it travels with great speed. The Post Office complains that the South-Eastern Railway Company are exacting “enormous prices,” because they pay for the service of this train at the rate of 2s. 3d. per mile! But when it is considered that this train was put on purely for Post Office purposes, and that the ordinary train, which previously left at the same hour, has not been superseded, but has been put back, in order to give facility to this train, the rate charged cannot be considered unreasonable:—in my opinion it is too low.
“Experience,” says the Report, “has confirmed the advantages to be derived from the use of Travelling Post Offices, and several additional offices of this kind have been provided. Much greater use has also been made of the apparatus for exchanging mail bags.”
The Report argues, that Mr. Rowland Hill’s plans would have been as well carried out, under the old mail coach system, as under the railway system. If so, what are “the advantages derived from the use of Travelling Post Offices”? There was no “Travelling Post Office” on the Holyhead road: why should there be a Travelling Post Office on a railway? The answer obviously is, that the immense increase of correspondence renders necessary new appliances; that if the letters all remained to be sorted when they arrived at what are called the “forward” offices, the delay would be so great that the public would have to wait much longer for their letters.
It is further said: “Against these great advantages, there is an important set-off in increased expense; for, strange as it may seem, the change which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons or of goods, has had precisely the reverse effect as respects the conveyance of mails.”
Now, I am prepared to show that, notwithstanding the enormous increase in their bulk, there has been no real increase in the charge for conveying the mails.
The charge for conveyance of the mails by railway is stated at page 14 of the Report, to be as follows:—
┌——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————┐ │ MAILS CONVEYED BY RAILWAYS. │ ├—————————————————┬————————————————┬————————————┬——————————┤ │ │ Average charge │ Maximum. │ Minimum. │ │ │ per mile. │ │ │ ├—————————————————┼————————————————┼————————————┼——————————┤ │ │ _s._ _d._ │ _s._ _d._ │ _d._ │ │England │ 0 9¼ │ 4 10 │ 0¼ │ │Ireland │ 1 5½ │ 4 6 │ 0¼ │ │Scotland │ 0 8¾ │ 3 2 │ 0¾ │ ├—————————————————┼————————————————┼————————————┼——————————┤ │United Kingdom │ 0 10 │ 4 10 │ 0¼ │ └—————————————————┴————————————————┴————————————┴——————————┘
The rates, therefore, for conveying the mails on railways are very unequal: varying from ¼d. a mile to 4s. 10d., according to the services performed. The rates paid to the old mail coach proprietors were also very unequal: varying from nothing to 1s. per mile. But the fact is, that whilst the payments by the Post Office to the railways, represent all they get for conveying the mails, the payments by the Post Office to the mail coach proprietors only represented, in a very minor degree, the cost to the public of conveying the mails, and the advantages to the coach proprietors consequent on carrying them.
All mail coaches in England were entirely free from tolls for the maintenance of turnpike roads, the cost of which is now, in effect, transferred from the public to the railways. Mr. Harker, the Surveyor and Superintendent of Mail Coaches, gave evidence before the House of Commons, in 1811, that “the toll duties from which the mail coaches were exempted amounted to nearly £50,000 a year,” upon the very limited mileage then performed. This evidence was confirmed by Sir Francis Freeling; and, taking all the data that can be obtained upon the subject, no doubt remains that the tolls on turnpike roads in England and Wales averaged, for a coach with four horses, nearly 5d. per mile. From this heavy payment the mail coaches were free; though, of course, the charge had to borne in another shape by the public. Besides this, it is to be remembered, that the mail coach was, in many cases, paid for by the Post Office, at the rate of 1-1/16d. per mile. I will not, however, include that as a distinct item in my computation, but will reckon tolls and coach together as costing 5d. per mile. Beyond this, I may add, that whenever the bags were large and bulky, the Post Office paid extra. They then took the places of the two outside passengers, allowed to be carried on the roof of every mail coach (exclusive of the box seat), and whose fares probably averaged 2d. per mile each. In many cases, also, the Post Office was obliged to employ extra post-chaises and coaches, to carry the mails. The Greyhound Coach, from London to Birmingham, was permanently engaged for the carriage of newspaper-bags between London and Birmingham, at the rate of 1d. per pound, or £9. 6s. 8d. per ton, for the newspapers carried.
The old mails, therefore, cost as follows:—
Payment by Post Office for working 2½d. per mile. Exemption from toll, with coach, say 5d. ” ———— 7½d.
without occasional extra payments. So that the real sum allowed for mail coaches was nearly as large as the sum allowed to railways.
But the Post Office Report admits that the mails, which were formerly carried by coaches, now leave London “in a concentrated form”—that for example, the North-Western Railway does the work of no less than thirteen of the old mail coaches: _i. e._ the mails to Edinburgh, Leeds, Halifax, Holyhead, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Carlisle, Derby, Birmingham, Hull, Worcester, and Dublin. The cost per mile, therefore, must be multiplied by thirteen, on the North-Western line alone, in order to represent the actual payment the Post Office would have had to make to the old mail coaches, as contrasted with the payment they are now making to the railway. And so as to the other railways, in proportionate degree.
It is to be borne in mind, also, that the Post Office authorities obtain facilities and advantages from the railways which they could not exact from the mail coach proprietors; and for which they pay nothing. Not only have they the power, under Act of Parliament, of ordering the trains at any time, at any speed, and to stop at any place, but they have, also, the power to direct the railway companies to provide all the carriages they require; and the railways actually find carriages for the Post Office, which cost, not the £120 which the old mail coaches cost, but no less than £500 each. In many cases the mail trains are run, under Post Office direction, at such inconvenient hours, that only three, or four ordinary passengers ever travel by them, for any part of their journey; so that the only remuneration received by the railway is the payment made for carrying the mails. It happens, also, on some railways,—such for example, as the line from Shrewsbury to Stafford—that the mail train is the only train run in the night. The consequence is, that clerks, porters, sidesmen, gate-keepers, telegraph clerks, and nearly all the staff of the railway must be kept at night-work solely for Post Office purposes, for which the railway company has to pay.
“No doubt,” says the Report, “this result (_i. e._ high rate of charge on railways) is attributable partly to the necessity for running certain mail trains at hours unsuitable for passenger traffic; but even when the Post Office uses the ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes, the rate of charge, especially considering the regularity and extent of custom, is almost always higher, than that made to the public for like services.”
What are the “like services” rendered to the public? The public are conveyed as the mails are conveyed; but do the public take the control of the trains into their own hands, choosing where they will stop, and when they will go on, and preventing alteration of times? The public accommodate themselves to the regulations of the railways; but the Post Office takes its own time, and interferes in any way it pleases with the conveyance of the public and their goods. What are the charges made for conveying mails by “the ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes?” The Post Office has not furnished a list of these charges; but it appears from the table, which I have before quoted, that there are trains which carry mails in England at as low a rate as one farthing per mile. These are, no doubt, “ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes,” and if that charge is “almost always higher than the charge made to the public for the like service,” all I can say is, that I can hardly conceive how a smaller coin could be substituted for such a service.
“It fortunately happens,” says the Report, “that Mr. Stephenson furnishes, in his address, the data for checking his own accuracy on this particular point. He says, that the locomotive expenses on railways do not, on an average, exceed 9½d. per mile, and that the cost of running a train may be assumed, in most cases, to be about 15d. per mile. Compare this with some of the rates actually paid by the Post Office to different companies at various periods within the last few years, amounting, in one instance, to the enormous price of 4s. 6d. per single mile.”
This is not a correct deduction from my observation. Although locomotive expenses do not, on an average, exceed 9½d. per mile, and although the current expenses of running a train may he assumed, in most cases, to be about 15d. per mile, you are all aware that “locomotive expenses” and “the cost of running a train” are not to be taken as representing the cost of supplying the service required by the Post Office. These charges were estimated for different purposes. They are the bare cost of power, &c. They do not include any calculation for establishment charges, wear and tear of road, interest on capital, or payment of expenses of station officers and porters. Of course the estimate does not include any compensation for extra services, such as are required by the Post Office, nor any allowance of any sort for profit.
A somewhat unfair use has been made, by the Post Office, of my statement with regard “to the cost of running a train.” That statement was made, as you will see by reference to my Address, for the purpose of enabling you to consider the broad principles which ought to govern railway companies in respect of passenger traffic. It is palpable that I never contemplated, in that estimate, what would be the cost of running a train, put on without reference to the convenience of the public, or to the advantage of the railway company, and yet entailing all the charges of a special engine and night-service. The Post Office has, however, quoted and made use of this expression, as if it was applicable to all cases.
The Report gives a list of railways and branches, twenty-five in number, to which Post Office rates of from 2s. to 4s. 6d. a mile are paid. The list commences with the line from Chester to Birkenhead, and concludes with that of the Limerick Junction to Limerick. Only two of the lines in this list are railways running out of London, and the payments to those lines are made under very special circumstances, one of them being for the Foreign Mail. The rest are all small cross lines, such as the Leeds and Selby, Perth and Dundee, Peterborough and Grimsby, and Dundalk and Castle Blayney, upon many of which the mail train is a special train, put on in the middle of the night, exclusively for the purpose of carrying a small quantity of letters. Wherever there is the least service performed, it is obvious that the proportionate rate of charge must be the highest; and in each of these petty cases, the arbitrators, no doubt, found some good reason why rates above the average should be paid. Upon cross roads, wherever a mail cart had formerly to be used, the Post Office was obliged to pay its whole expenses. And upon cross lines of railway, in the same manner, it is to be expected that the whole expenses of a special train will have to be borne by those who use it.
“The Post Office department,” says the Report, “would be well satisfied if the mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by notice, were conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of the actual running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for the benefit derived by the company, from the train, and adding, on the other hand, compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected, by the requirements of the Post Office, together with a full allowance for profit.”
If by the “benefits derived by the company from a train,” the Report means the amount received for passengers and parcels by a mail train, I agree with those who think that the conveyance of passengers and parcels, by such a train, may be of no benefit to a company. If those passengers and parcels did not go by the mail train, they would go by some other train, probably at a more convenient time to the company, and nothing is gained by sending them by the mail. But, apart from this, I should imagine, that the railway companies will, one and all, willingly accept any proposal from the Post Office to convey the mails, based on my “estimate of the actual running cost, with the addition of compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected by Post Office requirements, together with a full allowance for profit.”
I am informed, that the claims of the Post Office upon the railway companies are continually increasing. The old mail coach carried only one Post Office officer, the guard, who also assisted in the performance of the duties of the coach. But the Post Office claims of the railway companies, under penalty, to carry, free of charge, all guards, clerks, and officers of the Post Office, “when employed in fetching the bags, or in returning back from carrying the same, and the inspectors of mails and such other officers and servants of the Post Office as the Postmaster-General shall from time to time require.” Thus an unlimited number of free passengers may be conveyed at the Postmaster-General’s discretion, and however unreasonable the number may be, the company have no redress. It is to be observed also, that instead of assisting the train, these passengers require assistance from the officers of the company. The Post Office insists that the porters of a railway are bound to place their bags in their vans and remove them from their stations.
The nonpayment of fares for these officials is not the only objection to their conveyance. Although deriving no profit from their carriage, the companies, under a recent decision, are declared to be liable to make them compensation for any accident, or injury they may sustain whilst travelling; and recently on the North-Western line, a sum of £1,200 had to be paid to an officer of the Post Office who was accidentally hurt. Was this the case with the old mail coaches?
“It constantly happens,” says the Report, “that the department is prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.”
The Report cites no one instance in support of the case which, it is said, so “constantly happens.” In the absence of such evidence I may be permitted to doubt whether the Post Office has been well informed. If such cases have occurred, it must be under extraordinary circumstances, for the Post Office itself has power to prevent such occurrences. There is nothing to prevent their sending their mail bags, as a parcel, by any train they like. They may have them carried, if they please, by a goods train, at 6d. per ton per mile; and that goods train will travel at least as fast as the old mail coach. A mail guard, with his bag of letters, may take his second-class ticket and walk into the railway carriage, with his bag, like any other passenger. On most of the lines on which it is complained that the railway rates are so heavy, the correspondence must be comparatively trifling. For instance, between Dundalk and Castle Blayney, the distance is 18½ miles. The Post Office rate paid, according to the Report, is 3s. 2d. a mile, or £2. 18s. 7d. for the whole distance; but the railway fare is only 2s. 7d. for the distance. If the Post Office insist on a special train and a travelling mail to carry a few letters, it is clear that they must pay in proportion, however minute may be the service rendered.
The Report complains, that whilst the gross weight of passengers conveyed by railway, during a year, is 8 millions of tons, the gross weight of mails (including guards, clerks, &c.), is under 20,000 tons,[149] so that “the Post Office contributes less than 1/400 part to the total weight, whilst it contributes 1/23 part to the total earnings of the railways.” But this is a fallacy. The mails are not to be estimated by their weight. The tables in the Report show, that the very cases, in which the Post Office carries the smallest weight, are those in which they are obliged to make the largest mileage payments.
The Report states, “the total payments to the companies for the year 1854, were £392,600, which, it may be observed, exceeds by £83,000 the 5 per cent. passenger tax for the same period.”
It would therefore appear, that what the Government really pays for all the postal service of the kingdom, even on this showing of the Postmaster-General, is £83,000 a year. For this they carried Four Hundred and Fifty-six Million of letters, without reckoning newspapers and parcels.
I now come to the second branch of the subject. I ventured to say, and I do not hesitate to repeat, that “without railway facilities the excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction of the rates of postage could not have been carried out to their full extent.” But it is contended, that “not only would the penny postage without railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but that it would have been even more profitable than it now is.” Upon that I join issue. Would it have been practicable,—would it have been more profitable than it now is?
1st.—As to Practicability. I argued that question, solely and exclusively, and, I will add, fairly and properly, upon the question of bulk. “The old mail coaches,” I said, “were never planned for bulk. Bulk, indeed, would have been fatal to that regularity and speed, upon which the Post Office could alone rely, as the means of securing the monopoly of the letter carriage of the nation.” How is this reasoning met in the Post Office Report? The Report argues the question as a question of weight. “The increase,” it is said, “which has taken place in the weight of the mails has presented no difficulty to their conveyance by mail coaches.” Seventeen times in one page the word weight is reiterated, whilst the word bulk is carefully avoided. The reply to my argument that the bulk would have been fatal is that the weight would have presented no difficulty. Until my argument is met on the question of bulk, I must maintain that my argument is untouched. We all know that letters weigh very little. But unpressed, sent in bags, as they are, by the Post Office, what is the bulk of the mails? I told you in my address, that “On a Friday night, when so many thousands of weekly papers are sent into the country, the Post Office requires, on the London and North-Western Railway, not only the use of the travelling post office, which is provided for its convenience, but of six or eight additional vans.” This is not denied in the Report. But it is argued, nevertheless, as if all these letters could have been packed into the old mail coaches. What are the facts? On Saturday week the 1.30 p.m. Dover train carried down the Indian mail. That mail consisted of no less than 170 boxes,[150] each about 1 foot 9 inches long by 1 foot broad and 1 foot deep. How could these have been carried by a mail coach? I have caused an old Dover mail to be measured, for the purpose of ascertaining the space allotted to bags. The box under the guard’s feet was 2 feet 10 inches long by 2 feet 1 inch deep, and 3 feet 5 inches broad; the boot (usually assigned to passengers’ carpet-bags and private parcels) was 2 feet 11 inches wide, 2 feet 6 inches deep, and 2 feet 7 inches long. The space on the roof, including the roof seat, was 5 feet long by 4 feet broad. Giving all this space to the Post Office, without reservation, had that mail coach carried last Saturday’s mail from London, it would have carried on its top a pyramid of mail boxes 12 feet high from the roof of the mail, or 20 feet from the ground! Yet the Report tells you, that there would have been no difficulty in providing for the conveyance of the present mails by the old mail coaches.
On Friday night (May 16), the mail from the Euston Square Station consisted of one Post Office van and six very large tenders, containing large sacks of letters, newspapers and parcels (many of them as large as sacks of corn). The vans each measured 660 cubic feet; if we say 600, we shall have a total cubic contents of 4,000 feet. This is equal to the displacement of a vessel of more than 1,000 tons burden. I said, in my Address, that it would take fourteen or fifteen mail coaches to carry the Friday night’s mail from London to Birmingham: that every coach that ran in 1830 between London and Birmingham would now have been needed for Post Office purposes, if the London and North-Western Railway had not been brought into existence. It turns out that I was much under the mark. 4,000 cubic feet, the extent of accommodation required to be provided by the railway company, could not have been afforded by less than fifty of the old mails, even allowing that the two passenger-seats on the roof were devoted to the Post Office service, and the bags were packed to the height of 3 feet above the roof. And yet the Report tells us, that this extent of accommodation could have been afforded by the mail coaches that formerly ran on the North road; thus assuming for each old mail the same capacity as half an ordinary fly canal boat, or as two of our largest London omnibuses.
2nd. I proceed to the next question—the question of Expenditure. The Report states, that Mr. Hill’s plan would have been even more profitable under the old coach system than it now is.
“Supposing,” says the Report, “that the number of mail coaches, all over the kingdom, had been doubled, the expenditure of the department for mail coach service would, in that case, have been advanced from £155,000 to only £310,000 per annum, whilst the present expenditure for the railway and mail coach service of the department is £443,000, of which sum £400,000 is paid to railway companies alone.”
Now, I beg you to mark these figures. £155,000, says the Report, was the sum paid for the entire old mail coach service, whilst £443,000 is the sum now paid for railway and mail coach service, of which £400,000 is paid to railways alone, leaving £43,000 as the charge incurred by the side mails. Now, at page 14 of the Report, you will find it stated, that the branch mail coaches at the present time convey the mails over 31,667 miles per day at an average charge of 2¼d. per mile. 31,667 miles at 2¼d. per mile gives a total of £108,000 a year. Here is a total then of £108,000 a year paid at the present time merely for the conveyance of the side mails by coaches, in place of £43,000 as the Report leaves us to infer.[151] Now, if £108,000 a year is paid, at the present time, only for the conveyance, by two horse coaches and mail carts, of the side mails where railways do not run, how is it possible that the total cost of all the mail coach transit of England could have been only £155,000 a year?
It is clear there must be some serious error in the Post Office figures, and that error is of such a character as really to invalidate all the calculations of the Report. Either £155,000 could not have represented the cost of carrying the mails formerly, or £108,000 a year, instead of £43,000 a year, must be deducted, for the side mails, from the total sum of £443,000, assumed to be the cost of postal conveyance at the present time.
But, it is also to be remarked, that the payments to mail coach proprietors for working, did not represent anything like the amount borne by the public for the mails. The Post Office treats this question as if the working at 2¼d. a mile is all the expense the public have to bear. They forget the tolls. They forget that a mail coach could not pass over a road without wear and tear, and that the Post Office paid nothing for that wear and tear. The public in another shape bore that expenditure. Under the old system, indeed, as the Postmaster-General’s table shows, many of the old coaches were only too glad to “carry a bag” (as it was termed), merely for the sake of obtaining exemption from toll, which cost on the average 5_d._ per mile to the coach proprietor. You must remember that this toll was levied on the public using the turnpike road, for those purposes of repair, which are now defrayed by railway companies, in the shape of reparation of permanent way. The wear and tear of a railway line is solely paid for by the railway company, who can receive nothing in the shape of an equivalent for remission of tolls, except by direct payment.
The Post Office forgets, again, that under the old system, the roads, to some extent, were made at the cost of the public. Nearly a million of money was expended by Government in making and improving the old Holyhead line of road. Why was this expenditure incurred? It was incurred to save six hours in the delivery of the mails between Dublin and London. This, be it recollected, was the measure of the value of time by the State. They spent a million of treasure to save six hours of time. Contrast the time occupied in the transmission of mails now and in the year after that expenditure was incurred? The Holyhead mail, after a million of public money had been spent in expediting it, still took 26 hours on the road. The same mail by railway only occupies 8½ hours[152] on its whole journey. Nearly 18 hours have been thus saved on this one line of road; and yet though the Government could spend a million to save 6 hours, they complain of paying £30,000 a-year, or only the interest at 5 per cent. upon £600,000, for a railway service passing over a line of road which they did not expend a farthing to construct, and which is kept in repair by private individuals, who have incurred the enormous expense of spanning the Menai Straits by a railway bridge.
In estimating the comparative cost of conveyance by road and by railway, not only are the Government officers, as I have shown you, wrong in their figures and calculations, but they suppress the great items which entailed expense on the public under the old mail coach system, and which are now saved to the State. Let me mention another saving. Under the old system, the Post Office packets were a source of well ascertained loss to the State. The old Holyhead mail coach could not bring down a sufficient number of passengers to pay the cost of the passage from Holyhead to Dublin. The packet service with Ireland entailed a loss of more than £100,000 a-year. At the present time, the railway saves the Government nearly all this loss. In consequence of the travelling facilities now afforded by the railway, the boats between Holyhead and Dublin contract to perform the service of the Government for a payment of £25,000 a-year.[153] And yet the department complains that it pays £30,000 a-year, for carrying its mails, to the railway company which has enabled it to effect this enormous annual saving.
This example proves this part of the case. The Report omits to take into account the amount thus saved; or any similar savings, such as £25,000 a-year formerly paid for conveyance of mails by steam packets from London to Rotterdam and Hamburgh, now sent to Dover by the South-Eastern Railway. If I admit that which the Report does not establish, that £400,000 is paid to railway companies for postal service, at any rate I am entitled to have the public savings put against that amount. If I consider the vast total of those savings, I cannot doubt, for a moment, that railways are in reality not getting what they are fairly entitled to, for performing the duties for which the State formerly had to pay so largely. Considering the enormous item of turnpike tolls remitted to the old mail coaches,—the vast saving effected in the maintenance of the roads themselves,—the greatly increased facilities demanded by the new postal system,—the incalculable gain in consequence of the increased speed,—and the diminution of heavy loss upon steam packet and such like traffic, I should really be tempted to say, that if the Government paid to railways double what they paid to the proprietors of old stage coaches, they would still be gainers by the use of railways for the purposes of the Post Office. But when I consider, that according to the showing of this Report itself, they pay no more, if so much to railways, as they paid under the old system, whilst they carry five-and-a-half fold more letters, to say nothing of newspapers and parcels, I am surprised at the assertion that “The penny postage, without railways, would even have been more profitable than it now is.”
I stated, in my address, that not only was the Post Office dealing illiberally with the railway companies, but that it was absolutely entering into competition with them, as carriers, by undertaking the conveyance of books and other parcels, at very reduced postal rates. The Post Office authorities open their reply by saying, that they shall not stop to inquire whether railway companies have any legal, or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic.[154] I shall not stop to inquire, by what policy a Government department steps in to interfere with the free course of trade. But, argues the Report, the companies sustain no loss, “for the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels.” The Post Office has never paid one farthing to the railway companies in respect of these parcels. The Post Office pays the companies so much per mile for the whole service. It carries what it pleases. It chooses to carry books. Those books formerly went by the companies’ luggage vans, and were paid for to the companies by the public. The Post Office undertakes the carriage of these parcels, puts them into its letter bags, and carries them, under its contract with the railways, without paying the railways a single farthing extra. The railways suffer all the loss: the Post Office obtains all the profit. And then the Report tells you that “the companies, instead of being injured, are benefited by the abstraction.”
“By far the larger portion of the book parcels,” says the Report, “which the Post Office carries, would not be sent at all, but for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the Post Office.” But there is one remarkable fact in the Report which is inconsistent with this theory. Since the stamp duty has been removed from newspapers, the Post Office, on their own showing, has lost the annual delivery of nearly 28,000,000 of newspapers, which formerly passed through the post;[155] and there is reason to believe, that the number of such transmissions is daily decreasing. Now, if the superior facilities of the Post Office induce the public to get their book parcels by post, how is it that they are gradually relinquishing the use of the post as a means of getting their newspapers? The superior facilities, if there are any, are precisely of the same description both for newspapers and book parcels; yet, nevertheless, the public, who best know how to appreciate superior facilities, are gradually giving up the facilities of the post in respect to newspapers, and employing the facilities afforded by the railway. The superior facilities, are, therefore, not estimated by the public as equivalent to 1d. per newspaper parcel.
It would appear, therefore, that the question was rather one of “charge” than of superior facilities. The Post Office chooses to undersell the railways, availing itself of the facilities railways afford it for the purpose of so doing. The public always buy in the cheapest market. They send their books by post, because the post takes them cheaper than the railways took them. And I told you, in my Address, why the Post Office is able to do this. The Post Office insists on the right of travelling over the railways at a fixed cost per mile; and, as I have just observed, without paying anything additional whatever for book parcels. The railways have to pay, not only expenses, but interest on capital; and it is to be expected therefore, that they cannot compete, in respect to this traffic, with a public department which contributes to neither. But how far this use of the railways for the purpose of the Post Office, and to the detriment of the railways is equitable, or proper, is another question.
The Post Office itself seems to feel that it is not quite equitable or proper, for the Postmaster-General, in the body of the Report, treats the question solely on the ground that “a benefit” is conferred on the railway companies by this abstraction of their traffic, and that, even if that is not the case, the companies are compensated by the transference to the luggage vans of the newspapers previously carried by the mails. I think it is in “Gil Blas” that the gentleman who takes the canon’s purse, is made to prove that the abstraction was a “benefit” to his soul’s health, and would keep him free from many of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Upon the same principle, I suppose it is intended to be argued, that the abstraction of their traffic is a benefit to the railway companies. But, with regard to the second part of the argument, I deny that the railways are “compensated” for their loss by the transference to their vans, of the newspapers which the Post Office used to carry for nothing, and which it is admitted the officers would be “only too glad to see removed from the Post Office altogether.”[156] The stamp duty, you will remember, never was a postal duty under the old system; it went into the accounts of another branch of the revenue. The Post Office consequently never benefited, but, on the contrary, was only taxed for the performance of its duty as the carrier of newspapers. Latterly, this duty became so onerous, that the Post Office felt itself almost incompetent to its due performance. To save itself the trouble and expense of receiving all the papers, at the last moment, at the Post Office, it was in the habit of sending its own vans to the offices of the great news publishers, and carrying their papers in bulk to Euston Square, where an office was assigned to the Post Office for newspaper purposes. The change effected by the removal of the stamp might have been taken advantage of as a great source of revenue to the Post Office, which failed, however, to work out a system that would have been remunerative to itself, and advantageous to the public; and the consequence has been, that the public have resorted to what I may call, in the words of the Report, the “superior facilities” of the railway. But the railway gets for the carriage of these parcels nothing like the amount that the Post Office would get. The Post Office is bound, under Act of Parliament, to charge 1d. per paper, but the railways take these papers in bulk, several hundreds in a package; and carry them at the rate of so much per ton. To tell us, that an act of their own, by which they threw off an excess of labour which had become not only burdensome, but overpowering to the Post Office, was done out of consideration for the railways, and as a compensation for the abstraction of the book parcels, is not likely to be entirely acquiesced in.
The number of book parcels that passed through the Post Office last year was a million and a-half. Captain Huish, in his evidence before Parliament in 1854, has shown, that the loss of revenue to railways, by the abstraction of book parcels has, in some cases, borne a large proportion to the sum paid to railway companies for the conveyance of the mails. A stronger proof than this, of the unfair dealing of the Post Office towards the railway companies, could scarcely be afforded. But I own, that I do not look so much to the actual loss as to the bad precedent. It seems to me, that there is no limit to what the Post Office may carry, if this is permitted. There are many lighter articles than books forming the substance of railway packages. Is the Post Office to undertake all the light carrier trade of the kingdom, without extra payment to the railways for the use of the roads?
The Report says, “Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration the cheap transmission of printed proceedings of Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings were conveyed by post free of all charges. On the introduction of a penny postage, a postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, which continues up to the present day.”
If I am unfortunate in referring to this charge, the Report, I must say, is doubly so. For if all Parliamentary papers have been subjected to a penny postage, who receives the money? The railways ought to have a share of it; but they get nothing. The public ought to have a share of it; but on the contrary, the Post Office, which has greater facilities for carrying public papers, makes the public pay more for their transmission instead of carrying them for less. Who, then, does get the penny? The only answer is, that it goes to the credit of the Post Office account in reduction of the expenses incurred in carrying out the penny postage system.
[Mr. Stephenson having reviewed the complaints made by the Post Office about irregularities in 1856, and previously, and stated facts to show their injustice, and that they were fully as much attributable to the department as to the companies, proceeded with his address as follows.]
If the Post Office authorities want the highest rates of speed, with perfect observance of time, they have an easy mode of securing it. Let them contract with the railway company for special trains, exclusively for the purposes of the mails. The companies will be only too glad to provide those trains, at the same, or even a less rate, than that at which they provide special trains for the public. They will, no doubt, enter into any arrangement for the arrival of such trains at their respective destinations, at the hour agreed upon. On the side of the Post Office, all that is requisite to secure this, is an equitable payment for the service, which, considering the great importance of the subject, ought not to be grudged to secure a rapid and punctual delivery of letters.
We are told, indeed, in the Post Office Report, that the railways have no right to be treated on such principles. On the contrary, they are threatened. “The law officers of the Crown,” says that document, “have given an opinion that Government can claim exemption from toll on railways.” Happily, it is one thing for “the law officers of the Crown to give an opinion,” and another for a Government department to succeed in enforcing it.
But who are these, asks the Report, who complain of “illiberal treatment?” The old mail coaches, it says, represented free trade and competition; but these railways are “large monopolies in the hands of a few private companies.” A few private companies! What is meant by a “private company”? The railway share and debenture holders of England number more than a quarter of a million. Do these capitalists represent a “private company”? An old mail coach, carrying four insides and three out, and horsed by Mr. Fagg at 2½d. a mile, is called in this Report a public conveyance, “by which the Post Office was protected from undue demands, in the transmission of its mails along the public highways of the United Kingdom,” whilst a railway, like the London and North-Western, with nearly eighteen thousand shareholders and a capital exceeding thirty millions, is called “a monopoly in the hands of a private company.” A monopoly! Allow me to ask, again, of what has any railway got a monopoly? The old “public highways,” as the Report calls them, are still open to everybody. The Post Office authorities may put upon them, once more, if they think fit, their favourite public conveyances. Except the bulk of their bags, there is nothing to prevent them from loading them once more in the court-yard of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and starting them off for Holyhead, or Aberdeen, with the old guard on his seat behind, and the old driver flourishing his whip.
The railways have no monopoly; Parliament has never allowed them a monopoly. In France, and elsewhere, the Legislative bodies have given railway companies a monopoly for a certain number of years; but with us the practice of Parliament has been precisely the reverse. So far from exercising any monopoly, the railways here are subjected, even among themselves, to a fierce competition. Parliament has sanctioned a second railway to Dover; there are already two lines to Hastings; two are completed to Portsmouth, and a third is making; the Government has insisted upon the South-Western making a second line to Exeter; there are already three lines to Birmingham; there are three lines to Derby, three to Peterborough, three to York, two to Cambridge, two to Oxford, two to Norwich, two to Lincoln, two to Liverpool; I know not how many to Shrewsbury; and many routes to Scotland both by the west coast and the east. Monopoly! Why Parliament on the whole circuit of the country has established, not only the principle, but the practice of free competition; and we have absolutely as much competition amongst railways now as ever existed in the old days of, what the Post Office Report calls, the public highways.
The only monopoly ever accorded by Parliament to the railway companies has been the right of taking land; but that right has been encumbered, both legally and by the opportunity afforded for making claims for exorbitant compensations. Parliament has subjected railway companies to frightful expenses, and to most uncertain and unfair tribunals in its own committees. It has never assisted any work in progress, however useful even for purposes of State. It has given no concession to any company; it has undertaken no share of the work, as has been done by the Governments of other States; it has granted no crown lands for any line; it has not assisted to make a line; it has guaranteed no interest upon outlay; it has not even lent money (with the exception of about two millions to Irish railways), as it did year after year to the Holyhead Road Commissioners. What, then, is the Government entitled to from the railway companies? No doubt it is entitled to have public services properly performed, at a moderate cost. And all public services are performed by the railways for the Government, at a moderate cost. But it is not entitled—it can establish no claim—to use the property of railway proprietors, without toll, or to have its work done, without paying a fair rate of profit to those who perform it. When the Post Office Report tells you, that railways are monopolies which have destroyed competition, I ask you to consider, on the other hand, whether railways are not in fact too much subject, at the present time, to Government control. This very mail service is performed by the railways under compulsion. Did the Government compel any one to perform the duty of carrying the mails in the days of the old mail coaches? If, in those days, they had advertised for tenders from stage coach proprietors, for the performance of a duty such as they now exact from railway companies, subject to arbitration as to the sum that should be paid for its performance, how many tenders is it likely they would have obtained?
On the other hand, I ask you to look at the treatment the railways are receiving from the Government. I will take the case of their own selection—the case of the Chester and Holyhead Railway—in which they make a merit of paying at least double what would have been awarded by arbitrators. Look at the route to Ireland before the Holyhead Railway was constructed. No less than thirty-six hours were occupied in getting from London to Dublin. But this was regarded as great expedition, and it was most munificently paid for by the Government. They spent, as I have told you, nearly a million of money in making the road. They lost on the Irish steamers more than £100,000 a-year, to say nothing of their contract for the coach, and upwards of £3,000 a-year remitted on the tolls. This was the state of things before railways were established. The work is now done, not in thirty-six, but in fifteen hours.[157] The whole mail service now, with this increased expedition, costs the Government no more than £65,000 a-year.[158] Thus the Government save, upon this route alone, twenty-one hours in every journey, and nearly £40,000 a-year in expenditure.
But in the face of this, what has been the conduct of the Government to the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company? In the first place, it imposed conditions which greatly enhanced the cost of the Britannia Bridge. Then observe how it treated that line with reference to other matters. The Holyhead road runs for about half-a-mile near Conway upon an embankment constructed on the sea-shore. The Holyhead Company proposed to form its railway outside that embankment, thereby, in fact, widening the embankment and affording it protection from the sea. The same state of things occurred in the Isle of Anglesea, at an inlet known as the Stanley Sands. In both cases the railway rested on the slope of the Government embankment, and for this “privilege,” as it is called, the Government to this day charges the railway an annual rental!
Such is one illustration (among many) of the treatment of the railway companies by the Government departments. They have aggravated the expenses and difficulties of a line which has helped to save them, as I said before, twenty-one hours in every journey between London and Dublin, and no less than £40,000 a year in money outlay. At the present time, the Post Office Report tells us, that the department is paying double what it ought for conveying the mails over this railway, and that “the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion,” that Government can claim the right to pass over it, in common with all others, without paying any toll at all!
In conclusion, I ask, how can the Post Office authorities justify their tone respecting the railways? They admit great advantages from railways, but they say that against those advantages there is an important set-off in increased expense. Is there any foundation for this charge? Let us look at the figures. The mails are now conveyed daily by rail and coach over, in round figures, 60,000 miles. The total cost of this conveyance is stated at £443,000. Upwards of £100,000 is saved upon the sea service with Ireland and the continent alone. Now, suppose the mail service of the country was still performed under the old mail coach system, what would it have cost? The net payment to mails, upon their own showing, would have amounted to £310,000; the tolls and coaches, at 5d. per mile, would have been £456,000. Add to this the steam-boat saving, and we should have a total cost exceeding £800,000 per annum. But as the present cost is only £443,000, there is a difference in favour of the railway system exceeding £400,000 a year, without taking credit for the increased rapidity of transmission.
If I turn to the Post Office accounts, at page 57 of the Report, I find that the additional work, to the extent of five and a-half times, has been performed at an increased cost of only two and a-half times. By their own showing then, the cost of conveyance has not “increased in a far greater degree,” but in a far less degree in proportion to the work performed. I find, also, that the cost of conveying the mails has only increased, in a corresponding ratio, with the increase in the expenses of all the other branches of Post Office expenditure since 1838. I find still further, that the whole cost of conveyance amounts to little more than one-fourth of the whole cost of management, for whilst the whole cost of management in 1855 was £1,651,000, the entire payment for cost of conveyance was only £443,000. I ask, then, with what justice, with what show of propriety, can the Postmaster-General, or his officials, complain of the payments to railways for the postal communication of the nation?
The whole course of this argument has not only confirmed my conviction that without railway facilities the plans of Mr. Rowland Hill, for the reduction of the rates of postage could not have been carried out to their full extent, but it has clearly proved to my mind, that they could not have been carried into effect at all. Space, we have seen, is absolutely essential to the accommodation of the increased bulk,—speed is absolutely essential to that multiplication of correspondence, which is requisite to sustain the rapidly increasing establishment charges, augmented already from £500,000 to £1,200,000 per annum. If the absence of facilities, both of space and speed, had not proved fatal, by preventing the development of the system, it is clear, that the expense would have broken down that system altogether. I am convinced also, that unless more and more advantage be taken of railway facilities, the postage system will not progress, in proportion to the increase of the population and wealth of the kingdom. What is it that multiplies communication? Speed and facility of transmission. In those the Electric Wire is now a competitor with the Post. Suppose we had the Electric Telegraph in operation, without a railway system, and our correspondence consequently dependent on the old mail coach, I ask what would be the effect upon the penny postage system? If the Post Office authorities desire to increase the correspondence of the nation, through their machinery, they must make more and more use of railway facilities. It is only by more frequent postal communications and accelerated speed of delivery, that the telegraph can be successfully competed with, as regards the large and increasing portion of the correspondence of the nation, which is flashing unceasingly along its wires. To obtain that increased frequency and accelerated speed, the Post Office authorities must deal equitably with the railway companies. It is not only the duty, but it is for the interest, of Government so to do. If the Government and the railway companies went hand in hand, arrangements might be made, by which the whole correspondence of the nation might be carried on, in a much more perfect manner, with advantage to the companies, and without any direct payment by the Government. When the Post Office authorities are prepared to deal with this question in an equitable spirit, I shall be prepared to show them how such an arrangement may be effected.[159] Meanwhile I leave them, in the hope that these remarks, offered in all good-will and friendliness of spirit, upon the document they have published, may have some influence, in inducing them henceforward to regulate their affairs for their own and the public interests, and to endeavour, in some degree, to keep better pace with the advancing spirit of the time.
APPENDIX, No. 3.
COPY OF LETTER ADDRESSED TO A MEMBER OF THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT UPON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EASTERN MAILS, NOW DESPATCHED _viâ_ MARSEILLES AND _viâ_ SOUTHAMPTON, BEING TRANSMITTED _viâ_ BRINDISI.
LONDON,
_5th June, 1867_.
In consequence of the promise I made when in Florence on the 20th and 21st ultimo, that I should write to you on the subject of postal communication between Great Britain, the East Indies, China, Japan, and Australia, I have the honour to address this letter to you.
I propose to commence it with a short sketch of the history of this communication, which, from being of comparatively trifling importance in 1830, has become, at the present time, one of immense magnitude, as well as of equally great commercial, social, and political importance.
Previous to 1830, the mail communications of Great Britain with the East were maintained solely by the route round the Cape of Good Hope. Letters then were never less than 90 to 120 days on the passage between England and Calcutta, and from 20 to 30 days more between England and China.
In 1830, the then great political and commercial company of England, called the East India Company, first placed a postal steamer in the Indian Seas; but it was not until 1834 that a regular monthly service was organised between Suez and Bombay.
In 1835, steam communication was organised, although in an imperfect and unsatisfactory manner, between England and Alexandria. By degrees this service became improved.
In 1839 the British Government, by convention with that of France, opened the Marseilles route for the conveyance of a portion of the Indian Mail; as, at that period, the railway system was not in operation in France, it required 108 hours to convey the correspondence despatched by this route, between Calais and Marseilles. It may here be mentioned that in 1845 great efforts were made by Lieutenant Waghorn of the British Navy, a man eminently distinguished in connection with the first attempt to establish postal communication between Great Britain and the East Indies, _viâ_ the Isthmus of Suez, to make Trieste the port for the embarkation of the mails. These efforts were, however, not successful, and the attention of Great Britain became thenceforward limited to the routes, _viâ_ Marseilles for the more rapid communication, and _viâ_ Southampton for the heavier and larger portion of the Indian mails.
Reverting to the year 1840, the British Government entered, at that period into a contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for a service once a month, from Southampton to Alexandria, and from Suez to Calcutta and China; and two services were organised between Marseilles and Alexandria, one in connection at Suez, with the service by the steamers for Calcutta and China, and the other in connection with a service between Suez and Bombay, which was performed by the postal steamers of the East India Company.
In 1849 the services between Southampton and Alexandria became bi-monthly instead of monthly as before.
In 1854 the postal steamers of the East India Company were withdrawn, and the whole of the services in the Indian Seas were transferred to the Peninsular and Oriental Company.
In 1858 the postal service with Australia, _viâ_ the Isthmus of Suez, was first commenced. It is a monthly service, but by recent intelligence received from Australia, there is probability of its becoming bi-monthly at an early date. I shall give particulars of the immense magnitude of this mail hereafter.
In 1857, in consequence of the very great increase of correspondence passing between Great Britain and the East, it was found necessary to augment the postal services to four a month in each direction _viâ_ Marseilles, and to four in each direction _viâ_ Southampton.
The whole of the sea service of the Indian, China, Japan, and Australian postal communications of Great Britain, is performed by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. This company is the largest in the world. It has a fleet of fifty-three steamers, with an aggregate tonnage of 86,411 tons, and 19,230 horses power. Its largest ship is of 2,800 tons. Its next largest is 2,600 tons, five are between 2,000 and 2,500 tons, and eighteen are between 1,500 and 2,000 tons each. Its routes extend from Southampton and from Marseilles to Alexandria, from Suez to Bombay, from Suez to Point de Galle and Calcutta, from Bombay to Calcutta, from Point de Galle to Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama (Japan), and from Point de Galle to Melbourne and Sydney. The total number of knots (sea miles) performed by the postal vessels of the company in 1866 was 1,194,952, equal to 2,290,320 kilometres.
By successive openings of the railways, the length of which between Calais and Marseilles is 1,190 kilometres, the time occupied in the transit of the Eastern mails through France has been diminished from 108 hours to 28 hours.
I have already stated the total contract service of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, 2,290,320 kilometres.
The annual land service of the Eastern mail is as follows; first, as regards Marseilles:—
┌————————————————————————┬————————┬———————————┬—————————┐ │ Route. │ Kilos. │ Number │ Total. │ │ │ │ of │ │ │ │ │ Journeys. │ │ ├————————————————————————┼————————┼———————————┼—————————┤ │ London and Dover │ 150 │ 96 │ 14,400 │ │ Calais and Marseilles │ 1,190 │ 96 │ 114,040 │ │ Alexandria and Suez │ 400 │ 96 │ 38,400 │ │ ├—————————┤ │ │ 166,840 │ │ _Viâ_ SOUTHAMPTON. │ │ │ London and Southampton │ 135 │ 96 │ 12,960 │ │ Alexandria and Suez │ 400 │ 96 │ 38,400 │ │ ├—————————┤ │ │ 218,200 │ └—————————————————————————————————————————————┴—————————┘
It should be explained that the heavy mails that are conveyed by the steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, between Southampton and Alexandria, are taken across the Isthmus of Suez by separate trains from those which convey the light mails _viâ_ Marseilles; hence, there are ninety-six trips of Eastern mails per annum across the Isthmus for the Marseilles mails, and ninety-six for those _viâ_ Southampton. Thus the total annual length of this great postal service is:—
Kilometres. Water 2,290,320 Land 218,200 —————————— 2,508,520 ══════════
The weight and dimensions of the Eastern mails have increased very greatly during recent years. This is owing partly to the immense expansion of the trade of England in the Indian, Chinese, and Australian oceans, and partly to the British army in India, consisting of at least three times as many Europeans as previous to the Indian mutiny of 1857. England has also a larger fleet in the Indian and Chinese Waters than formerly. In 1865, the trading interests of England, in the Eastern seas, was as follows, in pounds sterling:—
┌—————————──────────┬————──────——┬———──────———┬———————──────────————─┐ │ │ │ │ Tonnage of Vessels. │ │ Countries. │ Imports. │ Exports. ├───────────┬——————————┤ │ │ │ │ Entered. │ Cleared. │ ├—————————──────────┼————──────——┼—————──────—┼—————──────┼—————─────┤ │ │ £ │ £ │ £ │ £ │ │ British India │ 37,395,372 │ 18,254,570 │ 664,391 │ 671,856 │ │ Singapore │ 2,169,056 │ 1,442,450 │ 77,835 │ 50,292 │ │ Ceylon │ 3,707,615 │ 685,308 │ 52,197 │ 50,400 │ │ Mauritius │ 1,246,299 │ 596,848 │ 41,029 │ 30,805 │ │ China │ 10,673,690 │ 3,609,301 │ 91,606 │ 80,375 │ │ Hong Kong │ 773,068 │ 1,561,851 │ 14,608 │ 42,848 │ │ Egypt │ 21,772,250 │ 5,985,087 │ 361,419 │ 488,268 │ │ Dutch Possessions │ 226 │ 928,642 │ Nil. │ 29,349 │ │ Philippine Island │ 1,253,904 │ 945,642 │ 23,207 │ 18,055 │ │ Japan │ 614,743 │ 1,520,895 │ 9,361 │ 19,602 │ │ Australia │ 10,283,113 │ 13,352,357 │ 156,649 │ 387,239 │ ├———————————————————┼————————————┼————————————┼———————————┼——————————┤ │ Total..£│ 68,117,356 │ 42,897,846 │ 1,492,102 │1,869,090 │ └———————————————————┴————————————┴————————————┴———————————┴——————————┘
The value of all the imports into the United Kingdom for the year 1865, was £271,131,967; so that the value of the imports of the countries above enumerated is very nearly one-fourth of the total value of English imports. British exports, consisting of materials and of articles manufactured in Great Britain in 1865, were £165,862,402, of which nearly one-fourth was exported to the above-enumerated countries. The total tonnage of the vessels cleared inwards in British ports during 1865, was 14,317,866 tons. The total outward tonnage was 14,576,206 tons. The inward tonnage, to the countries enumerated above, was therefore a tenth of the total inward tonnage of the kingdom; and the outward tonnage was an eighth of the total outward tonnage.
In proof of the immense and rapid extension of England’s trade with the East, it may be stated that the figures given above show amounts three times as great as they were five years, and nearly twenty times as great as they were fifty years ago.
The Eastern mails, sent _viâ_ Marseilles, are packed in wrought-iron boxes. They weigh about thirteen pounds, and their contents usually weigh about thirty-seven pounds. A box, fully packed, contains about 220 newspapers; the average weight of each of which is 3¼ English ounces. If a box be filled with letters, the number of them is about 1,800. The average weight of each letters is a little more than a quarter of an English ounce, or about 7½ French grammes.
The mails sent _viâ_ Southampton are packed in wooden boxes of larger dimensions than those sent _viâ_ Marseilles. As the letter postal rate is really double _viâ_ Marseilles what it is _viâ_ Southampton, and as the great proportion of the official letters passing between the Indian office in London and the three presidencies in India, as well as the official correspondence with the army and navy, is conveyed _viâ_ Southampton, the number of letters carried in a box is about the same as in a box _viâ_ Marseilles, notwithstanding the difference of dimensions. The number of newspapers sent in a box _viâ_ Southampton is about a third more than in a box sent _viâ_ Marseilles.
In 1850, when there were only two despatches of mails from England to the East per month, _viâ_ Marseilles, and one per month _viâ_ Southampton, the average number of boxes per despatch was 57 _viâ_ Marseilles and 152 _viâ_ Southampton.
In 1858, as I have already stated, mails commenced to be despatched between England and Australia by the Overland Route—that is both _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles. The service is once a month, and the Australian mail forms a part of the mails despatched from Southampton on the 20th of each month, and from Marseilles on the 26th of each month.
The dates for the three other despatches of each month are _viâ_ Southampton the 4th, the 12th, the 27th; _viâ_ Marseilles the 3rd, the 10th, and the 17th.
I mentioned in the last paragraph but two the number of boxes of mails despatched per month in 1850.
In 1861 the average number of boxes despatched _viâ_ Marseilles, on the three occasions in each month when the Australian are not forwarded, was 89; but on the 26th of each month, when the Australian mail is included, the number of boxes despatched was 232.
The weight of the mails from the East towards England is never so great as from England towards the East; and this is caused from the fact that for every fifty newspapers that are sent from England to the East there is not more than one sent from the East to England; and the average weight of the latter is little more than one half the average weight of the former. For this reason the number of boxes received on each occasion in each month of 1861, when the Australian mail was not received, was twenty-two; but when the Australian mail was received the number was fifty-three.
I regret that I am not able to give the same information for 1861 as regards the Southampton route; but an Appendix to the Report of a Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1866 upon the postal and telegraph communications of England with the East, enables me to state them with accuracy for the years 1864 and 1865.
In 1850 the total number of boxes despatched by that route was 1824, or an average of 152 each departure—in other words, each month; for at that time there was only one despatch a month _viâ_ Southampton.
In 1864 the total number of boxes despatched during the year had risen to 16,559, an average of 345 per despatch. The actual weight of these 16,559 boxes was 690 tons, an average of nearly 14½ tons per despatch. If we compute these mails according to the rules by which articles are received on board ships—that is by _measurement_ or _bulk_—the tonnage was 1,540 tons, or an average per voyage of 32 tons.
The greatest mail carried by any one steamer was by the departure from Southampton of the 20th of April, 1864. There were 1,117 boxes; they weighed 46 tons actual weight, but by measurement they were 99 tons.
In 1865 the total number of boxes despatched was 17,839, being 1,280 more than in 1864. The average per despatch was 372. The actual weight of these 17,839 boxes was 747 tons, an average of a little more than 15½ tons per despatch. Their tonnage by measurement or bulk was 1,660 tons, or an average per voyage of 35 tons. The greatest mail carried by any one steamer was by the departure from Southampton of the 20th of November. There were 1,207 boxes; they weighed 49¾ tons actual weight; but by measurement, 106½ tons. The mail despatched on the 20th of each month is, of course, invariably the heaviest, containing as it does the Australian mail, which mail usually consists of about six times as many boxes as are despatched to Egypt, India, China, and Japan combined. The mail despatched on the 27th of each month is invariably the lightest; the mail despatched on the 12th is the second lightest; next comes in weight the mail despatched on the 4th.
I was favoured last month with official returns, which give the number of boxes despatched outwards, both _viâ_ Marseilles and _viâ_ Southampton, during the months of January, February and March of this present year, and the same information as regards mails received inwards. As these returns give the latest information respecting the mails conveyed by both routes, I send you the following very full compilation of them.
Number of boxes of Eastern mails despatched from and received at London during the first three months of 1867:-
_Viâ_ SOUTHAMPTON.
┌—————————┬———————————┬————————————╥——————————┬———————————┬——————————┐ │ Date of │ India, │ ║ Date of │ India, │ │ │Despatch │China, and │ Australia. ║ Arrival │China, and │Australia.│ │Outwards.│ Mediterr. │ ║Homewards.│ Mediterr. │ │ ├—————————┼———————————┼————————————╫——————————┼———————————┼——————————┤ │ Jan. 4 │ 213 │ .. ║ Jan. 10 │ 23 │ .. │ │ ” 12 │ 169 │ .. ║ ” 18 │ 30 │ 475 │ │ ” 20 │ 233 │ 709 ║ ” 26 │ 20 │ .. │ │ ” 26 │ 80 │ .. ║ Feb. 2 │ 27 │ .. │ │ Feb. 4 │ 248 │ .. ║ ” 11 │ 24 │ .. │ │ ” 12 │ 92 │ .. ║ ” 16 │ 31 │ 448 │ │ ” 20 │ 232 │ 762 ║ ” 24 │ 24 │ .. │ │ ” 27 │ 80 │ .. ║ March 8 │ 27 │ .. │ │March 4 │ 199 │ .. ║ ” 13 │ 25 │ .. │ │ ” 12 │ 97 │ .. ║ ” 21 │ 35 │ 463 │ │ ” 20 │ 184 │ 800 ║ ” 28 │ 23 │ .. │ │ ” 27 │ 56 │ .. ║ .. │ .. │ .. │ └—————————┴———————————┴————————————╨——————————┴———————————┴——————————┘
_Viâ_ MARSEILLES.
OUTWARDS. │ INWARDS. Date. Boxes. │ Date. Boxes. January 3 125 │ January 3 38 ” 10 122 │ ” 10 80 ” 18 114 │ ” 18 22 ” 26 374 │ ” 26 25 February 4 114 │ February 4 45 ” 11 168 │ ” 11 81 ” 18 99 │ ” 18 41 ” 26 340 │ ” 26 50 March 4 98 │ March 4 34 ” 11 161 │ ” 11 81 ” 18 96 │ ” 18 51 ” 26 323 │ ” 26 22
The returns, _viâ_ Marseilles, do not separate the numbers of boxes to and from Australia, from those for the Mediterranean, India, and China, but the great difference between the number of boxes despatched outwards on the 26th of each month, and the number received inwards on the 10th of each month, will show approximately what is the number of boxes attributable to Australia. Outwards, it would be about 240; inwards, about 40.
But this is certain, that during the three first months of 1867 no less than 6,288 boxes (or at the rate of 25,152 boxes per annum) were despatched outwards, and 1,675 boxes (or at the rate of 8,980 per annum) were received inwards. Total outwards and inwards for three months, 8,533, or at the rate of 34,132 boxes per annum. Taking each box at the weight of 30 kilogrammes (which is below their weight taken all round) it follows that the gross weight of the Eastern mails per annum is 1,024,000 kilogrammes, or about 1,100 tons. By ship-board measurement it would be about 2,300,000 kilogrammes, or 2,550 tons.
There are two important subjects which it appears to me should at once be impressed upon the minds of the members of the Italian Government. The first is, the probable very early completion of the Mont Cenis Railway on Mr. Fell’s system, and the second, the notice given at the end of last year by the British Government to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, to terminate its existing _Mediterranean_ contracts on the 31st of January, 1868, and the advertisement which it has since issued, inviting parties to tender for these services, dating from the 1st day of the ensuing month—that is from the first of February, 1868. This advertisement contains, for the first time, an intimation that the British Post Office is desirous of establishing an ocean contract service between Brindisi and Alexandria, in addition to its existing services between Southampton and Alexandria, and between Marseilles and Alexandria.
As regards the Mont Cenis Railway, the testimony of the various Imperial and Royal Commissioners who were present at the trials on the experimental line above Lanslebourg, made in 1865, is so uniformly in favour of the system, that we have simply to look forward to its opening as the commencement of a revolution, not only as regards railway construction in mountainous districts, but also as leading to the most important results, in connection with the transport of the Anglo-Eastern mails.
The two kingdoms most deeply interested in the success of the system are, undoubtedly, England and Italy, the former, because, by means of the railway the transport of the fast mails can, according to the testimony of Captain Tyler, of Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Engineers, and the Commissioners of the British Government, at the trials on the Mont Cenis, be effected between London and Alexandria, in thirty-nine hours less time than _viâ_ Marseilles. Italy becomes, by means of this railway, a route hitherto undeveloped, and it can be brought into active operation not only for mail transport, but also for that of passengers; and no doubt, eventually, for that of light goods, and of specie also.
The advertisement of the British Government leads to the inference that it desires the conveyance of the fast mails,—that is the mails that now take the route _viâ_ Marseilles—by way of Brindisi, as soon as all the arrangements for their transit are completed. It is to be feared, however, that the French Post Office, instigated no doubt by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway Company, whose interests are concentrated at Marseilles, _and who has no love whatever for the Mont Cenis Railway_, will offer all the opposition in its power to the divergence from Marseilles to Brindisi taking place. In the first instance the department gave assurances that it would not only not put obstacles in the way of the British Government making the transfer, but would co-operate with it and assist it whenever required to do so. But in December last, the Marquis de Moustier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed to Earl Cowley, the British Ambassador at Paris, a despatch which contained a memorandum from the French Post Office, the object of which was to show that the Brindisi route would only save ten hours over that _viâ_ Marseilles, for mails from England, and would not effect any saving for mails coming from Egypt towards England. The memorandum contains several errors of fact, the most conspicuous of which is that the calculations are the same as were brought forward by the department when the _Ferrovia Meridionale_ was only opened as far as Ancona, whereas it is now extended to Brindisi, 559 kilometres farther southwards, and therefore that much the nearer to Alexandria.
I have reason also to know that the French Government expressed, in December last, to the British Government, its willingness to reduce its present transit rate for British correspondence to and from India, China, Australia, &c., _one-half_, provided the fast mails continued to be conveyed _viâ_ Marseilles, and that they be not deviated to Brindisi.
For these reasons I am sure that the Italian Government will see the necessity and importance of vigorous action; and vigour is all the more necessary, as the officers of the British Post Office have very frequently made the avowal that their leading principle in all their postal arrangements is to make each self supporting. Therefore, unless under compulsion to the contrary, they would probably accept such a proposal,—at all events I am convinced that they would, if they could. At the present time the British Government sustains a loss of about 1,000,000 francs (£40,000), a-year by its Anglo-Eastern mail services.
So far as regards the substitution of Brindisi for Marseilles in the conveyance of what are known in this country as “THE FAST EASTERN MAILS.”
I now desire to approach a subject which I consider to be of at least equal interest and importance, both to Italy and to England, and I shall be much gratified if the Italian Government consider the suggestion I have to offer (which I may state is an original idea of my own), in the same light as I do. In order that I may make myself clearly understood, it will be necessary to go into rather lengthy details.
England has two rates of postage for the letter correspondence. Newspapers and printed matter, which are conveyed by her Anglo-Eastern Mails, by the Marseilles route, the letter postage rate for half ounce, or fifteen grammes, is 100 centimes (tenpence); newspapers thirty centimes (threepence) each. Book post sixty centimes (sixpence), per four ounces, or 120 grammes. By the mails which are conveyed _viâ_ Southampton, the letter rate per half-ounce, or fifteen grammes, is sixty centimes (sixpence); newspapers twenty centimes (twopence) each. Book post forty centimes (fourpence) per four ounces or 120 grammes. It follows therefore that a great number of newspapers and all heavy letters are forwarded _viâ_ Southampton.
At the commencement of the Overland Indian Mail Service, in consequence of the absence of railways in France, there was scarcely any difference between the time required to convey correspondence _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles. But by degrees, as the railway system between Calais and Marseilles came into operation the time by that route diminished, and what, in 1840, was a journey of 120 hours, or five days, between London and Marseilles, has in recent years, for the Eastern mail service, been reduced to thirty-four hours.
The contract speed of the steam vessels that sail between Southampton and Alexandria is ten _knots_ an hour, exclusive of the stoppages allowed by the British Post Office, at Malta and Gibraltar. The time, therefore, occupied in the passage between Southampton and Alexandria is fourteen days, and as the vessels are timed to arrive at the latter port, at least one day in advance of the steamer _viâ_ Marseilles, the journey may be said to require fifteen days. As the mails conveyed by the steamers _viâ_ Marseilles only requires eight days, it follows, in order that the mails _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles be carried forward by the same steamer from Suez, that there shall be an interval of from 6½ to 7½ days between the time of posting a letter for the same destination in the east. Thus precisely the same occurs in the reverse direction, that is to say, if the writer of a letter in London wishes to forward it, on account of its comparatively cheap rate of postage, _viâ_ Southampton so that it shall arrive in, say, Bombay, at the same time as a letter despatched _viâ_ Marseilles on the _evening_ of the 10th of the month, he must take care that it is posted in time for despatch by the _morning_ mail of the 3rd; or if the writer of a letter in Bombay forward it for delivery in England _viâ_ Southampton, he must be content that his correspondent receive it seven days later than if he sent it _viâ_ Marseilles; as the usual time for a letter to be conveyed between London and Bombay _viâ_ Marseilles, is twenty-one days, the letter if sent by the other route, is practically one-third longer on its journey. The _comparative_ penalty in time is not so great for Calcutta and other places more distant than Bombay, but the absolute penalty is the same in all cases, a delay of six days and a half as a minimum, seven days and a half as a maximum.
When the Brindisi route is available for the mails now taken _viâ_ Marseilles, the interval, in consequence of the saving of thirty-nine hours, between the despatch of the mails, _viâ_ Brindisi and _viâ_ Southampton, must never be less than eight days as a minimum, or more than nine days as a maximum. The consequence is, in my opinion, that arrangements must be made for conveying, by the Brindisi route, the great portion of the “HEAVY,” or “SOUTHAMPTON MAILS,” as well as the conveyance of the “FAST,” or the “MARSEILLES MAILS.”
It can, however, only be accomplished by the countries interested consenting to take a transit rate, very different from that which is the ordinary transit rate for mail correspondence.
As long as the Mont Cenis Railway is the only railway open towards the western extremity of the Alps, France may refuse to agree to such an arrangement. There would then be no alternative but to continue the heavy mail service _viâ_ Southampton, until the completion of the Simplon Railway would make both England and Italy independent of France. The reason is, that there would then be two routes between England and Italy, _viâ_ the Simplon; one, undoubtedly the shorter, through Paris, Dijon, Pontarlier, and Lausanne, the other through Ostend, Belgium, Rhenish Germany, and Switzerland.
The distance from London to Brindisi, _viâ_ Paris, Dijon, &c., would be 2,395 kilometers; _viâ_ Ostend, Belgium, and Rhenish Germany, 2,758 kilometers. At the present time the fast mails are conveyed between London and Alexandria, _viâ_ Marseilles, in 193 hours, or eight days one hour.
According to the calculations of Captain Tyler, the fast mails can be conveyed from London to Brindisi, _viâ_ Mont Cenis, in sixty-nine hours. That is to say, a letter posted in London on the evening of the 11th of a month would arrive in Brindisi at 5·30 p.m. on the evening of the 14th; allowing two hours for placing the mails on board the steamer, she would start at 7·30 p.m., and at the existing contract rate of ten knots an hour, she would reach Alexandria in eighty-three hours; that is at 6·30 a.m. on the 18th. If the Simplon line were opened, the mails would be conveyed in, at least, three hours less time; making the arrival at Brindisi 3·30 a.m. Thus, the total distance would be accomplished in 151 hours, or six days seven hours; showing a saving over the Marseilles route of forty-two hours.
If the French Government would enter into an agreement for carrying the HEAVY MAILS, through French territory _by ordinary trains_, they could be conveyed between London and Alexandria in seven days nineteen hours; or six hours less time than at present, _viâ_ Marseilles: in other words, these mails need not be despatched from London until thirty-six hours before the departure of the fast mails.
But if the adoption of the route, _viâ_ Ostend, Belgium, and Rhenish Germany, be unavoidable, it will then be necessary to despatch the heavy mails twenty-four hours earlier than if they were transmitted _viâ_ France. Still this despatch will only be two days and a half earlier than the despatch of the fast mails, instead of being eight or nine days, which would be the case if the heavy mails still continued to be despatched _viâ_ Southampton.
The progress of the heavy mails by ordinary trains _viâ_ Ostend, &c., would be as follows:—Despatched from London on the morning of the 9th of a month, they would reach Basle on the evening of the 10th. At present there is no night mail trains on the Swiss railways, but they will be established before the opening of the Simplon Railway. They would thus reach Lausanne very early on the morning of the 11th. The distance from Lausanne to Milan, is 351 kilometres, of which, 77 would constitute the passage across the mountain; allowing five hours for it, and nine for the remaining 234, the train would arrive at Milan two hours before departure of the 9·10 p.m. train southwards; leaving Bologna at 3·40 on the morning of the 12th, the mails would, _at the latest_, arrive at Brindisi at noon on the 13th. Thus, the whole journey from London to Brindisi would be performed in 101 hours, or four days five hours, and the heavy mails would be there 29 hours in advance of the light mails despatched on the evening of the 11th.
The following table will show at one view the distances (given in kilometres) and the times occupied, or to be occupied in the several routes between London and Alexandria.
┌———————————————————————————┬————————┬————————┬————————┬————————┐ │ Viâ. │ Land. │ Water. │ Total. │ Time. │ ├———————————————————————————┼————————┼————————┼————————┼————————┤ │ │ Kilos. │ Kilos. │ Kilos. │ D. H. │ │ Southampton │ 130 │ 5,588 │ 5,718 │ 15 0 │ │ Marseilles │ 1,416 │ 2,835 │ 4,251 │ 8 1 │ │ Brindisi[160] │ │ │ │ │ │ Fast mails │ 2,470 │ 1,629 │ 4,099 │ 6 7 │ │ Heavy mails _viâ_ France │ .. │ .. │ .. │ 7 19 │ │ Heavy mails _viâ_ Belgium │ 2,833 │ .. │ 4,462 │ 8 19 │ └———————————————————————————┴————————┴————————┴————————┴————————┘
It is a well established maxim with all Post Office authorities to prefer land to water service for conveyance of mails; but especially so, when the land service can be effected by railway. There are two reasons for this preference; the first is, the greater certainty of land over water conveyance; and the second is that mails carried by railways, are conveyed at a rate of speed never less than double, and frequently it is three times greater than that of even the quickest water conveyance.
Viewed in that light, it will be seen by the above table what advantages the Brindisi route to Alexandria affords over all others. The direct route is not only 152 kilometers shorter than that _viâ_ Marseilles; but, whereas the sea voyage of the latter route is 2,835 kilometers, that _viâ_ Brindisi is only 1,629, showing a difference in favour of Brindisi, of 1,206 kilometers; again, the Marseilles route, has only an advantage of 211 kilometers in point of length over that _viâ_ Belgium; but the sea passage is still in favour of the latter by 1,206 kilometers. If the routes _viâ_ Southampton and Brindisi be compared, the difference exhibited will be still more striking, and the effect is, that a journey which can be accomplished in six days seven hours, _viâ_ Brindisi takes nearly twice and a half as long by the other route.
I therefore consider that great efforts should be made both by Italy and by England, to accomplish the conveyance of the HEAVY EASTERN MAILS _viâ_ Brindisi. Even if Italy made apparent sacrifices—that is, if she carried those mails along her railways at the rate charged for merchandise, it would be worth her while to do so. She would thereby not only secure a passenger traffic such as she does not possess at present, nor can she ever possess, unless with such apparent sacrifices, but she will thereby make Brindisi the Great European Terminal Port for all Eastern Postal and Passenger Traffic.
Let but the Government reflect upon the growth and development of Marseilles in the last twenty years. They are due solely to its being the port from which steamers depart, and at which steamers arrive daily from all parts of the Mediterranean. A gigantic commerce centres there from this cause only. Brindisi has, or at all events may have, the same career before it; and it is my firm conviction that, with well-organised arrangements between London and Brindisi, by which passengers would be attracted to the route, we should see a magnificent steamer starting daily for Alexandria, and one arriving from there also daily. Surely this is an anticipation by no means hazardous to make, when we remember that at the present time there are no less than eighteen first-class communications a month from Europe to Alexandria, and the same number from Alexandria to Europe. They are as follows:—from Southampton four; from Marseilles six; of which four are by the steamers of the English Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and two by those of the _Messageries Impériales_; four from Trieste, by the Austrian Lloyd’s Company, subsidised by the Austrian Government, and four from Brindisi, subsidised by the Government of Italy. In addition, there are two second-class steam communications a month from Liverpool to Alexandria, by the Bengal Steam Packet Company, and one from Marseilles, which belongs to the _Messageries Impériales_.
I regret to observe that in the advertisements for New Mediterranean Contracts, issued by the British Government, the speed proposed is only ten knots an hour. This was a suitable speed twenty years ago, but does not correspond with modern requirements. No doubt this speed will be exceeded before long, and there is no reason why we should not have, on the Mediterranean, a rate of speed equal to what the steamers of the Atlantic, built in the last five or six years, have accomplished. They frequently run during a considerable portion of the entire voyage from New York to Liverpool at a rate of fifteen knots an hour, but even if there were a speed between Brindisi and Alexandria of twelve knots an hour, the passage of eighty-three hours would be converted into one of seventy-one hours—thus diminishing the time between London and Alexandria to 139 hours, or five days, nineteen hours—at all events, this is certain, that it will be much easier to apply increased speed to vessels which have before them only voyages of the distance between Brindisi and Alexandria, than to those which have to run from Marseilles to Alexandria; and the argument is still stronger when we refer to the vessels between Southampton and Alexandria.
Brindisi will, in my opinion, also become, on the completion of the Alpine Railways, the port for the postal and passenger communication of England and Western Europe, with Greece, the Ionian Islands, Turkey, and the Black Sea. The trade of England with those parts of the world has increased greatly in recent years.
This letter has extended to much beyond what I had originally proposed; but I feel that I shall be pardoned its length, in consequence of the great interest I have for several years taken in the subject, and of my desire to impart to you all the information I possess relating to it.
Probably, the points I have opened for consideration may lead to the desire for further particulars. If so, I shall only say that I am completely at your service for this purpose.
(Signed) CUSACK P. RONEY.
INDEX.
“Above sea level,” described, 318.
Absence of mind, remarkable instances of, _note_, 170.
Acceleration of East Indian contract steamers, its importance, 247.
Accidents on railways, 173; statistical account of, 176; causes of, 178; impossible to prevent them altogether, 179; cost of, 180; small in proportion to accidents from other causes, 181; accidents in London, 181; carriage, _note_, 181; by shipwreck, 182; in collieries and by fire, 183; on American railways and steamers, 184; on Indian railways, 290.
Affghanistan, the Long Railway will pass through it, 271, 300; opinion of Mr. A. H. Layard, M.P., thereon, 300.
Africa, mountains of, _note_, 9; railway mileage of, _note_, 211.
Ainsworth, William Harrison, his “Turpin’s Ride to York,” _note_, 215.
Alba Lake, tunnel from, 364.
Aldworth, Miss, the lady Freemason, _note_, 210.
Alexandria, comparative distances to, from London, 429.
Allen, inventor of Cross Posts, _note_, 103.
“Allen’s Indian Mail,” its views upon East Indian railway extension, _note_, 262.
Alpine passes enumerated, 7; heights of, _note_, 319.
Alps, the, traversed from the earliest periods, 6; Hannibal’s army crosses them, 6; the first tunnel under, 366; the Great Tunnel of, described, 401.
America, mountains of, _note_, 10; railway mileage of, _note_, 211.
American railways and steamers, accidents upon, 184.
American trotting horses, their pace, 188.
Anglia, _unde derivatur_, _note_, 167.
Anne, Duchess of Savoy, first constructor of an Alpine tunnel, 366.
Annuities Act, the Post Office, 101.
Apennines, the highest peaks of, _note_, 9; railway from Pistoja to Poretta described, 344.
Arbitration, differences between railways and the Post Office to be settled by, 75; opposition to it by the Post Office, 76; the only real mode of settling with railways, 123; Mr. E. Page’s opinion on it, 445.
Argyll, the Duke of, Postmaster-General, 102; senator, politician, man of letters, _note_, _ib._
Army, British, that must be maintained in India, 300.
“As the crow flies,” described, 343.
Ascending heights, by man and animals, 320.
Ashford, locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Asia Minor, the Long Railway will pass through it, 271, 300; opinion of Mr. A. H. Layard thereon, 300.
Asia, mountains of, _note_, 9.
Atlantic, grand tunnel under the, 400.
Atlantic islands, mountains of, _note_, 10.
Attock, the Indus at, _note_, 278, 280; the tunnel at, 395.
Australia, mountains of, _note_, 10; British exports to, 54; coal in, for Indian railways, 288; railways in, _see_ Railways.
Austria, mountains of, _note_, 8; foremost among nations in constructing railways, 12; postage stamps in, how called, _note_, 142; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297.
Avalanches, protection from, on the Mont Cenis Railway, 353.
“Bagmen” travelling on railways, _note_, 171.
Bahamas, the, cotton supply from, _note_, 299.
Baker, Sir Samuel, his views respecting railway extension in India, _note_, 263.
Ball, John, late president of the Alpine Club, Alpine passes and peaks enumerated by him, _note_, 319.
Banging of railway carriage doors, _note_, 213.
Barlow, Peter W., Esq., C.E., his proposed Thames subway, 395.
Barrow Docks, opening of, _note_, 51.
Bavaria, mountains of, _note_, 9; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297.
Belgium, the first continental nation to construct railways, 12; fastest trains in, 113; postage stamps in, _note_, 142; locomotive constructing establishments in, 193; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297; railway tunnels in, 380.
Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain, _note_, 9.
Bermuda, cotton supply from, _note_, 299.
Bernardino Pass, the, 10.
Bessemer process of steel manufacture, 201; its great value and importance, _note_, 202.
Beypoor, unsuitable terminus for Madras Railway, 256.
Bhore Ghaut, the, described, 252.
Birmingham, rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Bletchley Station, 220.
Blue Coat School, the, _note_, 217.
Board of Trade, its powers respecting cheap parliamentary trains, 61; errors in its calculations, 71; its wreck register, 182; Captain Tyler’s report to, on the Mont Cenis Railway, 347.
Boetia, ancient tunnel in, 364.
Bohemia, mountains of, _note_, 8.
Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway, the, 258; proposed extension of, to Delhi, 260; working expenses, 289.
Bombay, development necessary at, for it to become the capital of India, _note_, 258; advantage to Bombay of the extension of the Baroda line to Delhi, 260.
Book Post, the, Mr. Page’s vindication, 450; refuted, 471.
Bordeaux, the port for the Orleans Railway Company, 24; population of, _note_, 31.
Box Tunnel, the, its ventilation, 411.
Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, 32.
Bray Head, proposed tunnels under, 371.
Bread winners and bread managers, _note_, 161.
Brenner, the, a very old Alpine pass, 11; the railway over the Pass, 13; its political importance, 14; its first time table, _note_, _ib._
Bridgewater, Duke of, opening of his canal, 65.
Brighton Locomotive and Carriage Establishment, 209.
Brindisi described, 428; its importance for the conveyance of the Eastern mails, 429, 496.
Brindisi, distance from London _viâ_ Brenner Pass, _note_, 15.
Bristol, the highest rainfall in, of England, _note_, 281.
Britannia Tubular Bridge, the, described, 391.
British Columbia, Canadian railways to extend to, 306.
Broadstone Locomotive and Carriage Establishment, 209.
Brockedon, William, his illustrated work on Alpine passes, 7.
Brunlees, James, Esq., C.E., 346.
Bucke, W., engineer of Manchester and Birmingham Railway, 4.
Bulk, not weight, the real manner in which mails must be estimated, 85.
Burke, John, Esq., C.E., his tunnel under the Liffey, 394.
Byron, Lord, educated at Harrow, 218; recollection of his schoolboy days, _note_, _ib._
Cæsar, Julius, his tunnel under Uxellodum, 365.
Cairn Tual, the highest mountain in Ireland, _note_, 9.
Calais to Paris, railway distance, 15; to Nice, 240; to Constantinople, 270.
Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway, the, 273; working expenses, 290.
Calcutta, population of, _note_, 259; postal communications with, 247; their future accelerations, 266, 272.
Caledonian Railway, its locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
California, discovery of gold in, 17; telegraphing with London, 19.
Campbell, Lord, his lives of the Chancellors of England, full of blunders, _note_, 324.
Canada, railways in, 301, _see_ Railways; proportion of, to population, 305.
Canals, passengers carried on them in 1837, 57; effect of their opening upon the cost of conveying goods, 65; canals have not suffered through railways—dividends in 1846 and 1867, 67, _note_, 149; their length in Great Britain, 368; tunnels in, _ib._; canals in France, _note_, 377.
Canton, distance from San Francisco, 22.
Cape of Good Hope Railway, the, 311.
Capital invested in British railways, 40, 147; can no longer be charged with working expenses, 55.
Capitol of Rome, how saved, 213.
Carriage accidents in London, _note_, 181; doors of railways, banging of, 213.
Carson, city, 19.
Cat, the, its power of ascending elevations, 321.
Catherine of Arragon introduces the mantilla and farthingale into England, _note_, 210.
Cattle conveyed on British railways, 40; increased since 1859, 47, 69; imported in 1866, 70.
Celerity of postal communication, Mr. Frederick Hill’s notions upon, 129; inaccuracy of Post Office assertions thereon, 130.
Cenis, the, Mont. _See_ Mont.
Central American Honduras Railway, the, 312.
Centre rail system, Mr. Fell’s claims as its inventor, 337.
Ceylon Railway, the, 313.
Chaix, M. M., “Indicateur des Chemins de Fer,” 32.
Chalmers, Mr. James, his subway between France and England, 398.
Charterhouse School, _note_, 217.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, _note_, 168.
Cheshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Christ’s Hospital School, _note_, 217.
City of London, value of house property in, _note_, 326.
Cleghorn, Mr. John, his railway statistical tables, 40.
Coal, conveyance of, by railway, rapidly increasing, 48; extraction of, from British collieries, _ib._, _note_, 49; how consumed, 50; its existence in India, _note_, 284; cost of, on Indian railways, 286; prospects of its being found in India, 288; Labuan and Australia, _ib._
Cochin, best sea-board terminus for the Madras railway, 257.
Coffee, the use of, diminishing in Great Britain, 71.
Col di Tenda, the, 8; height of, 319; tunnel under in the 15th century, 366.
Cold, how excluded from the Hauenstein tunnel, 416.
Collieries, number of, in Great Britain, _note_, 49; loss of life in, 183.
Colonies of Great Britain that supply it with cotton, 299.
Combinations, their injurious effects upon workmen, _note_, 159; _note_, 161.
Commission of 1853, on Contract Packet Services, extract from its report, 267.
Committee on Postal and Telegraphic Communications with the East, extract from its report, _note_, 266.
Constantinople, railways to, 271.
Corkscrew, the, ladies ungraceful in the use of, 228; advice thereon, 229; its analogy to mountain railways, 402.
Corn, foreign, imports of, 72.
Corporation of the City of London, great works accomplished by, 326; further required, 327; its columns of Luxor, 328.
Cotton, cost of conveyance from Liverpool to Manchester, last century, 65; districts of India, the, 295; whence imported into England, 299.
Crampton engines, 190.
Crawford, R. W., Esq., M.P., memorandum on the East Indian Railway, _note_, 251.
Crewe works, locomotives made at, 192; the town and works described, 194; statistics in 1849, 196; in 1867, 200; steel and iron rail manufactory, 201; modern Crewe, 204; its municipal government, 206; places of worship and schools, 207.
Crinoline forbidden on locomotives, 210; its introduction into England, _note_, _ib._
Cumberland, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Cusack, Mr. Ralph, establishes low railway fares in Ireland, 45.
Daft, T. B., Esq., C.E., his proposed steamers between Newhaven and Dieppe, _note_, 397.
Dâk, establishment of, between Jubbulpore and Nagpore, _note_, 247.
Danvers, Juland, Esq., government director of Indian railways, his annual reports on them, 247, 248, 256, 272, 277, 290.
Day mails, their number to and from London, 106.
De Camp, Monsieur A., 97.
Debenture capital of British railways, 147; holders, number of, in Indian railways, 276.
Delhi Railway, the, 273.
Demerara Railway, the, 311.
Derby locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Derby, Right Hon. the Earl of, speech upon combinations, _note_, 159.
Derby, the, speed at which it is run, 186.
Derbyshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Desbriere, Monsieur P., _Etudes sur la Locomotion au Moyen du Rail Central_, his resumé as to the priority of the centre rail discovery, 336.
Dingwall and Skye Railway, _note_, 239.
Distances, tables of, 15, 22; from Dover and Penzance to the North of Scotland, 240; traversed by the Eastern mails, 496.
Dividends upon share capital of British railways, 147.
Divine service, arrangements for, at Crewe, 206.
Dix, General John A., president Union Pacific Railroad, 22.
Docks, importance of, at Bombay, _note_, 258; advantages of, to Southampton, _note_, 259.
Dog, the, its power of ascending elevations, 321.
Dogs travelling on railways, _note_, 171.
Doncaster locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Dove Hole Tunnel, 372; singular accident in, 425.
Dover, railway distance from, to North of Scotland, 240.
Dublin, rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Duncombe, George, Esq., his noble contribution to the town of Crewe, 206.
Durham, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Earlestown, waggon repairing establishment, 200.
East Indian Railway, the, its commencement, 245; its present extent, 246; importance of completing the gap from Jubbulpore towards Bombay, 247; cost of the Railway, 248; its alleged mismanagement, _note_, _ib._; history of, by R. W. Crawford, Esq., M.P., _note_, 251; its net earnings exceed the Government guarantee, 277; iron sleepers upon, 283; coal-fields adjacent to the line, 287; working expenses, 289; provident fund, 293; its insufficiency, 294.
Eastern Bengal Railway, the, 273.
Eastern Counties Railway, strike upon, in 1849; described, _note_, 161; locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Eastern mails, weight and dimensions of, in 1839, 90; at present, 95, 98; their great bulk and weight, 431, 488; savings to be effected by sending them _viâ_ Brindisi, 490; table of the several routes, 496.
Edinburgh, course of post from London, 1672 to 1867, 2; Journey from, to Marseilles in 1867, 157; speed of limited mail to, 237; rainfall in, _note_, 281.
_Edinburgh Review_, the, describes the tunnel of the Alps, 426.
Edward VI., founder of Christ’s Hospital and other schools, _note_, 216.
Eggs, imports of, 72.
Elephants have crossed the Alps, 7.
Elevations, powers of ascending them, by man and animals, 321.
Elizabeth, Queen, on the “Winton birching,” _note_, 216; her letter to the Bishop of Ely, _note_, 324.
Engine, the Locomotive, a ride upon, from London to Stafford and back, 210.
Engine drivers, strike of, upon the Eastern Counties Railways in 1849, _note_, 161; their numbers on English railways, 211.
Engine manufacturers, British and Continental, 191.
Engines, dimensions of, on the Sœmmering Pass, 13; number of, on British railways, 45; fuel consumed by them, 50; number of component parts, 172; effects of bursting a tube, 173; compared to horses, 186; speeds of various classes of engines, 188; great size and power of some on the Continent, 189; inside and outside cylinder engines, 190; names of makers of, 191; number made annually in England and abroad, 191; railway establishments for the repairs of, 209; the engine in steam, 213; started, 215; capacity of their tenders, 219; engines and watches compared, 244.
_Engineering_ newspaper, the, extracts from, _notes_, 125, 202, 237, 248, 264, 284.
England, Helvellyn, the highest mountain in, _note_, 9; prosperity of, 164; public schools of, _note_, 216; commercial value of the East Indian Railways to, 296.
Englishmen for thirteen centuries described by Professor Henry Morley, _note_, 167; national character of, similar to that of the Romans, _note_, 169.
Etna, Mont, height of, _note_, 9.
Eton College, _note_, 216.
Euphrates River, the, described, _note_, 264; the tunnel under, 359.
Euphrates Valley Railway, the, 262, 266.
Europe, railway mileage of, _note_, 211.
Euston Station, its Doric portico, 212; departure of a train from, 213.
Fares on French railways, 30; high on Irish railways, 44.
Fell, Mr. John, the inventor of the centre rail system, 332; the system explained, 334; his appreciation both in theory and practice, 337; his experiments on the High Peak Railway, 338; on the Mont Cenis, 330; effect of the centre rail going round curves, 342; the Emperor Napoleon’s appreciation of the system, 349.
Ferrovia Calabro-Sicula, the, 433.
Ferrovia Meridionale of Italy, 427.
Fire, accidents by, 183; houses destroyed by, in London, _note_, 184; expense of, in several cities, _ib._
Fish, conveyance of, on railways, 156.
Fitzgerald, Sir Seymour, Governor of Bombay, ordered to report on Kurrachee Harbour, _note_, 264.
Florence, distance from London _viâ_ Brenner Pass, _note_, 15; _viâ_ Mont Cenis, 437.
Food, large conveyance of, by railways, 70; imports of, from abroad, 71.
Foot mileage of the Post Office, great variety in its cost, 123.
Foreign postage stamps, _note_, 142.
Forest of Dean, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
France possesses the three highest mountains in Europe, _note_, 8; history of railways in, 24; railway passenger traffic of, 30; cheap railways in, 31; railway postal service in, 38; material progress of, _note_, 54; letters and newspapers circulating in, _note_, 81; rural postmen in, _note_, 97; speed of railway trains in, 112, 130; stopping trains in, often unpunctual 114; postage stamps in, _note_, 142; fortunate escape through not annexing Luxemburg, _note_, 143; locomotive establishments of, 193; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297; canal and railway tunnels in, 377; mode of their construction, _note_, 378; subways and tunnels from England to, 396.
Francis, John, his valuable compendium of English railways, 74.
Franks, number of, in 1839, 75.
Fraser, J. M., Esq., C.E., upon British railway tunnels, 370.
Free trade has developed the present commercial grandeur of England, 151; America takes a different view, _note_, _ib._; free trade and the railway, the twin sisters of progress, 165.
Freemason, Miss Aldworth, the lady, _note_, 210.
Fremont, General, 17.
Frere, Sir Bartle, his views on Indian railway extension, _note_, 262.
Frith, W. P., Esq., R. A., his pictures “The Derby Day” and “The Railway Station,” 212.
Fucinus, Lake, ancient tunnel from, 365
Fuel for Indian railways, 284.
Furies, the, and the officials of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, 146.
Gammond, M. Thome de, his subway between France and England, 398.
Gauge of railways, _note_, 110.
Gauges, the battle of the, 4.
Genevre Mont, the, 8; height of, _note_, 319.
Germany, locomotive building establishments in, 192; railways in, _note_, 297; railway tunnels in, 377.
Ghaut, the Bhore, 252; the Thull, 254.
Gibraltar, height of summit, _note_, 9.
Gibson, Rt. Hon. Milner, the author of the abolition of stamps on newspapers, 80.
Giovi incline, the 344.
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Wm., speech of, on KING IRON, _note_, 51; gratitude due to him for establishing Post Office Savings Banks, 100.
Glasgow, rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Gloucestershire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Glover, Colonel, his memorandum on Indian telegraphs, _note_, 280.
Glyn, George Carr, Esq., M.P., 74.
Gold, discovery of, in California, 17.
Goods conveyed on British railways, 40, 47; cost and speed of conveyance in the last century, 65; contents of first goods train on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 66; slow development of goods traffic on British railways, 66; increase in subsequent years, _ib._
Government Insurance and Annuities Act, the, 101; transmission of documents which its establishment renders necessary, _ib._
Gradients, the early, on English railways, 4; maximum at present, 5; explained, 322; on the Mont Cenis Railway, 331; on mountain road, 343; that engines can ascend, 344.
Grand Junction Railway incorporated, 2; opened, _ib._; used by the Post Office as soon as opened, 73.
Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, the, begun, 302; its length and cost, 305; Victoria Bridge upon, 391.
Great Britain, mountains of, _note_, 9.
Great Indian Peninsula Railway, the, its course and works, 252; receipts, 254; its liability to heavy working charges, 255; its net earnings exceed the government guarantee, 277; working expenses, 289.
Great Southern of India Railway, the, 274; working expenses, 289.
Great St. Bernard, 8; height of, _note_, 319.
Great Vallon Mountain, the, the Tunnel of the Alps carried through it, 401.
Great Western Railway has the fastest train in England, 110; its gauge, _note_, _ib._
Great Western Railway of Canada, the, 302; its length and cost, 305.
Greece, mountains in, _note_, 8.
Gregory, Charles Hutton, Esq., C.E., Post Office Arbitrator, 132, 144.
Gretna Green pace, the, 187.
Griffiths, Mr. Darby, M.P., chances of his Post Office Bill passing, 132.
Grove, George, Esq., Secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 359.
Guarantee, the, of the Indian Government to railways, 275; impossible to construct railways in India without it, 278.
Guernsey, no railways in, 314.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, 304; its magnificent harbour, 306.
Hamburg, postage stamps in, how called, _note_, 142.
Hand books, continental, 317.
Hannibal, his army crosses the Alps, 6.
Hanover, postage stamps in, how called, 142.
Harrow School, 216; distinguished men educated there, 217.
“Haste, post haste,” defined, _note_, 158.
Hatton, Sir Christopher, _note_, 324.
Hauenstein Tunnel, the, its ventilation, 415; cold, how excluded, 416.
Haupt, General, his tunnel boring machine, 385.
Hawkshaw, John, Esq., C.E., his tunnel under the Mersey, 393; his borings between Calais and Dover, 398.
Haywood, William, Esq., engineer of the Corporation of London, 322.
Head, Sir Francis, Bart., quotations from his “Stokers and Pokers,” 196, 197, 198, 224.
Helvellyn, the highest mountain in England, _note_, 9.
Henry VI., founder of Eton College, _note_, 216.
Hermit, winner of the Derby, 1867, 186.
Hibbert, the late Mrs., “Generalissima,” _note_, 227, 228.
High Peak Railway, Mr. Fell’s experiments upon the, 338.
Highgate, intended tunnel through, 369.
Highland Railway, the, _note_, 237, 238.
Hill, Mr. Frederick, Assistant-Secretary of the Post Office, supports his brother’s views respecting purchase of railways; his ignorance of their working, 118; his anticipations if the State purchase British railways, 123; his assertions answered, 124; differences between Mr. Hill and Postmaster-General’s Reports, 130; Mr. Hill believed to be the writer of them, 131; his evidence before the Committee on Postal and Telegraph Communications with the East, _note_, 266.
Hill, Mr. M. D., his article on the Post Office, in _Fraser’s Magazine_, _note_, 98, 137.
Hill, Sir Rowland, K.C.B., appointed on the Royal Commission on Railways, 115; dissents from report, his reasons, 117; the chief witnesses in his support, 118; real reasons for his recommendations, 118; what they are, 132.
Hilmer, Mr. B., his subway between France and England, 398.
Hofer, Andreas, 12.
Holborn, past and present, _note_, 323.
Holborn Viaduct and Embankment, the, described, 321, 328.
Holland, postage stamps in, how called, _note_, 142.
Holyhead and Kingstown, the magnificent steamers between, _note_, 95.
Holyhead Mail, the old and the new compared, 46.
Honduras railway, the, 312.
Hooghley, the river, importance of a railway bridge across, 247.
Hoosac Tunnel, the, 385.
Hora di Roma, _note_, 158.
Horse boxes, their use in railway traffic, 46.
Horse, the, and the locomotive compared, 186; its power of ascending elevations, 321.
Horses, numbers required for mail coaches in 1839, 93; number required if the Post Office reverted to mail coaches, 94.
Hotel accommodation required at Bombay, _note_, 259.
Howell, Mr., Secretary of the Peninsular and Australian Navigation Company, 95.
Humber, the, proposed railway tunnel under, 394.
Ice, conveyance of, by railway, 156.
Imperial railway train for the Emperor Napoleon, 33.
Inchicore locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Inclines, the Oldham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire Railway, _note_, 5.
India, population of, British exports to, 53; railways in, 245, _see_ Railways; marvellous development of, 297; its debt, _note_, 298; cotton imported from, 299; what quantity produced, _note_, _ib._; army that must be maintained there, _note_, 300.
Indus River, the, how it must be crossed at Attock, _note_, 278.
Indus steam flotilla, the, 262.
Indus Valley Railway, the, 262.
Insurance Act, the Post Office, 101.
Intercolonial Railway, the proposed, 304.
Ireland, Cairn Tual, the highest mountain in, _note_, 9; population of, _note_, 34; railways in, 43; railway animosity in, 44; probable reduction of high fares, 45; production of coal in, _note_, 49; sums paid by Post Office to railways in, 108; railway gauge in, _note_, 110; report of royal commissioners upon, 116; dissentients, 117; absence of locomotive manufacturers in, 192; canal navigation of, 368; railway tunnels in, 371, 373.
Iron, British coal consumed in the manufacture of, 51; KING IRON, _note_, _ib._; how he should be heard at St. Stephen’s, 208.
Isle of Man Railway prospects, 314.
Isle of Wight Railway, the, 314.
Isthmus of Suez Railway, 95; canal, _note_, _ib._, _note_, 265.
Italy, mountains of, _note_, 8; postage stamps in, how called, _note_, 142; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297; ancient tunnels in, 364; railway tunnels, 380; its railway system, 427.
Jamaica Railway, the, 311.
Jeddo, distance from St. Francisco, 22.
Jerrold, Blanchard, one of the workman’s best friends, 228.
Jersey, no railway at present in, 314.
Jerusalem, explorations in, 360.
Kensington, its frequent use in London street nomenclature, _note_, 36.
Kilometres, how to convert into English miles, 331.
Kingstown and Holyhead, magnificent steamers between, _note_, 95.
Kurhurbali Coal-field, 287.
Kurrachee Harbour, its present unfitness as a harbour, _note_, 264.
La Vallée, M. Charles, “Les Chemins de Fer en France,” 30.
Labouchere, Mr., his speech upon railways, 1838, 74.
Labuan, coal prospects in, 288.
Ladies’ dogs carried on railways, _note_, 171.
Lancashire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Lange, Daniel A., Esq., English representative of the Suez Maritime Canal Company, _note_, 95, _note_, 265.
Lanslebourg, the Mont Cenis village of, 332.
Lardner, Dr. Dionysius, Treatise on Railway economy, 61.
Late trains, 166.
Lawyers at Crewe, 204.
Layard, H. A., Esq., M.P., his opinion upon a railway through Persia, &c., to India, 300; upon Assyrian antiquities, 359.
Leeds, rainfall in, 281.
Leicestershire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Letter postage, low as contrasted with high newspaper postage; its effects; necessity of its reduction upon local letters, _note_, 81.
Letter writing among the working classes, 205.
Letters, number of, in 1839 and 1840, 75; number circulating in France, _note_, 81; transmission alone gives them value, 141.
Lewins, William, “Her Majesty’s Mails,” 103.
Liechtenstei, the smallest state in the World, _note_, 34.
Life boats, the, of the National Association, their great use in saving life, 183.
Liffey, the, proposed railway tunnel under, 394.
Lille, population of, _note_, 31.
Limited mail, the, its speed, 109, 237.
Linsdale Tunnel, 220.
Little St. Bernard, the, crossed by Hannibal’s army, 7; easiest Alpine pass, 8.
Live stock conveyed on British railways, 40, 47.
Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened, 2; “Rocket” engine tried upon, 5; contents of first goods train conveyed upon it, 66; used by the Post Office as soon as opened, 73; speed upon, 109.
Liverpool, its postal arrangements with Manchester, _note_, 124; rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Local letters, the most profitable to the Post Office, _note_, 81; history of their development in London since 1800, _note_, 82.
Locke, the late Joseph, M.P., 4, 195.
Locomotive engine and the horse compared, 186; ride upon one from London to Stafford and back, 210.
Locomotive engines, number of, on British railways, 45.
London and Birmingham Railway incorporated, 2; opened, _ib._; immediately used by the Post Office, 73.
London and North-Western Railway, length, 23; cost, 28; passenger traffic, 33; rolling stock and train mileage in 1847, 38; in 1866, 39; receipts, _ib._; its London coal traffic likely to diminish, 48; its locomotive establishment at Crewe, 194; carriage establishment at Wolverton, 199; waggon establishment at Earlestown, 200; its minor repairing shops, 201; rail manufactory at Crewe, 201.
London, Chatham and Dover Railway, 15; Workman’s trains, 63; its locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
London (City), mortality in, _note_, 35.
London General Omnibus Company, passengers carried by the, 35.
London, population of, 34; its motive habits, 35, 37; street nomenclature, _note_, 36; dependent upon railways for its food supply, 70; carriage accidents in, _note_, 181; rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Long Hedge locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Lubeck, postage stamps in, how called, note, 142.
Lukmainer Alpine Pass, the, 10; proposed tunnel through, 409.
Luxemburg, the Duchy of, inconveniences if annexed to France, _note_, 143.
Lyons, population of, _note_, 31; the Croix Rousse Railway, 32.
Lytton, Lord, obtained the reduction of the Newspaper duty in 1836, _note_, 80.
Madras, population of, 259.
Madras Railway, its course, 255; traffic, 256; small amount of its working expenses, 289; freedom from accidents to passengers, 291.
Madrid, its magnificent water supply, 384.
Mail bags, 90; conveyance of by ordinary trains, 139, 463.
Mail coaches, their speed, 56, 109; passengers carried by them in 1837, 57; their numbers, weights they carried, 93; numbers required if Post Office now resorted to conveyance by them, 93, 94, 95; more costly proportionately than railways, 137; that formerly left London each evening, 443; payments to, 457; dimensions for postal purposes, 466.
Mail Contract Packets, excluded from expenses of Post Office until 1860, 94.
Mails, weight of, 92; prices paid to railways for conveyance of, 95, 106, 446; day, 106.
Man, his power of ascending elevations by steps, 321.
Manchester and Birmingham Railway, 4.
Manchester, its postal connection with Liverpool, _note_, 124; the city described, _note_, 125; rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Manners, Lord John, his tardy mode of doing business, _note_, 242.
Marseilles, from Paris, time of journey in 1672, 1; the Liverpool of the Mediterranean, 24; population of, _note_, 31; from Edinburgh to, 157; distance to Alexandria, 429; its growth and development, 497.
Matheson, Alexander, Esq., M.P., his efforts to establish the Dingwell and Skye Railway, _note_, 239.
Mauritius Railway, the, 313.
Meat, imports of, 71; conveyance of, by American railways, _note_, 156.
Merchandise conveyed on British railways, 40, 47.
Merchant Tailors’ School, _note_, 217.
Mersey, the, Mr. Hawkshaw’s tunnel under, 393.
Messina, the Straits of, 434; marvellous bridge across, _ib._; mail steamers between Marseilles and Malta to go through the Straits, _note_, 432.
Metre, the, its equivalent in English measure, 331.
Metropolitan District Railway, the, described, 389.
Metropolitan Railway, passengers conveyed in, 35; its workman’s trains, 62; described, 387; character of the atmosphere in it, 419; cause of the pungent smell in it, 422; efforts made to ensure the best ventilation, 423; excellent health of the employés, 424.
Midland Railway incorporated, 3; present length, _ib._; its importance for the conveyance of coal to London, 48.
Mileage, British Postal, on Railways, 38, 105, 138; variety of its cost for all modes of conveyance, 123.
Mileage, train, of British Railways, 40, 47.
Minerals conveyed on British railways, 40, 47; their rapid increase in recent years, 69.
Mining, tunnels connected with, 396; shafts ditto, _note_, 411.
Mississippi, proposed sub-aqueous bridge for, 395.
Monadnock on free trade, _note_, 151; his arguments refuted, _note_, 153.
Money Orders, documents connected with them, that pass through the Post Office, 87; absence of complete information respecting them, _note_, 98; amount of, in 1865, 98.
_Moniteur des Interets Materiels_, 32.
Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, 8.
Mont Cenis, height above sea level, 319; its height described, 321; gradients of, 331; Mr. Fell’s experiments upon, 339; Captain Tyler’s trials, 340; concession for the railway, 349; the works described, 350; level crossings, 351; the railway at Susa, 352; Zig-zags, 353; protection from snow and avalanches, _ib._; stations, 355; the engines for working the line, 356; its great rival, 358.
Morley, Professor Henry, his description of Englishmen, _note_, 167.
Mormons, head quarters, 19; their contributions to the Union Pacific Railroad, 21.
Mountains, early desire to construct railways over them, 5; height of, throughout the world, _note_, 8.
Mousell, the Right Hon. Wm., appointed on the Royal Commission on Railways, 115; dissents from Report, 117.
Munich, distance from London, 15.
Murray’s Hand Books the best published, 317.
Nantes, population of, _note_, 31.
Naples, distance from London, _viâ_ Brenner Pass, _note_, 15; _viâ_ Mont Cenis, 437.
Napoleon I. crossed the Great St. Bernard, 9; narrow escape from death there, _ib._
Napoleon III., Imperial Railway Train for, 33; his appreciation of the Centre Rail System, 349; Extract from his _Vie de Cæsar_, 365.
Natal Railway, the proposed, 313.
National Debt, the, 151; compared with capital invested in railways, _ib._
National Life Boat Institution, the great benefit it confers, 183.
Nederschindermanderscheid, a Luxemburg postal town, _note_, 144, 194.
Nevada, State of, 19.
New Brunswick, railways in, 304.
New South Wales, railways in, 307; first locomotive made in, _note_, _ib._; amount of traffic, 310.
New Zealand, railway tunnel in, 386.
Newcastle, rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Newspapers, number of, circulating through the Post in 1839 and 1840, 75; misrepresentations by the Post Office respecting, 80; stamps for, issued, from 1835 to 1854, _note_, _ib._; effect of high postal charge for their transmission, and comparative low charge for letters, _note_, 81; erroneous Post Office statements respecting, 81, 83, 87, 452.
Nine Elms Locomotive and Carriage establishment, 209.
North of Scotland, railway distances from, to Dover and Penzance, 240.
North Wales, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Northampton, its hostility to the London and Birmingham Railway, 233.
Northern of France Railway, its powerful engines, 189.
Northumberland, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Nottinghamshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Nova Scotia, railways in, 304.
Oberschindermanderscheid, a Luxemburg postal town, _note_, 144, 194.
Officials of railways, their general good conduct, 174; difficulties of their positions and duties when accidents occur, 175; numbers killed and injured, 177; numbers employed in Great Britain, 211; their love of banging carriage doors, _note_, 213.
Oldham, Mr., superintendent of the geological survey of India, his opinion as to coal being found there, 288.
Omaha, terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad, 19.
Orleans Railway Company, length, 23; its first conception, 25; cost, 28; traffic receipts, 29; passengers conveyed, 31; engine mileage, 37; goods traffic, 39.
Otranto, the Port and Castle of, 432.
Oudry, M., his bridge across the Straits of Messina, 434.
Overland Californian Mail, the, 18; the “Pony Express,” _ib._
Pacific islands, mountains and volcanoes of, _note_, 10.
Pacific Railroad, the Union, described, 17.
Page, Mr. Edward, Inspector-General of Mails, his personal character, 83; his report, _ib._; cause of its being issued, 85; error in the mode Mr. Page makes his computations, _ib._; omissions in his calculations, 86, 92; his assertions disproved, 92, 94; one of Sir Rowland Hill’s witnesses in favour of the State purchasing railways, 118, 132; his report of 1856, 439; increased weight of mails under penny postage system would not have prevented their carriage by mail coaches, 440; weight increased less than supposed, 441; comparative cost of road and railway mails, 443; relations between the railway companies and the Post Office, 444; arbitration, 445; prices paid to railway companies, 446; Mr. Page denies illiberal treatment, 447; mails by railway companies’ guards, 448; payment by passengers and Post Office compared, 448; competition from parcels post, 449; manner in which railways have improved postal communication, 452; Mr. R. Stephenson’s reply to Mr. Page, 454. _See_ Stephenson.
Palmerston, Lord, educated at Harrow, 218.
Paper _versus_ letters, 141.
Parcels, post, by the Post Office not approved by the Royal Commissioners of Railways, 121; Mr. Frederick Hill’s method of removing the chief difficulty in its establishment, 124; Mr. Page’s views, 449.
Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean railway, length, 23; cost of construction, 28; traffic receipts, 29; engine mileage, 37; goods traffic, 39; its hostility to the Mont Cenis Railway, 492.
Paris to Marseilles, time of journey in 1672, 1; present distance from London, 15.
Paris to St. Michel, 316.
Parliament, incompetence of, as regards railway legislation, 165.
Parliamentary reports, the Post Office thereon, 444; their assertions refuted, 474.
Pascal, _note_, 10.
Passenger traffic on French railways, 30, 31; on railways terminating in London, 37; on British railways, 40; third class, its immense increase, 47; number carried in the United Kingdom in 1837 and subsequent years, 58; cause of immense increase of third class, 61.
Passengers conveyed on British railways, 40, 166; accidents to, 176; numbers conveyed on Indian railways, 291, 297; accidents to, on Indian railways, 290.
Patterns, numbers transmitted by post incorrectly stated by Post Office, _note_, 81; first carried in 1863, 98.
Peel, Sir Robert, educated at Harrow, 218.
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, increased postal subsidy required by it, _note_, 241; services performed by it, _note_, 268; its new contract, note, 430; its history traced, 482.
Penny postage, date of its commencement, 75.
Penzance, Railway distance from, to North of Scotland, 240.
Persia, the long railway will pass through it, 271; opinion of Mr. A. H. Layard, M.P., thereon, 300.
Perth, speed of limited mail to, 109, 237.
Periodical tickets on railways, numbers of, 64.
Peshawer and Lahore Railway Company, the, difference of opinion respecting its construction, 278.
Phipps, G. H., Esq., C.E., on tunnel construction, _note_, 375.
Pigs and piglings at Wolverton, _note_, 225; disputed statistics of, 231.
Pistoja, railway from, across the Apennines, 344; its working expenses, 346.
Poland, unpronounceable post towns in, _note_, 144.
Policemen at Crewe, 204.
Pondicherry, railways for, 257; population and area of, _note_, _ib._
Pony express, the Transatlantic, described, 18.
Population of chief cities of France, _note_, 31; of London, 34; of India, 53; of United Kingdom in 1837 and subsequent years, 57.
Port Canning Company, the, 274.
Porta Cæsaris Augusti, Susa, 6.
Portugal, mountains of, _note_, 9.
Post haste defined, _note_, 158.
Post horse duty, the, not diminished by the opening of railways, 59.
Post Office, the, has produced many literary men, _note_, 103.
Post Office, the, its railway mileage, 38; railways used by the department from the earliest period, 73; its jealousy of railways; _ib._; the Bill of 1838, _ib._; largely modified in its passage through the House of Commons, 74; introduction of the penny postage system, sudden increase of letters, 75; hostility of the department to railways, 76; its outcry against arbitration, _ib._; extracts from Postmaster-General’s Second Report, 77; its fallacies, 79; misrepresentations, 80; Mr. Edward Page’s Report, 83; its omissions, 86 to 92; number of horses necessary if the Post Office reverted to mail coach conveyance, 94, 95; mails could not be carried across the Isthmus of Suez but for the railway, 96; Post Office service must have broken down but for railways, 97; savings banks, 99; the Insurance and Annuities Act, 101; Bill for “Further Provision for the Conveyance of Mails by Railway,” 103; withdrawn before second reading, 104; apparently better feeling of the Post Office to railways, _ib._; it is a complete mistake, 115; present arrangements with railways, 105; amounts paid to railways for conveyance of mails, 106; objection to its taking to parcels traffic, 121; impossible to define payments to railways by Act of Parliament, 122; can only be settled by arbitration, 123; the official supporters of Sir Rowland Hill’s recommendations, 132; railways proportionably less costly to the department than mail coaches, 137; immense facilities it derives from railways, 138; unreasonableness of its demands, 139; day mails in charge of railway guards, 140; hollowness of Post Office pretences, 144; discreditable proceeding in 1855, 145; impossible to satisfy postal officials, 146; remedies suggested, _ib._; statistical blunders of the department, 230; its costly blunder, _note_, 241; its tardy mode of doing business, _note_, 243; constantly increasing its demands upon railways, 462; advantages to, from railways, 459; unjustifiable tone of, to railways, 478. _See_ also Page, Stephenson.
Post offices, number of, in the United Kingdom, 89, 450.
Postage stamps, number transmitted through the mails, 88; weight of, _note_, 89; general information respecting, _note_, 142; suppressed, note, 143; only available for newspapers sent abroad, 473.
Postal communication with India, 247; its future accelerations, 266, 272.
Postal Guide, the, Post Office notice respecting, 79; first issued in 1855, 91; not implicitly to be relied upon, _note_, _ib._
Postmaster-General’s reports. _See_ Reports.
Postmasters, great increase of documents sent by them by railway, 88.
Poultry, the (City of London), should be immediately widened, 327.
Preference share capital of railways, 149.
Provident Fund, the, of the East Indian Railway, 293; its insufficiency, 294.
Prussia, fastest trains in, 113; postage stamps in, _note_, 142, 143; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297.
_Punch, Mr._, his admonition to government officials, _note_, 242.
Punjaub Railway, the, 272.
Puy de Dome, Pascal’s observations upon, _note_, 10.
Queensland, railways in, 308; the difficulties and expenses of their construction, 309.
“Quicksilver” mail in the olden days, 110.
Rails, iron and steel, manufactured at Crewe, 201.
Railway guards in charge of mails, 140.
Railway run, the longest without stopping for water, 111.
Railway subways and tunnels between France and England, 396.
Railway system, the, its immense power and magnitude, 152.
Railway, the centre rail on the Mont Cenis, the experimental line, 339.
Railway, the first passenger, in England, 2.
Railway, the Isthmus of Suez, 95.
Railway, the Long, 271, 300.
Railways and the Post Office. _See_ Post Office.
Railways, Australian, their moderate amount at present, 306; in New South Wales, 307; Victoria and Queensland, 308; difficult works in the latter, 309; South Australia, 310; New Zealand, _ib._
Railways, Canadian, necessity for their construction, 301; the first railways, 302; the present system, 304; their length and cost, 305; their eventual extent, 306.
Railways, Colonial, Demerara, Jamaica, Trinidad, 311; Honduras, Cape of Good Hope, 312; Natal, Mauritius, Ceylon, 314.
Railways, continental, date of their construction, 12; French railways, 24; their length, 27; modern cheap lines, 31; fastest trains on, 112; from Calais to Constantinople, 270.
Railways, English, miles constructed from 1843 to 1867, 360; published traffic receipts incorrect, _note_, _ib._; capital expended upon them, 28, 40; revenue from passengers and goods, train mileage, working expenses, 40; Irish, 43; Scotch, _ib._; rolling stock upon British, 45; continual development of the system, 47; advantages of, to the community, 56; number of passengers carried on them, 57; their importance in the conveyance of food, 70; hostility of the Post Office to, 73, 146; present arrangements with the department, 105; amounts paid to them, 106, 138; speed on, 109; gauge of, _note_, 110; Royal Commission upon, 115; character of the report of the Royal Commissioners thereon, 116; recommendations and opinions as regards railways and the Post Office, 119; impossible to pass a general act as proposed, 122; railways less costly proportionately than mail coaches, 137; immense facilities they afford the Post Office, 139; their duties towards the department and the public, 144, 145; capital of, receipts, working expenses, and profits, 147; dividends, _ib._; as compared with the national debt, 151; powers of, for conveyance of every article of commerce, 152; for personal locomotion 157; value to the humbler classes, 158; railways and free trade the twin sisters of progress, 165; working and traffic of, 166; accidents upon, 176; locomotive and carriage repairing shops of, 209; number of men employed upon, 211; prices paid to, by Post Office, 446; their benefits to the Post Office, as estimated by Mr. Page, 452; monopoly, alleged, as regards the Post Office refuted, 475.
Railways in India: the East Indian, 245; Great Indian Peninsular, 252; Madras, 255; Bombay, Baroda, and Central India, 258; Scinde, 261; Indus Valley (proposed), 262; Euphrates Valley (proposed), 263; Punjaub, 272; Delhi, 273; Eastern Bengal, Calcutta, and South-Eastern, _ib._; Great Southern, 274; future railways, the guarantee, 275; working expenses, 280; difference of working expenses upon, 289; reasons for their being high, 281; iron-sleepers, 282; fuel, 284; accidents, 290; provident fund of the East India Railway Company, 293; objections to, 294; rolling stock, 295; commercial advantages of their construction to England, 296; National importance of Indian railways, 297; their mileage as compared with other countries, 297.
Railways of Italy described, 427.
Railways, rapidity of their construction in America, 20.
Railways throughout the world, _note_, 211.
Rainfall in India, 255, _note_, 281; in England, _ib._
Ramsbottom, John, the head of the Crewe establishment, 200.
Raneegunge coal-field, the, 286.
Receipts of British railways, 40; their constant increase, 47; percentage of, to working expenses, 55, 147.
Receptacles for letters in England, 97; in France, _note_, _ib._
Remington, George, Esq., C.E., his proposed tunnel between France and England, 398.
Reports of the Postmaster-General, their first issue, _note_, 76; two not dated, _ib._; extract from second Report, 77; its fallacies, 79; misrepresentations, 80; errors in the 12th, _note_, 81; in the 3rd, 82; unceasing changes in the modes of compiling them, 83; difficulty of understanding the statistics contained in them, 89; facetia, _note_, 105; extraordinary contradictions between the 9th and 12th, _note_, 121; constant references to postal accelerations, 130; Mr. Frederick Hill believed to be the writer of them, 131; they abound in misstatements, 467.
Reuss-Greiz, the second smallest state in the world, _note_, 34.
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 22, _note_, 97.
Rice, Mr. Spring, his speech upon railways, 1838, 74.
“Rocket” engine, the, 5.
Rocky Mountains crossed by the Union Pacific Railroad, 20.
Rolling stock on British railways, 45.
“Roman Railways” Company, the, 436.
Rome, distance from London _viâ_ Brenner Pass, _note_, 15; time of journey to, in 1834, 157; in 1867, 158, 437; ancient, saved by the hissing of a goose, 213; present population of, _note_, 436.
Rouen, population of, _note_, 31.
Royal Commissioners of railways, their names, 115; character of their report, its main recommendations, 116.
Rugby school, 217.
Rugby station, 235; arrival of trains at, 234.
Rural postmen in France, _note_, 97.
Russia, unpronounceable post-towns in, _note_, 144; mileage of railways in, _note_, 297.
Salmon, conveyance of, by railway, 156.
Salt Lake, 19.
Samos, ancient tunnel in, 364.
Samples and patterns incorrectly stated by Post Office, _note_, 81; first carried in 1863, 98.
San Francisco, 18, 20; to Canton, 22; to Jeddo, _ib._
Sapperton Tunnel, the, its ventilation, 413.
Sardinia, mountains of, _note_, 8.
Savings Banks, Post Office, documents transmitted through the Post in consequence of them, 99; their establishment “with the security of the Government,” 100; is this undoubted? _note_, _ib._; the business done by them, _note_, 101.
Saxony, mileage of railways in, _note_, 297.
Schindermanderscheid, a Luxemburg postal town, _note_, 144, 194.
Scinde Railway, the, 260; its traffic, 261; working expenses, 290.
Scotland, mountains of, _note_, 9; railways in, 43; production of coals in, _note_, 49; amounts paid by Post Office to railways in, 108; locomotive manufacturers in, 192; north of, distances to Dover and Penzance, 240; canals of, 368; railway tunnels in, 371, 373.
Scudamore, Frank Ives, secretary of the Post Office, a distinguished author, _note_, 104; not examined before Royal Commissioners on Railways, 133.
Sea-sickness, 15.
Seguier, Baron, his claim as inventor of the Centre Rail System, 337.
Semiramis, founder of Babylon, 358; her resuscitation required, 435.
Service, Ambulant (postal), of France, the, _note_, 78.
Sevigny’s, Madame de, journey to Marseilles 1672, 1.
Shareholders, numbers of, in Indian railways, 276.
Sheffield, rainfall in, _note_, 281.
Ships, of the United Kingdom, statistics of, _note_, 182.
Shipwreck, losses of life from, 182, _note_, 183.
Shoddy-shoebility of Northampton, 233.
Shrewsbury Grammar School, _note_, 217.
Shropshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Sicily, mountains of, _note_, 8.
Sierra Nevada Mountain, 19.
Simplon, the, 8; height of, _note_, 319.
Skye and Dingwall Railway, _note_, 239.
Sleeping railway car, _note_, 303.
Sleepers, railway, iron in India, 282.
Sletvio Pass, the, 11.
Slow trains, difficulty of keeping time with them, 113.
Sœmmering Pass and Railway described, 12; gradients upon, 344.
Somersetshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
South Australia, railways in, 310.
South Austrian and Alta-Italian Railway, length, 23; described, _ib._; cost of construction, 27; traffic receipts, 29; rolling stock, 37; engine mileage, _ib._
South-Eastern Railway, the, 15; its locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
South Wales, production of coal in, note, 49.
Southampton, its progress since 1840, _note_, 259; distance to Alexandria, 429.
Spain, mountains of, _note_, 8; postage stamps in, _note_, 142; mileage of railways in, 297; railway tunnels, 381; its water canal, Isabel II, 384; roadway communications, _ib._
Speed on railways, 109; if accelerated, position that Mr. Frederick Hill should take, 132.
Spezzia, the Italian Portsmouth, 433; unfinished railway to, 438.
Spiers and Pond, Messrs., of _buffet_ celebrity, 228.
Splugen Pass, the, 10; height of, _note_, 319.
St. Etienne, population of, _note_, 31.
St. Germain and Paris, first railway in France, 25.
St. Gothard Alpine Pass, the, 9; height of, _note_, 319; proposed tunnel through, 409.
St. John’s Wood Railway, the, described, 390.
St. Michel, distance from London and Paris, 318.
St. Paul’s Cathedral, height of, 219, 321.
Staff, the, of Indian railways, its composition—insufficiency of the provident fund for, 292.
Staffordshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49; canal navigation.
Stage coaches, their speed, 56, 109; passengers carried by them in 1837, 57.
Stamps, newspaper, _note_, 80; letter, first use of, _note_, 141; the author of those now in use, 141; premium for the first design of, _note_, 142.
Steam Vessels, British, number of, 50; passengers carried by them in 1837, 57; statistics of, _note_, 162.
Steel rails, manufactory of, at Crewe, 201; value and importance of, _note_, 202; use of in India, 284.
Stephenson, the late Robert, M.P., extract from his inaugural address to the Institution of Civil Engineers, 83; upon railway tunnels, 370; answer to the report of Mr. Page, Inspector General of mails, 454; tendency of his report, 455; errors respecting the Dover day mail train, 456; travelling post offices, 457; payments to railways not higher than to mail coaches, _ib._; services to the Post Office and the public compared, 460, 464; cost of running trains, 461; mail bags by ordinary trains, 463; argument that the penny postal system would be cheaper by horse than by railway power, refuted, 465; unjustifiable competition of the Post Office, 470; Post Office threats against the railways, 475; alleged monopoly, 476; treatment of the railways by Government, 477; unjustifiable tone towards railways, 478.
“Stokers and Pokers,” by Sir Francis Head, Bart., quotations from, 196, 197, 198, 224.
Storrow, Mr. Charles, his interesting information upon tunnel ventilation, 411; his report upon the tunnel of the Alps, 426.
Strasbourg, population of, _note_, 31.
Stratford locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Strickland, Miss Agnes, on crinoline, _note_, 210.
Strike upon the Eastern Counties Railway in 1849, _note_, 161.
Strikes, their injurious effects upon workmen, _note_, 159, _note_, 161.
Sturgey, the immaculate, _note_, 243.
Styria, mountains of, _note_, 8.
Subways and tunnels between France and England, 396.
Suez Canal, _note_, 95, _note_, 265.
Suez, Isthmus of, Railway, 95; Eastern mails, how conveyed upon, _note_, 269; iron sleepers upon, 282.
Sugar, imports of, 72.
Suicide upon Railways, 177.
Sultan, the, his views on railways, 270.
Susa, Porta Cæsaris Augusti, at, 6; the centre rail at, 352.
Sutherland Railway, the, 239.
Sweden, mountains of, _note_, 8; postage stamps in, 142.
Swindon, locomotive and carriage establishment, 209.
Switzerland, mountains of, _note_, 8; postage stamps in, _note_, 142; locomotive building establishment in, 194; railway tunnels in, 380; Hauenstein Tunnel described, 415.
Tarento, the Italian Plymouth, 433.
Tea, imports and consumption of, 71; passage of, between London and Liverpool, 155.
Telegraph between London and California, 19.
Telegraphs in India, great expenses and difficulties connected with them, _note_, 281.
Tenders of engines, their water holding capacities, 219.
Teneriffe, Peak of, its height, _note_, 10.
Thames subway, Mr. Barlow’s, 395.
Thames Tunnel, the, 376.
Third class carriages used by people for whom they were never intended, _note_, 61.
Third class passengers, their enormous increase on British railways, 47; cause, 61.
Thouvenot, M., his colossal engine, 190.
Thull Ghaut, the, 254.
Thurn and Taxis, postal privileges of the house of, _note_, 143.
Thurso, sleepy, 240; the most northern town in Scotland, its postal facilities, _note_, 241.
Timber, advantages of railways in the conveyance of, 155; inapplicable for sleepers in India, 282.
Timbromaniacs, _note_, 142.
Time, difference of, between London and Dublin, _note_, 111; between London, Paris and Rome, _note_, 158.
Tinsley, Brothers, Messrs., publishers of “Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes,” 205.
Toulouse, population of, _note_, 31.
Traffic, receipts of English railways incorrectly published, _note_, 3; of South Austrian and Alta Italia, 29; of Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean, _ib._; of Orleans Company, _ib._; London and North-Western, 39; of British railways, 40.
Trains behind time, 113, 166; accidents to, 175; cost of running them, 461.
Transmission, postal, gives value to letters, 141.
Travelling post offices, their introduction on English railways, _note_, 77; superiority of arrangements connected with them all over the continent, as compared with those in England, _ib._; staff of, 78; their advantages, 453, 457.
Trespassers on railways, killed and injured, 177.
Trinidad Railway, the proposed, 311.
Trollope, Anthony, 104.
Trotting horses, American, the pace of, 188.
Trough for watering engines, 111, 232.
Tunnel of the Alps, the, described, 403; progress, 404; ventilation, 405; gradients, 406; their effects in working the railway, 417; time to be occupied in going through, 418.
Tunnels, their antiquity, 358; under the Euphrates, 359; at Jerusalem, 360; the earliest in Europe, 364; the first under the Alps, 366; canal tunnels, 368; Highgate, 369; length of, in Great Britain, 370; the chief enumerated, 371; cost, 375; the Thames Tunnel, 376; tunnels in France, 377; Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, 380; Spain, 381; United States, 385; New Zealand, 386; Metropolitan Railway, 387; Metropolitan district, 388; St. John’s Wood, 390; Britannia Tubular Bridge, 391; Victoria ditto, _ib._; tunnels suggested under the Mersey, 393; the Liffy, the Thames, 394; at Attock, 395; tunnels in mines, 396; between France and England, 397; under the Atlantic, 400; ventilation of, 411.
Turkey, railways for, 270.
Turpin’s ride to York, _note_, 215.
Tyler, Captain, R.E., his experiments on the Mont Cenis, 339; practical deductions therefrom, 342; his comparisons of working expenses, 346; of costs of construction, 347; extract from his Report to the Board of Trade, _ib._; his views on costs of the tunnel of the Alps, 408; his opinion as to the Brindisi route, 430; does not visit Otranto, 432.
Ulcers, Post Office, remedies suggested to cure them, 146.
Undertakers at Crewe, 204.
Union Pacific Railroad, the, described, 17; by whom constructed, 21; cost, _ib._
United States Mails in 1839 and 1855, 91; railway mileage of, _note_, 211; proportion to population, 305; railway tunnels, 385.
Utah, contribution of, to the Union Pacific Railroad, 21.
Vandal, Monsieur, Directeur-General des Postes Françaises, _note_, 98; on railway distances in France and England, 240; his views upon contract packet services, 268.
Varne, Islet de, its proposed sub-aqueous railway station, 398.
“Vede Napoli e Mori,” 438.
Ventilation of tunnels, 411; means to ensure its efficiency in the Metropolitan Railway, 423.
Vesuvius, height of, _note_, 9.
Victoria Bridge, Montreal, the, described, 391.
Victoria, railways in, 308; amount of traffic, 310.
Vignoles, Mr. Charles B., first patentee of the centre rail, 336.
Volcano, extinct, railway tunnel through, 386.
Volcanoes in the world, 10.
Von Reaumont, Alfred, History of Rome, 436.
Wales, North and South, production of coal in, _note_, 49; unpronounceable post towns in, _note_, 144.
Wallis, the late Robert, Esq., M.P., his committee on postal reform, 137.
Warren, Lieut., R.E., his explorations at Jerusalem, 360.
Warwickshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Watches and engines compared, 244.
Water supply to Crewe in 1849, 197, in 1867, 205.
Water supply to Madrid described, 384.
Water tower, the, of the Crystal Palace, railway tunnel under, _note_, 375.
Weedon, its deadly liveliness, 234.
Wellington, the Duke of, sends to Rome in 1834; time occupied in the journey, 157.
West India mails, the, in 1839 and 1855, 91.
Westbourne, its frequent use in London street nomenclature, _note_, 36.
Westminster school, _note_, 217.
Widows from Wolverton, 229; married, “no cards,” 230.
Winchester school, _note_, 216.
Worcestershire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
Word-coining approved of by the Archbishop of Dublin, _note_ 167.
Wolverton carriage establishment, 199; station and repairing shops, 221; statistics of, _ib._; churches and schools, 222; the refreshment rooms, 224.
Working expenses of British railways, 40, 147; per centage of, to receipts, 55; rate per cent. for twelve leading companies, 56.
Working expenses of Indian railways, causes why they must be high, periodical inundations, 280; iron sleepers, 282; fuel, 284; differ very much on different lines, 289; on the Alpine and Apennine railways, 346.
Workman’s trains, 62.
Wynter, Dr., the London Commisseriat, 70.
Yard, its proportion to the French metre, 331.
Yates, Edmund, _note_, 104.
Yonge, the Rev. T. E., _note_, 169.
York, the locomotive and carriage establishment of the North-Eastern Company at, 209.
Yorkshire, production of coal in, _note_, 49.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The traffic receipts published each week by the newspapers neither represent correctly the actual mileage of railways opened nor the receipts upon them. Thus, although about 300 miles have been opened since the 31st of December, 1866, making the actual length of the railways in the United Kingdom nearly 14,200, the mileage upon which traffic was published for the week ending the 14th of September last was only 12,958. Many of the small railway companies, and those which are chiefly mineral lines, do not publish weekly traffic returns; and it is to be feared that, in the case of some of the larger railway companies, increased mileage is not included for several weeks—in some cases, for several months—after branches are opened, although the increased earnings are included in the published receipts.
[2] In the paper read by the late Admiral Laws to the Institution of Civil Engineers, on the 11th of March, 1851, upon the mode of working an incline of 1 in 27½ on the Oldham branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and in the report of the discussion which followed the reading of the paper, will be found several interesting details relating to the working of inclined planes on railways at that time.
[3] France now possesses these three mountains, the highest in Europe; Switzerland possesses the two next highest, Finsterarhorn, 14,026 feet, and the Jungfrau, 13,716 feet, both in the Bernese Oberland. The highest mountain in the Austrian Dominions is the Orrtler Spitz in the Tyrol, 12,822 feet, the fourteenth highest in Europe. She also has the fifteenth, Gross Glockner, 12,431 feet. Spain possesses the sixteenth and seventeenth, Mulhaeen, 11,664 feet, and Pico de Veleta, 11,398 feet. Mount Etna in Sicily is 10,872 feet, the twenty-fourth in height in Europe, and the highest belonging to the Kingdom of Italy. Olympus in Thessaly is 9,749 feet. Monte Santo in Greece, 9,628 feet, is the forty-second highest in the European order. The forty-ninth and fiftieth are in Corsica, Monte Rotondo, 8,767; Monte d’Oro, 8,701; Parnassus in Greece is 8,068 feet, and Mount Athos, 6,776. The highest in the island of Sardinia is Monte Genergentu, the seventy-ninth, 6,293. The Rigi in Switzerland is 6,050. The highest in Styria is Wechselsberg, 5,352. The highest in Bohemia is Schneekoppe, 5,328. The highest in Sweden is Mount Adelat, 5,145. The highest peak of the Apennines, Monte Corno, the thirty-sixth highest mountain in Europe, is 10,144 feet. The next highest, Monte Amaro di Majella, the fifty-first, is 9,113; Monte Velino, the sixty-second, 7,851; Termenillo Grande, the sixty-eighth, 7,212. Monte Cimone the seventy-first, 6,975. The height of Vesuvius is 6,950 feet less than that of his brother volcano, Mount Etna, being only 3,922 feet, and the 125th in European order. The highest mountain in Portugal is the Sierra de Foga, 3,609 feet. The Gross Arberg is the highest in Bavaria, 4,832 feet. Coming to the United Kingdom, we find that Ben Nevis in Scotland, 4,406 feet, is the highest, it is the 111th in European order. They come afterwards as follows—Ben Macdin, 113th, 4,296. Cairn Tuol (Aberdeen), 115th, 4,225. Cairn Gorm, 121st, 4,090. Ben Lawers, 124th, 3,984. Ben Avon (Aberdeen), 129th, 3,821. Snowdon in North Wales, 134th, 3,590. Schehallion, Scotland, 135th, 3,547. Cairn Lewellen, North Wales, 136th, 3,471. Curran or Cairn Tual, near the Lakes of Killarney, 140th in European order, is 3,045 feet. Ben Lomond, Scotland, 144th, 3,912. Helvellyn, in Cumberland, 147th, is the highest in England, 3,115 feet. Skiddaw in the same county is fifty-seven feet lower, being 3,058, and Cross Fell, also in Cumberland, is 2,928. The Cheviot is 2,669, and Coniston Fell, in the Lakes District, is 2,649 feet. The Nephin Mountain in the County of Mayo is 2,638 feet. The Morne Mountains, in the County of Down, are 2,493 feet, Shunner Fell in Yorkshire is 2,348. The summit of Gibraltar is 1,493 feet, and whether Arthur’s Seat Edinburgh be or be not a mountain, it is 822 feet above sea level.
But many mountains in other parts of the world are of much greater altitude than those in Europe. The highest in Asia and in the world is Deodunga, or Chingo-pamari, in Nepaul, 29,002 feet, or exactly 5½ miles above sea level; and there are no less than twenty-eight other mountains in Asia, the height of which exceeds 20,000 feet, besides seven that exceed 15,000, twelve that exceed 10,000, sixteen that exceed 7,500, twenty-two that exceed 5,000, and six that are below 5,000, the lowest enumerated being Taganai, in the Ural Mountains, 3,532 feet above the level of the sea. The total number of the above is 92.
The highest mountain belonging to Africa and the Atlantic Islands is Kilimanjaro, in equitorial Africa, 20,000 feet high. There are four others more than 15,000 feet high, seven more than 10,000 feet, (among which is the Peak of Teneriffe, 12,205 feet), eight above 7,500, thirteen above 5,000 and eighteen below 5,000; total, 51.
The highest mountain of the American Continent is the Aconcagua, in Chile, 23,910 feet. There are fourteen higher than 20,000 feet, forty-two higher than 15,000, nineteen higher than 10,000, twelve higher than 7,500, twenty-one higher than 5,000, twelve less than 5,000; total, 121.
The highest mountain in Polynesia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands is a volcano, in Sumatra, called Singalang, 15,000 feet high. Volcanoes particularly abound in the groups of these highlands. Thus, while there are only four volcanoes among 169 European mountains, thirteen among ninety-two Asiatic, eleven among fifty-one in Africa and the Atlantic islands, thirty-three among 121 American mountains, there are sixty-three in a total of 109 mountains in Polynesia, Australia, and the Pacific islands. There are twenty-three of them above 10,000 feet, sixteen above 7,500, twenty-nine above 5,000, and forty-one under 5,000.
Thus it appears that there are 524 mountains in the world, of altitudes varying from 1,400 to 29,000 feet, of which 124 are volcanoes. The greater portion of the foregoing information is derived from the very interesting article headed “Physical Geography,” in the seventeenth volume of the eighth (and latest) edition of the _Enclyclopædia Britannica_, to which the reader is referred for further details. Writing of mountains reminds us that it was on the Puy de Dome, the summit of which is 4,806 above the level of the sea, that Pascal, for whom M. de Charles has invented the letters by which he has attempted to rob Newton of the honour of having discovered the laws of gravity, first observed the decrease of barometric pressure as mountains are ascended. Honour and reputation enough attach to the name of Pascal, without attempting to add to them by fraud and forgery.
[4] The _Times_ does not take this view, for we find as follows, in one of its leading articles of the 27th of August, 1867:—“By one of the clauses in the recent commercial treaty between Austria and Italy, it is provided that both countries shall co-operate in the restoration and maintenance of international communication on the frontier. One of the results of this agreement is, that the magnificent military road of the Stelvio, a road which constituted one of the wonders of the Alps, but which Austria, ever since her loss of Lombardy in 1859, had suffered to go to ruin, will be completed and re-established. Italians and Austrians are now hard at work, each on their own side, vying with each other in their endeavours to efface the traces of ten years’ neglect, and restoring gradients and galleries, bridges and embankments, to their former condition. It is pleasant to hear of competition in such peaceful pursuits among people who, only twelve months ago, were confronting each other amid those very mountain scenes, bent on mutual destruction.”
[5] Here is the first advertisement announcing the intended passage of trains over the Brenner Railway:—
COMPAGNIE DES CHEMINS DE FER DU SUD DE L’AUTRICHE ET DE L’ITALIE CENTRALE.—_Ouverture de la ligne du Tyrol._ (Passage du Brenner).—La Compagnie a l’honneur de prévenir le public que la ligne du Tyrol, section d’Innsbruck à Botzen (passage du Brenner), sera ouverte au transport des marchandises entre l’Allemagne et l’Italie le 17 de ce mois, et au service des voyageurs, le 24 du même mois. Les expéditions de marchandises devront être adressées à Kustein (Tyrol), station frontière du Nord, ou à Ala, station frontière du Sud. Le livret des tarifs et celui de la marche des trains seront, dès aujourd’hui, à la disposition du public. A l’agence commerciale de la Société, à Kustein. A toutes les stations de la ligne du Tyrol. A la direction commerciale de la Société, à Vienne. Les stations d’Italie forment l’objet d’un tarif spécial, qui sera à la disposition du public, dès les premiers jours du mois de Septembre. Jusque là, l’agence commerciale à Kustein donnera tous les renseignements d’expéditions et de prix qui lui seront demandés—Vienne, 10 Août, 1867.
Later advertisements announce that the express passenger trains between Munich and Verona are to complete the journey in eighteen hours. The distance is 295 miles. Verona is 95 miles from Bologna; 565 miles from Brindisi; 178 from Florence; 411 from Rome; 574 from Naples. The following are the distances between London and Munich:—London to Paris, 296 miles; Paris to Kehl (_viâ_ Strasbourg), 325; Kehl to Bruschal junction, 59; Bruschal to Ulm, 107; Ulm to Munich, 94—total, 881. Total—London to Brindisi, 1,741 miles; to Florence, 1,354; to Rome, 1,587; to Naples, 1,750.
[6] In trade and commerce? Yes—but not yet in population, as will be seen by the following statement, very recently published, of the inhabitants of the ten principal cities in France: Paris, 1,825,274; Lyons, 323,954; Marseilles, 300,131; Bordeaux, 194,241; Lille, 154,779; Toulouse, 126,936; Nantes, 111,956; Rouen, 100,671; St. Etienne, 96,620; Strasbourg, 84,167.
[7] According to the _Almanac de Gotha_ for 1867, the smallest independent state in the world is that of Leichenstein, not quite three German square miles. Population in 1861, 7,994. Its contingent to the German Federal Army was seventy-two men. These were supplied by Austria. The community however was not taxed for them, as the Sovereign Prince paid for their equipment and maintenance out of his own private fortune. Leichenstein has not been swallowed up by Prussia. Next to Leichenstein comes Reuss-Greiz, seven German square miles; population under 24,000. Prince Henry XXII. came to his sovereign hereditary honours there last year.
[8] The population of Ireland was at its highest in 1845. It was then estimated to be 8,295,061. It is estimated to be, in June, 1867, 5,556,262: showing a decrease of 2,738,099 in twenty-two years.
[9] One thing is certain,—it is that the ladies who live within city precincts do as ladies do in all other parts of the world; for we learn that at the meeting of the City Commissioners of Sewers, held at Guildhall, on Tuesday, the 24th of September last, presided over by our friend, Mr. Deputy de Jersey, Dr. Letheby, the Medical Officer of Health, presented his report, in which he stated that there had been 103 births in the city during the previous fortnight, or just at the rate of 2,610 for the twelve months. The Doctor deserves his title, for only 76 deaths (being 9 less than the average for 10 years) were registered in the same period. Reference to death statistics for the whole kingdom shows that the mortality among children under 5 years old is slightly above the average, 31, as against a little under 30, which would be the average on 76 for the whole kingdom. The 14 over 60 years of age who died, are below the average for the whole kingdom; it is about, 18 for each 76 of the population, at the period of death.
[10] The street nomenclature of London is very extraordinary. Those unacquainted with it would hardly believe that there are as many as 50 King Streets, nearly as many Queen Streets, above 60 George Streets, 60 William Streets, and about 45 “New” Streets. This last name often, as may be supposed, greatly misleads strangers, who imagine that such streets are only of recent construction. Until the modern conversion of the “New Road” into City Road, Euston Road, and Marylebone Road, there were along its entire length places and terraces with every conceivable name, and as many as between fifty and sixty different enumerations of numbers. Nor must it be considered that recently-constructed London is exempt from blemishes of this nature. The word “Westbourne” appears no less than nineteen times in the _Postal Guide_—there are Westbourne Crescent, Westbourne Grove (the Regent Street of Westburnia), and then not only Westbourne Park, but Westbourne Park Cottages, Westbourne Park Crescent, Westbourne Park Place, Westbourne Park Road, Westbourne Park Road West, Westbourne Park Terrace, Westbourne Park Villas, Westbourne Place (Bishop’s Road), Westbourne Square, Westbourne Street (Paddington), Westbourne Terrace (Bayswater), Westbourne Terrace (Bishop’s Road), and Upper Westbourne Terrace—so far for the northern side of Hyde Park; but on the southern there are—Westbourne Street, Pimlico (to distinguish it from Westbourne Street, Paddington), and Westbourne Place, Eaton Square. Finally, the list winds up with Westbourne Road, _Holloway_.
Not so numerous in its locations, but equally puzzling and unsatisfactory, is “Kensington.” Besides that name, there are—Kensington Crescent, Kensington Road, Kensington Gate, Kensington Gore, High Street, Kensington; Kensington Hall, North End, Fulham, and Kensington Square on the south side of Hyde Park. Kensington Palace and Kensington Palace Gardens are situate between Kensington and Bayswater, Kensington Gardens Square is in Paddington, Kensington Gardens Terrace is in Bayswater Road, Kensington Park Gardens and Kensington Park Terrace are at Notting Hill.
It is needless to dwell upon the inconvenience and trouble to which such nomenclature gives rise. Sir John Thwaites, Tite, M.P., Ayrton, M.P., and other your colleagues of the Metropolitan Board of Works, to the rescue!
[11] Judging by the appearance of the traffic receipts published for the first thirty-eight weeks of 1867, it is probable that their total amount for the year will not fall short of £41,000,000.
[12] Here is one of a great many instances that might be quoted, from the Irish correspondence of the _Times_ of no later date than the 1st of October, 1867.—“The necessity for having some efficient government control of railways, apart from the question of purchase, is illustrated by the unsatisfactory relations now subsisting between the Great Southern and Western Railway and the Kilkenny Junction line, which joins the former at Maryborough. The Great Southern are naturally unwilling to facilitate an opposition line, and pursue a policy of obstructiveness, which the directors conceive to be legitimate and expedient for the protection of their own interests, but which the public cannot quite understand, and find extremely inconvenient. Passengers are exposed to the risk of missing the train to Dublin on reaching Maryborough, and at Kilkenny the Great Southern Company will neither allow their waggons to come on the rival line with goods nor to enter the store of the Kilkenny Company. The consequence is that goods and cattle have to be taken out of the waggons at one part of the same track and placed in other vehicles at another part to resume their journey. It is hardly, perhaps, to be expected that companies should be disposed to assist competitors, but the interests of the public require that the intention of Parliament to afford increased accommodation shall not be frustrated.”
[13] During 1866 the coal produce of the various districts of the kingdom was as follows:—Durham and Northumberland, 25,194,550 tons; Cumberland, 1,490,481 tons; Yorkshire, 9,714,700 tons; Derbyshire, 4,750,520 tons; Nottinghamshire, 1,600,560 tons; Leicestershire, 866,560 tons; Warwickshire, 775,000 tons; Staffordshire and Worcestershire, 12,298,580 tons; Lancashire, 12,320,500 tons; Cheshire, 895,500 tons; Shropshire, 1,220,700 tons; Gloucestershire and Somersetshire, 1,850,700 tons; Monmouthshire, 4,445,000 tons; South Wales, 9,376,443 tons; North Wales, 2,082,000 tons; Scotland, 12,625,000 tons; and Ireland, 123,750 tons; making the total 101,630,544 tons above stated. It will be gathered from that statement that Durham and Northumberland have furnished one-fourth of the total yield of the kingdom. It is said that the coal-fields of these counties are gradually lessening; no doubt they are, although it will be probably three centuries before coal production there will cease to be profitable. But on the other hand, it is but a few years since the coal trade of South Wales assumed important proportions; still later, those of the Forest of Dean and of South Yorkshire. The coal-fields of Derbyshire are of vast extent, and extraction from them bears no proportion to what it can be in three or four years, owing to the opening of new and extensive collieries, especially in the Southern part of the county. Leicestershire also abounds in very good coal, the yield of which can, and no doubt will, be rapidly stimulated by means of the Midland Railway. We are surprised to see it figured for so small an amount in the above statement.
The estimated value of the 101,630,544 tons of coals raised in 1866 was £25,407,635, at the places of their production. There were 3,188 collieries at work, being an increase of 373 since 1855.
[14] Of these, France took 1,586,327 tons in 1865, and 1,841,335 tons in 1866. In 1865, Austria took 97,226 tons; Belgium, 21,810; Prussia, 577,183; Russia, 477,033; Spain, 409,497; the “Zolverein,” 586,507. The Coals imported from England into Belgium are used exclusively in the manufactories of Ghent and its neighbourhood.
[15] In 1866 many magnificent vessels were added to our mercantile steam fleet. In fact all the great steam navigation companies have increased their tonnage, so that no doubt at the present time the total steam tonnage of the Empire cannot be less than 900,000 tons. It is to be remembered that in computing registered tonnage in steam vessels, the space occupied by the engines, boilers, and coal bunkers are not included. This tells in a very marked manner in the smaller vessels, especially in tugs, in which the object is to have as much motive-power as possible, and in which all other space is comparatively useless.
[16] It requires a consumption of from 8 to 9 cwt. of fuel before an engine is in steam and ready for service.
[17] It was at one of these rolling mills that was produced, within the last few weeks, an astounding armour plate 15 inches thick. Two years ago 6-inch plates were considered not difficult of production; 7-inch might be produced, but anything beyond it was impossible!
[18] KING IRON!—_Vide_ speech of the Right Hon. William Gladstone, M.P., at the opening of the Barrow Docks, on the 19th of September, 1867. The following magnificent article from the _Times_ of four days later gives, in the compass of half a column, the most life-like picture that could be penned of the grandeur of England in former times, and of her Titanic power in the present:—
“Within living memories,—‘Lancashire-over-Sands’—a couple of score of inhabitants represented its population; and when the operations at Barrow, now consummated, were first commenced, a dozen dwelling-houses were as many as could be counted: yet in ten years Barrow has become a flourishing town, with a population of, at least, 20,000, and such prospective wealth and importance as have earned for it a municipal charter. The explanation of the marvel is contained in two words—iron and coal. Beneath the desolate soil of this savage district lay beds of rich iron ore,—the ore brought the miners, the miners brought the railway, the railway brought the docks; and now the docks, the railway, and the mines together are represented in a borough as populous as the old city of Lincoln. When the Furness Railway was first projected, a person experienced in such matters estimated that a traffic of 60,000 tons would be near the mark. The result affords an instance of how calculations of this kind have uniformly been exceeded by realities. Within three years the quantity of ore exported from Barrow exceeded 150,000 tons; this amount had risen in five years to 250,000; and in ten years, to nearly 500,000.
“This is the simple history of the rise and growth of Barrow. In other parts of the north similar miracles of progress have occurred during the present generation—one a place where there was one farmhouse thirty years since, is now a town with 30,000 inhabitants. But the truth is, that all these examples, down to the very latest here commemorated, do but express the continuous displacement of wealth, industry, and population which has been effected by the development of mineral riches in the north of England. If any reader will peruse Lord Macaulay’s description of the Northern Counties in the 17th century, and with that picture contrast the scene of the present day, he will see at a glance what a revolution has been accomplished. England began in the south, and Winchester was its capital. The south was still England, until mining called the north into place and power. It was not that the north-country people lacked energy or intelligence,—far from it; but they had no manufactures, and, for want of them, they were left behind in numbers, riches, civilisation, and all that confers social and political importance. Such elements of grandeur as the country possessed were those of a backward state. Its great feudal nobles were unmatched in power. The three northern earldoms—Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, represented by the great families of Percy, Clifford, and Neville—were like little principalities, and their rulers could combine to alarm the Government and defy the authority of the Crown. The bishopric of Durham was a Palatinate, almost a sovereignty, and its cathedral church was as grand as that of Winchester itself. The great northern abbeys—Fountains, Rivaulx, Bolton—could compete in magnificence with the most famous foundations of the south, but all around these wonderful piles reigned solitude and poverty. At last came the mighty change not unforeseen even in the days of the Stuarts. As soon as coal was brought into use, the iron manufacture left the south for the north—the exhausted forests of Sussex for the productive mines of Newcastle. The woollen trade gradually flitted from Exeter to Leeds, and the cutlery craft from Salisbury to Sheffield.
“All this is the work of coal and iron, and Barrow is the most recent product of the forces in operation. Mr. Gladstone observed with characteristic ingenuity that, whereas iron is by far the most useful of all metals—‘perhaps more useful and more necessary than all the rest put together’—it is at the same time, or rather it was till coal was discovered, the hardest to obtain. Iron is rarely found in a virgin state. It is obtained only in the shape of ore, which must be reduced and purified by fire. The great forests which once covered the whole county of Sussex supplied the necessary fuel to former generations of manufacturers, but that material was easily exhausted, and, except for the development of coal mining, our iron industry would never have been known. Put coal and iron together, and the result is wealth, trade, population, power. These mighty agents turn a barrow into a borough. They attract labour as surely as gold-fields, and it is by their instrumentality that the displacements of modern society have been accomplished. What fire and water effect in geology iron and coal effect in social history. Mr. Disraeli remarks in one of his novels, that men who sneered at the antiquity of Damascus had great faith in the future of Birkenhead. There is reason for such faith, and it is to be found in the history of England for the last two centuries. Trade is the making of cities. It will be the making of Barrow, just, indeed, as it was the making of Tyre. Furness is now drawn from its obscurity, and, for anything that we can tell, may, in a few years’ time, win a name as great as Winchelsea has lost.”—_Times_, 23rd September, 1867.
[19] But while we are advancing, let it not be forgotten that other nations are also progressing, some of them marvellously. Take for example France. M. de Vinck, one of its ablest statisticians, has recently summarised the commercial state of the country since 1851, and the following are several of his figures converted from French to English values. In 1851 the imports of France were £43,760,000, exports £60,200,000, total £103,560,000. In 1865, imports £141,120,000, exports £163,480,100, total £304,600,000. In 1851 the number of French and foreign vessels which entered or left the French ports was 34,436. In 1865 the number was 51,156. In 1851 the miles of railway open were 2,187. In the end of 1866, 8,750. In 1851 the telegraph services possessed 1,875 miles and 100 stations, by means of which 10,000 messages were sent in the year, In 1866 it possessed 19,700 miles and 2,100 stations, by means of which 2,500,000 messages were transmitted. The charges on messages have been reduced 70 per cent. between 1851 and 1866. In 1851 the number of letters carried was 65,000,000, in 1865 329,000,000, and in the interval the postage has been diminished about 20 per cent. In 1851 the indirect taxes and those on consumption were £29,529,680, in 1866 £51,290,720.
[20] The _Times_ concludes a recent article upon our exports with the following valuable words of advice and of admonition. “To maintain our trade we must zealously maintain our industry. We undertake, it may be almost said, to clothe the world; our exports represent, in the main, cotton, linen, woollen, and worsted manufactures; our imports are the raw materials required for this industry, and the food to sustain us in the work. What other countries grow we make up for use, taking at the same time the abundance of their harvests, to compensate the deficiency of our own. That, in a few words, is a summary of our national trade. We are keeping our position pretty well, but it should not be forgotten that our rivals are now more numerous, more energetic, and more confident than in former times, and that we must prepare ourselves for a competition far more severe than any we have hitherto experienced.”
[21] We omit these in our subsequent comparisons. No doubt their numbers have increased very greatly in recent years.
[22] There is no doubt that in many instances persons for whom third class carriages were never intended travel in them. There is a well-known railway story of a banker in a large agricultural and commercial town, who was asked, with a look of surprise, by an acquaintance that he met on the platform, if he were going to travel third class. “Oh, yes,” was the reply, “it is too bad of the company, they took off the fourth class only last week.” Two ladies, one with an expensive black satin dress; the other, with one of Swiss muslin, very elaborately got up, and both with very pretty bonnets, once complained to the author, of the conduct of a railway guard, for having put a bricklayer “with his dirty clothes on” in a compartment with them.
[23] _Workman’s Trains.—From Penge, Sydenham Hill, Dulwich, and Herne Hill._ The privilege of travelling with Workman’s Tickets is now accorded to artisans, mechanics, and daily labourers residing in the vicinity of the above stations. The charge for a Weekly Ticket is Two Shillings. These tickets will for the present be available to travel to Victoria, Ludgate Hill, or any other intermediate station by the following up trains:—
Penge dep. 7 6 a.m. 7 36 a.m. or 8 6 a.m. Sydenham Hill ” 7 11 ” 7 41 ” ” 8 11 ” Dulwich ” 7 14 ” 7 44 ” ” 8 14 ” Herne Hill ” 7 18 ” 7 48 ” ” 8 18 ”
and to return by the trains leaving Victoria at 5·15 p.m., and Ludgate Hill at 5·44 p.m., and by any later third class train. On Saturdays these tickets will be available by the train leaving Victoria and Ludgate Hill at 2·25 p.m., or by any later third class train for the above stations.
_The Metropolitan Extension._ Trains for the use of artisans, mechanics, and daily labourers now run every day in each direction, between Victoria and Ludgate Hill. The charge for a Weekly Ticket will be One Shilling. These tickets are only available in the morning by one of the advertised workman’s trains, which leave Victoria at 4·0 a.m., 5·0 a.m., and 6·5 a.m., or Ludgate Hill at 5 a.m., and 6·5 a.m., and the holders of such tickets may return by any of the ordinary loop line Metropolitan trains which leave Victoria or Ludgate Hill after 5·30 p.m., or on Saturdays by any similar train starting from either Victoria or Ludgate Hill after 1·0 p.m.
Conditions upon which the above tickets are issued,—
These tickets are issued subject to the conditions contained in the Company’s Act, 27 & 28 Vict. cap. 195, and use by the holder is evidence of a special contract upon those conditions. Tickets for these trains can be obtained at the booking office of any station between Victoria, Ludgate Hill, and Penge inclusive, upon personal application only. The christian and surname, address, and trade, of the applicant may be required, as well as the name and address of the employer. Each ticket will be available for Six Days, from Monday to Saturday inclusive, and for one journey only in each direction on each day whilst in force, and by the advertised Workman’s Trains only. The tickets will have to be given up to the company’s ticket collector on the Saturday on which they expire, and even if issued on a later day in the week than Monday will still be available only up to and including the following Saturday. Each subscriber will be allowed to carry, at his or her sole and exclusive risk, a basket, not exceeding 28 lbs. weight, containing trade tools, so packed as not to be inconvenient or dangerous. No other luggage of any description will be allowed to the holders of Workman’s Tickets.
[24] There is another mistake as regards 1865, the number of sheep and lambs imported was 914,170; the value for that year is stated at £2. 10s. a-head. At that value 914,170 make £2,285,425, not £1,787,866 as set forth in the Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom, issued in August last. We have occasionally observed other errors in Board of Trade Returns. They are not absolutely to be depended upon.
The following curious paragraph is from the journal of the Financial Reform Association of April last—“Since 1851 there has been published annually a return professing to give number and tonnage of vessels and customs’ revenue at twelve principal ports of the United Kingdom. In the Commons on Friday, March 15th, Mr. Candlish stated that only seven of these ports were properly described, the other five being far below Cardiff, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Swansea, and Grimsby; and that, whether as regarded shipping, commerce, or revenue, the return was grossly inaccurate in all particulars.—Mr. Cave, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, said that for some particular reason or other, he knew not what, the return had been moved for almost beyond the memory of man, and had since been continued year after year, for which he was very sorry, since it added needlessly to the great expense of unnecessary returns, and was entirely inaccurate from beginning to end.”
[25] The total amount of Tea imported into the United Kingdom in 1866, was 139,610,044 lbs., but 37,355,044 lbs. being exported, leaves the amount above stated as the total of British consumption. Its aggregate cost to the consumers was about £18,500,000, or about 12s. 4d. for each unit of the population.
[26] A very valuable compendium of the history of English railways from 1820 to 1849. It was published in 1851.
[27] The first of these reports was issued in 1855. Of the eleven reports since issued, two, the tenth and eleventh, bear no date at all, whilst the twelfth bears the comprehensive one of “March 1866.” These three reports, as well as the three that precede them, are signed by Lord Stanley, of Alderley; of the others the Duke of Argyll signed two, the late Earl of Elgin one, the late Lord Canning one (the first), and Lord Colchester one. That for 1867 (the thirteenth) is signed by the Duke of Montrose. His Grace has dated it.
The last person, not a Peer of Parliament, who was Postmaster-General, was the Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret, who was appointed on the 29th January, 1771, joint Postmaster-General with Lord Despencer. He became Lord Carteret on the 29th January, 1784, and continued as joint Postmaster-General with Lord Walsingham until the 19th September, 1789. On the death of James, Marquis of Salisbury, on the 13th June, 1823, Thomas, Earl of Chichester, who had been one of the two Postmasters-General since the 5th of May, 1807, became sole Postmaster-General, and there has not been more than one Postmaster-General since that date. Lord Chichester finally retired from office on the 17th September, 1827.
[28] The first travelling Post Office was placed on the Grand Junction Railway (the connecting Railway between Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham) on the 6th of July, 1837. On the 1st of January, 1839, the travelling Post Offices commenced running through, between London and Liverpool. The first travelling Post Office in Ireland was established on the Great Southern and Western Railway, between Dublin and Cork, on the 1st of January, 1855. They are now on every important line of railway in the United Kingdom, but they are not available as the travelling post offices are over almost all Europe, for the receipt of letters as they arrive at and stop at stations. In France, Belgium, Holland, all Germany, Austria and the Austrian dominions, Switzerland and Italy, there are letter boxes and receiving apertures on each side of them, into which letters can be thrown until the very moment that the trains to which they are attached are leaving the stations; no late fee is necessary for such letters, in fact a late letter fee is not known on the Continent, with one exception—Paris. In that city, since the 9th of May, 1863, letters can be posted at the _Bureaux d’Arrondissement_ until half an hour after the general closing of the boxes, and until an hour after their closing at the _Grand Bureau_.
The travelling Post Office staff of the United Kingdom consists of 53 clerks and 147 sorters. These are exclusive of mail officers at some railway stations, and of 89 mail guards and 40 mail porters. The average daily journey of each travelling Post Office employé is 170 miles, and the average time of his duty is between 5 and 6 hours.
The “_Service Ambulant_” of France is much more comprehensive, as by means of the travelling offices a large amount of sorting is performed, which is the work of the ordinary post offices in England. The staff of the French travelling post offices was, on the 1st of January, 1866, composed of 518 “_Agents_” and 654 “_Sous Agents_;” total of the staff, 1,172.
[29] “Newspapers and book packets liable to detention if posted in pillar boxes within three miles of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.”—POSTAL GUIDE. _Passim._ Why? Let us also ask, does “detention” mean forfeiture or delay? Such a penalty, whichever it may be, does not, we believe, exist in any other part of the Kingdom with regard to newspapers and book packets posted in pillar boxes.
[30] It is to Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, Bart, (now Lord Lytton), that the public is indebted for the Newspaper Duty Reduction Act of 1836; and it is to Mr. Milner Gibson, M.P., that is mainly due the distinction of having effected, in 1855, the abolition of the “Tax upon Knowledge” as the Newspaper Duty was then designated.
In 1835 the number of newspaper stamps issued was 32,874,632, and the number of newspapers conveyed by the post was nearly the same. In 1854, the last complete year before the abolition of the compulsory stamp, it was 107,052,053, of which about 37,000,000 were for London newspapers. About 70,000,000 were transmitted through the post. It is now of course impossible to do more than estimate the circulation of newspapers, but the London morning papers alone may be taken at 400,000 a-day, or 125,000,000 per annum; the daily papers published in all other places at as many more, and weekly papers at 250,000,000: total 500,000,000. If these figures be approximatively correct, the issue of newspapers has increased five-fold since 1854, but not more than about a seventh of them circulate through the post. In fact there has been scarcely any increase in the number of newspapers through the post since 1854.
The effect of comparatively high newspaper, as contrasted with low letter postage may be thus illustrated:—the chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom have risen from 75,907,562 in 1839, the year before the penny postage, to 720,467,007 in 1865, whilst newspapers, 44,500,000 in 1839, have (including book post packets, of which there were none in 1839), advanced in 1865 only to 97,252,766.(A) In France, in 1847, the year before the reduction of inland letter postage (one penny in each town or _commune_, twopence throughout France and Algeria, which latter, for postal purposes, is considered as France), the chargeable letters were 126,480,000, newspapers, printed matter, and pattern post 90,275,466. In 1856 the newspaper postage rate was reduced to four centimes per copy, not exceeding an ounce and a third, with one centime for each additional third of an ounce, and these rates are diminished one-half when a newspaper is posted and delivered in the same department. In 1865 the number of chargeable letters was 314,817,000, newspapers, &c., 275,317,880. Thus the chargeable letters only exceeded newspapers, &c., by 39,499,120. In Great Britain the excess was 643,814,241.
There is no doubt that the Post Office charge upon newspapers, especially with the facilities which the railways now afford to the department of transmission to any extent, is much too high. This is particularly so as regards the smaller, general, as well as many of what are called “class” papers, several of which do not exceed an ounce or so in weight. The author has given much attention to this subject, as also to the reduction of postage upon local letters not exceeding a quarter of an ounce in weight, to one half-penny each, but neither of these questions can be entered upon here. It may, however, not be inappropriate to say at present, that “local letters,” that is, letters which never leave the district of the office in which they are posted, are those that yield by far the largest revenue per letter to the Post Office; in fact, a very considerable portion of the total net revenue of the department is derived from them. The history and development of London local letters since the commencement of the present century is curious. In 1801 they were estimated at about 3,200,000. In 1803 they had increased to 6,000,000; and in 1813, to 9,400,000; but in the following ten years they had advanced only to 10,500,000, that being the estimated number in 1823. They were almost stationary during the next ten years, notwithstanding the increase of population; indeed, they rather retrograded, their number in 1833 being estimated at only 10,200,000. In 1835 they rose to about 11,200,000. In 1839, the year before the introduction of the penny postage, they were 12,480,000. In 1840, they bounded suddenly to 20,372,000, and in 1844 they reached 27,000,000. In nine years afterwards (1853) they were 43,000,000. In 1855 London was divided for postal purposes into ten districts, by which very much more rapid delivery was obtained for local letters. The consequence was, that, in 1858, the third complete year after the alteration, local letters had risen to 58,404,000; and in 1862, to 71,961,000. In 1865 they were about 90,000,000, of which upwards of 16,000,000 were delivered in the districts in which they were posted. At the present time the average delivery of letters in London is about 560,000, of which about half are local and half from the provinces and abroad. The daily number of newspapers and book packets delivered is about 55,000. If London correspondence continue to increase as it has in recent years, it will soon be necessary to have half-hourly collections and deliveries during certain parts of the day.
(A) This is the number stated at page 2 of the Postmaster-General’s Twelfth Report, but at page 15, it is 97,250,000, a difference of 2,766. The difference between the number of letters, as stated at pages 2 and 15 of the same report, is 7,007; of packets by pattern post, 6,116.
[31] In March of the present year the Post Office commenced sending the Eastern mails in bags, but no doubt the department will not be able to continue their use. When cholera prevails, like as it has done during the present year, Eastern mails contained in bags are said to be certain conductors and disseminators of the subtle poison.
[32] We recently had twenty shillings’ worth of penny postage stamps weighed; with the border all round the sheet, 240 stamps weigh a little more than half an ounce; without the border, the weight is a little less than half an ounce. Consequently £32 worth weigh one pound, £3,584 one cwt., £71,680 one ton, £716,800 ten tons.
[33] It is at times very difficult to understand the statistics of the department as given in consecutive Postmaster-General’s reports. For instance, in the report (the third) following that from which the figures in the text are taken, we find that the number of the post offices was increased by 368 in 1856, “making the whole present number 10,866,” of these 845 are head post offices (75 less than in 1855). In the Fourth Report, although the post offices of the United Kingdom were increased in 1857 to 11,001, the number of head offices is stated at 810, or 35 less than in 1856 and 110 less than in 1855. In the Fifth Report, 134 post offices were added during 1858, making 11,235, but the head offices were 4 less than in 1857. In 1859 the head offices became 825. In 1860 they were 818. In 1861, 813. In 1862, 808. Since 1862 the generic terms, “receptacles of letters” are, in the Postmaster-General’s reports, applied to all places at which letters can be posted. By a Parliamentary return issued on the 1st of October, 1867, it appears that there are 11,282 post offices in the United Kingdom, of which 814 are head offices, and 10,468 are sub-offices and receiving offices. These numbers are irrespective of about 7,000 pillar boxes all over the kingdom.
[34] The Postal Guide, although containing a great deal of useful information relating to postal matters, is not a work implicitly to be relied upon. Recently the author pointed out, in addition to many other errors and modes of imparting information calculated to mislead the public, 146 errors upon one subject only. These first appeared in No. 44, published on 1st of April 1867, and they were repeated in No. 45, published on the 1st of July. In the reply of the Post Office, all these errors were designated “minor points.” The _amende_, however, was made in subsequent communications, and improvements promised in the October edition. The promise has been, in a large measure, fulfilled.
[35] We think we shall he able to show clearly in a work on the Post Offices of England and France, preparing for publication early next year, that the penny postal system only began to be profitable to the nation about the time that Mr. Page wrote his report, notwithstanding that the statements of net revenue given in Post Office reports would make it appear to be otherwise. Until 1860, the charges for mail packets and contract mail steamers were borne on the Naval, and not on the Post Office Estimates, and the Postal Department debited itself specifically, for several years, with a charge for packets of about £4,500 a year! Last year, the total amount voted for our Ocean Postal Services and Packet Establishments was £821,163, of which £90,601 were for water conveyance of mails between different parts of the United Kingdom. Eight-ninths of it (£79,900) were for the mail service between Holyhead and Kingston. The vessels employed in this service are the finest and fastest afloat; they usually perform 63 statute miles in three hours and forty minutes, or at the rate of 17 miles an hour. The passages have, on some few occasions, been performed in three hours and twenty-five minutes, or over 18 miles an hour.
[36] We perceive by recent advertisements in the French papers, and by a letter from Mr. Daniel A. Lange, the “English representative of the Suez Maritime Canal Company,” inserted in the _Times_ of the 26th September 1867, that the company proposes to raise £4,000,000 of capital by means of debentures, in addition to the £12,000,000 it has already expended. It is stated that the Great or Grand Canal will, by means of this loan, positively be finished by the first of October 1869. The debentures issued at £12 each, bear interest at the rate of 8½ per cent. per annum, and are to be paid off in the usual manner adopted in France, that is by lottery at the rate of £20 each. The original capital of the Suez Canal Company was fixed, at its formation in 1858, at £8,000,000. The length of the canal, when finished, is to be 100 miles, whilst the railway is 250. The reason is that Cairo is only about eight miles less distant from Alexandria than the Mediterranean mouth of the canal is from that of the Red Sea. Suez and Cairo are, practically, in the same latitude, but when the railway running nearly due south from Alexandria reaches Cairo, it makes a right angle towards the east to reach Suez.
[37] In France the number of receptacles for letters is nearly three times as great as in the United Kingdom. On the 1st of January, 1866, they were over 43,000, counting the receiver in each railway _bureau ambulant_ as one. The staff of the French Post Office is also greatly in excess of that of the United Kingdom. On the 1st of January, 1866, the latter consisted of 25,082 persons, in which are included “rural messengers.” At the same date the French staff was 27,749, exclusive of 16,406 rural messengers. Total men, 44,155. The system of rural posts in France is of extreme interest. For the first thirty years of the present century, out of 38,000 _communes_ 35,587 were without direct relations with the Post Office. To obtain a letter it was necessary to send, in many districts, distances varying from fifteen to twenty-five miles. By a law passed in May, 1829, every _commune_ of the kingdom was to be afforded, from the 1st of April, 1839, postal communication, not less than every second day, with every other part of France. The service commenced with the appointment of 11,036 rural postmen, and the system has gradually extended to the employment of 16,406, for there is not at present a _commune_ in France that has not a daily collection and delivery. “These 16,406 rural postmen,” says M. A. De Camp, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of January, 1867, “start every morning from 4,700 post offices. They travel through every _commune_, village, and hamlet, they convey correspondence to the most remote and to almost inaccessible houses and cottages. Every _commune_ has, at its ‘_Chef lieu_,’ a letter-box, which is opened by the rural postman. The letters which he finds in it are delivered by him if they are addressed for any place in his walk; if not, they are conveyed by him to his post office, whence they are despatched every evening _en route_ for their ultimate destinations.” So complete and penetrating is the system, that immediately after the annexation of Savoy, and of its Alpine regions, the rural postmen were installed, and now they present themselves daily at every habitation in the mountains, whenever there is a letter or even a newspaper to be delivered. “Let,” says a pleasant writer in a French periodical, “but an Englishman afflicted with ‘_le splene_,’ or any other man, but take up his permanent residence on the highest Alpine peak on French territory, it matters not Monte Rosa, Monte Cervino, or Monte Bianco, the rural postman of the mountain will be bound, if necessary, to visit him daily.”
The rural postmen of France walk an average of sixteen miles each,—a total of 267,600 miles _daily_. Of their number, 5,248 walk seventeen miles a day and “upwards.” In this last word is included a certain number who complete twenty-five miles, “a fact,” as M. Vandal informs us in the _Annuaire des Postes_ for 1866, “of melancholy notoriety.”
“His visits,” continues M. Vandal, “are solicited with ardour and received with gratitude.” But his remuneration is not on a par with these feelings. There are 673 whose pay is only £12 a year, 996 who receive £14, 2,970 between £14 and £20, 9,988 between £20 and £24, and only 1,779 who receive higher than £24; the average is only £21. 4s. per man. They are allowed, however (as is the case in England), to supplement their postal pay by performing certain little commissions and conveying small parcels for the inhabitants of the districts in which their services are employed.
Belgium possesses a rural postal system as extensive and penetrating as that just described, but, although food and rent are cheaper there than in France, the average pay of Belgian rural postmen is £30 a year, just 2 francs a day.
[38] There are no official means afforded of distinguishing between the number of newspapers and of book parcels sent through the post. A writer in the September number (1862) of _Fraser’s Magazine_ (said to be Mr. M. D. Hill, brother to Sir Rowland) states, that, in that year, the number of book parcels was 12,000,000. The circulation of newspapers through the post is, we apprehend, decreasing, but the diminution is more than compensated for by the increased number of book parcels.
[39] From 1839 until 1862, the _number_ of Money Orders issued was regularly stated in the appendices to the annual reports. Half the value of the returns now issued is lost through the omission of this information, especially as it was in 1862 that the limit of an Inland Money Order was raised from £5 to £10.
[40] We trust there is no doubt whatever upon this point, yet two cases have recently occurred which cannot fail to awaken much apprehension in the minds of depositors. In each it appears that a fraudulent person got hold of a depositor’s book and withdrew the sum to his credit. The Post Office denied its responsibility on the ground that it had already discharged its obligation. Machinery to prevent the repetition of such a fraud could, we apprehend, be easily instituted, which would protect the Office, and at the same time not interpose unnecessary delay or impediment to the withdrawal of deposits. For some few years after the establishment of money orders some frauds were successfully practised upon the Post Office, but there do not appear to have been of late even attempts at fraud, yet the money order system is much more simple now, as regards the public, than it formerly was.
[41] Since the commencement of the present century the idea of making the machinery of the Post Office available as a means of carrying out the saving bank system, was occasionally in the minds of benevolent persons, and the idea so far took shape, that in 1806 Mr. Whitbread brought into the House of Commons, a bill for the purpose of effecting this object; but the nation was then too deeply immersed in war and in considering the ways and means for its sustainment to give attention to philanthropy. The bill was rejected at an early stage of its career. In 1817 the first comprehensive Savings Bank Act was passed, but it does not appear that during its progress through Parliament, any effective efforts were made to connect the Post Office with the system.
On the 31st December, 1865, 3,321 Post Office Savings Banks had been opened throughout the United Kingdom. Since then the number has been considerably added to. They have had some but not a very marked effect upon the savings banks on the old system, for whilst the “capital” of these latter, that is, the amount of money to the credit of depositors at the end of each year, was, on the 31st December, 1861, 41,546,475, it had fallen to £36,307,019 on 31st of December, 1866, but on the other hand, the “capital” of the Post Office Savings Bank was, at the last date, £8,121,175, making the total of savings bank capital £44,428,194, an increase of £2,881,719 since the end of 1861. It is to be remembered that this last named sum is principally, it might very nearly be said, altogether due to depositors of the humblest classes and of the smallest means who, until the establishment of Post Office Savings Banks, were never able to, at all events did not, avail themselves of any depositories for their earnings. The subject is one of deepest interest, but it cannot be perused further in these pages.
[42] The Duke of Argyll is equally distinguished as a senator, a politician, and a man of letters. The _Quarterly Review_, vol. 84, page 79, reviewing his “Presbytery Examined,” (published in 1848, when His Grace was not twenty-five years of age), thus speaks:—
“Every peer who employs the opportunities furnished by his high position, together with his natural gifts, in conscientious labour for the public good, is now, more than ever, an ornament and a bulwark to the State, and a blessing to the people. It is therefore, with unfeigned satisfaction, that we find another of our nobles, one of the highest in rank, and not the least wealthy in traditional fame, adding himself to the number who are pledged in the face of the world, by early efforts, to a life of continued labour. The Duke has not entered the field of ostensible authorship with any light or frivolous aim, nor has he incurred the heavier responsibility of handling subjects of deep moment to human destiny, for the purpose of displaying his intellectual gifts. The theme he has chosen is one of extended interest, and has points of contact with a wider sphere, while his pages bear throughout the marks of an earnestness not to be mistaken; besides, they present specimens of acuteness and of eloquence full of promise for his literary fame.”
Of the Duke’s last work, the “Reign of Law,” four editions have gone rapidly through the press. It is described respectively by the _Times_, the _Spectator_, and the _Examiner_, as “a very able book,” “a masterly book,” and “a very remarkable volume;” whilst the _Pall Mall Gazette_ says of it,—“The aim of this book is lofty, and requires not only a thorough familiarity with metaphysical and scientific subjects, but a breadth of thought, a freedom from prejudice, a general versatility, and sympathetic quality of mind, and a power of clear exposition rare in all ages and in all countries. We have no hesitation in expressing an opinion that all these qualifications are to be recognised in the Duke of Argyll, and that his book is as unanswerable as it is attractive.”
[43] Mr. Lewins, one of the senior clerks, we believe, in the Post Office, has written a very pleasant and amusing book upon the British Post, but he naturally looks upon St. Martin’s-le-Grand as perfection. The Post Office has produced several literary men. Allen, who was the inventor of Cross Posts, introduced in 1720, by which he amassed considerable wealth, although not an author, was a great patron of literature, as well as a most benevolent man. He was the friend of Fielding, Warburton, and Pope, the last of whom has celebrated his benevolence in the well known lines,—
“Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.”
At the present day, there are Anthony Trollope, Edmund Yates, besides many who adopt the anonymous, and are contributors to our magazines and reviews, and occasionally to comic periodicals. But there is one man who, if his duties, first as Accountant-General, and now as one of the secretaries of the Post Office, had not been so unceasing and absorbing for many years, would have been, in another sense, among the most distinguished men of letters of his day. Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore’s “People that One Never Sees” and his essays “On Dreams,” are amongst the most brilliant and exquisite little conceptions that pen has ever committed to paper. Mr. Scudamore finds “sermons in stones,” and sweetest harmony also.
[44] The following very seriously meant paragraph is contained in the Postmaster-General’s Fourth Report:—“I think I am safe in stating, as a general fact, that those boards of directors of railway companies which have evinced the greatest readiness to meet the wishes of the Post Office, and to convey mail bags by frequent trains, and at moderate rates, are, at the same time those boards which have been most successful in promoting the interests of their companies, as shown by the market value of their shares!” The company which the writer had specially in view when framing the foregoing paragraph, was the London, Brighton and South Coast. The note of admiration is ours.
[45] This is the amount stated in evidence before the Royal Commissioners on Railways.
[46] Some persons have odd notions of the speed of railway trains. Some few years ago, a jockey who had missed the express to Newmarket, was anxious to have a special train, but on being informed of the cost, he earnestly asked an officer of the Company “if he did not think the express might be overtaken if he followed it _in a cab_!” The express train was running on the Eastern Counties.
[47] The “narrow” gauge, the gauge all but universal through England, Scotland, Wales, and Europe generally, is 4 feet 8½ inches; the “broad,” or Great Western gauge, is 7 feet. The New York and Erie Railway gauge is 6 feet; the other American railways are the same as in England and Europe. The Irish gauge is 5 feet 3 inches. The Canadian and Indian 5 feet 6 inches.
[48] There is a difference of twenty-six minutes between London and Dublin times, London being to the east, is the earlier; thus when it is for instance 9 o’clock, it is 9.26 in Dublin. Dublin time has now become universal time in Ireland.
[49] At page 6 of the Ninth Report of the Postmaster-General, dated 30th April, 1863, signed by Lord Stanley, of Alderley, it is stated, “Postal communication between provincial towns has also, in many instances, been made more frequent. Between Manchester and Liverpool there are not fewer than _eight mails_ in each direction daily.” At page 11 of the Twelfth Report, dated “March, 1866,” and signed also by Lord Stanley, of Alderley, the following words occur:—“The town districts of Liverpool have now _six deliveries_ of letters from Manchester daily, as compared with only _three deliveries_ of such letters in 1863. The improvement in the course of post between ordinary correspondents in Liverpool and ordinary correspondents in Manchester, is at present only partial and one-sided. A scheme is under consideration, however, for the extension of the deliveries and collections in Manchester, and when this plan shall have been carried out, a very marked improvement will be effected in the course of post between these great towns, and will, I doubt not, be followed by a rapid development of their already large correspondence.” The italics in the foregoing extracts are ours. To solve the difficulty, if possible, we obtained the October number of the “Local Postal Guide for Manchester, (published monthly) by command of the Postmaster-General,” and it appears by it there are _ten_ collections for Liverpool at the head office, and _three_ at the receiving offices and pillar posts,—one of which only began on the 4th of October, 1867. There are eight arrivals from Liverpool, and six deliveries.
[50] The following admirable and eloquent description of MANCHESTER is, with one unimportant omission, taken from _Engineering_, of the 22nd of March, 1867:—
“To the mechanical engineer the name of Manchester has a significance similar in a certain sense, to that which the name of Mecca has for the people of Mahommet’s creed. ‘He is not a true follower of the Prophet who has not been to Mecca once in his life at least;’ so is the saying in the Orient; and, in drawing the parallel, we are tempted to say—he is not a true mechanical engineer who has not visited Manchester once in his life, who has not seen the monuments raised to the memory of the prophets of modern generations, only recently dead, and more than that, who has not seen the faces of those great prophets still living and daily effecting marvels and revealing truth for the benefit of future generations. With the monuments raised to the dead we do not of course mean any special bronze memorial of James Watt, nor the unsightly monument of Crompton which ornaments the central part of Bolton, nor indeed, the memorial of Richard Roberts, which _ought_ to stand somewhere in Manchester, but _does not_ stand anywhere. But there are 150,000 boilers in operation in Manchester and the manufacturing district surrounding it—we state this figure as estimated by Mr. Longridge, the chief engineer of the Boiler Insurance and Steam Power Company—they represent, perhaps, one million of horses’ power in steam engines daily at work, and these we call the memorial raised by the town of Manchester to the name of James Watt. As for the monuments of Crompton and Roberts, they form great groups like the pyramids in the graveyards of Egyptian rulers, only more numerous, more valuable, and more useful. Every cotton mill, every manufactory of textile machinery, is a memorial to Samuel Crompton and Richard Roberts. Take the largest of these groups—the Hartford Ironworks, Oldham—there are 8,000 men under the command of one leading mind, assisted by every aid that mechanical appliances can give, and indebted in almost every one of the details of their machinery to Richard Roberts again, employed in carrying out the ideas of this great inventor for the benefit of themselves, their families, and mankind at large. What a sight to compare with that of a solid chimney standing between four bronze lions! It is characteristic to the engineering profession that the works of our great men form monuments for their names which no national munificence can equal.
“To pass from the memory of those gone by to those who make Manchester what it is at present, viz., the centre and metropolis of mechanical engineering, we need scarcely make an interruption in our cursory reference to the history of mechanics. Mr. William Fairbairn, Mr. Whitworth, Mr. Nasmyth, are fellow travellers of Richard Roberts on the road of progress. They also are erecting monuments to their names; and the great engineering establishments which bear their names, form some of the most important items in the great total of Manchester manufactories, which great total may be considered at this moment to represent almost every one of the more important branches of mechanical engineering in the widest sense of that term. To commence with coal-mining, the Lancashire coal-bed is one of the richest and most important of this country; its different seams are applicable to all the varied branches of industry, commencing with the most valuable of all, the cannel coal, down to the cheapest coal slack, which is still capable of being converted into coke of good quality, and by the assistance of the washing machine can be made to yield the best coke required for the smelting of hematite iron of the highest marks. We have entered in detail into some interesting points connected with the coal-mining and iron manufacture of this district, in our recent account of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company. The iron manufacture in that locality is rapidly rising. It is based upon an exchange of coal and ore with the Ulverstone district, and may thank the introduction of the Bessemer process for its recent prosperity and its excellent prospects for future success. The Bessemer process itself (this important element in modern engineering), has found a centre in Manchester and its neighbourhood. The Bolton Steel Works, the Lancashire Steel Works, the Manchester Steel and Plant Company, the important steel works at Crewe, and the Mersey Ironworks in Liverpool, form an aggregate power of production fully as great as that which is centred in Sheffield, and of course much greater than in any other part of the world, that small district in Prussia, on the banks of the river Ruhr, excepted. The foundries of Manchester, although their production does not reach that of the largest establishments in Scotland with regard to quantity, are fully equal to them with regard to quality and size of individual castings which they are capable of producing. We have had occasion to mention the hydraulic ram of the hoist for charging the Woodward cupola at Messrs. Dobson & Barlow’s works, which has been cast in one piece, 22 feet long, standing on its end, at the Union Foundry in Bolton, and we have been informed that this foundry is laid out for casting articles of the heaviest description, up to a depth of 30 feet. In the Bolton Steel Works, the anvil of the 25-ton hammer, which has been cast in its place, is said to be about 200 tons in weight. Machine-moulding, with all its delicacy and beauty of form, is more developed in the Manchester district than in any other locality. We have heard of wheels 3 feet in diameter, with teeth pitched one-eighth of an inch, _i. e._, about 900 in number, being moulded by machinery at the Hartford Works, Oldham. The application of machine-moulding to railway axle-boxes we have noticed in our description of the Ashbury Works. For the construction of stationary engines of different sizes Manchester, we believe, admits of few rivals. We have noticed the large blowing-engines, with 100-inch cylinders, 12 feet stroke, made at the Bridgewater Foundry, Patricroft; the pumping-engines for the Abbey Mills Station, and the Liverpool Waterworks engines, now in progress at the Union Foundry, Bolton; the beautifully finished rolling-mill engines for the Barrow Hematite Steel Works, made by Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves & Co.; and Messrs. Musgrave & Sons’ engines at the Lancashire Steel Company’s Works and at Barrow-in-Furness. All these, and numbers of others, which may be counted by hundreds, form the vast group of engine constructions in Manchester. Engineers’ tools have had their early development, and still have their principal seat of manufacture, in this important place. One by one they have come into existence at the Atlas Works in their first and original types, have obtained their graceful shapes, the hollow castings of their framework, the scraped surfaces of their slides, and the dead accuracy of their movements, at Mr. Whitworth’s works, and have then become standard types of form more or less closely imitated by every tool-maker, not only in Manchester, but all over the world.
“Of specialities in tools, such as Messrs. Collier & Co.’s multiple drills, Messrs. Hetherington & Son’s new drilling machines, and some new tools at work at Messrs. Parr, Curtis & Madeley’s, we have had opportunities of taking notice some short time ago. They are only single items selected out of a great crowd of others, and that great crowd again forms only one small part of the entire mechanical business of Manchester. We pass to boiler construction, and we find it developed into a branch of engineering by itself. It stands upon a higher level in Manchester than elsewhere, and we need only refer to our recent description of Mr. Adamson’s works, if we desire a proof for this assertion. The construction of locomotives—and we comprise Crewe, St. Helen’s, &c., in the name of that manufacturing district generally understood under the designation of Manchester by mechanical engineers—shows the same predominance over that of any other town as the branches previously named. For railway plant we have now the newly established Bessemer Steel Works, making rails, axles, tires, and other articles; we have the Ashbury Works, with their large production of carriages and waggons; for iron bridges, the Fairbairn Engineering Company’s Works. Of the machinery employed in the Bessemer process, the manufacture is exclusively in the hands of Messrs. W. & J. Galloway & Sons, and Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves & Co. The Nasmyth and the Condie hammer, and almost all the rolling mills for weldless tires, such as Messrs. Collier & Co.’s., Messrs. Galloway & Sons’, and Mr. Jackson’s mills, belong to the workshops of Manchester, and form elements of its trade. In wood-working machinery the production of Messrs. Thos. Robinson & Son, of Rochdale, is the largest of that class. For shipbuilding and marine engineering we need go no farther than the Mersey; but in this line, and in the branch of agricultural machinery, the great centres of manufacture lie elsewhere, and must remain so in the future from natural causes. With the consideration of these facts we think it sufficiently established that ‘the city of the tall chimneys’ is more than what it used to be half a century ago ‘the cotton metropolis;’ it is now the metropolis of mechanical engineering as well. There is another important institution which gives to Manchester the character of a metropolis for manufactures, and that is the Exchange. To attend at the Exchange forms part of the business of a commercial engineer in Manchester, and the Exchange has thereby become one of the most important institutions for one branch of the profession. The Manchester Exchange forms a general place of appointment for all parties interested in the manufactures of that district, where every manufacturer expects to find everyone engaged in trade at a certain hour once or twice in every week. To point out what saving of time, what enlargement of power for transacting business, this institution has given to the whole industrial population of Manchester, will hardly be necessary, but the extraordinary aspect which the Manchester Exchange presents to the eye of a stranger entering it any Tuesday between twelve and one o’clock is worthy of a brief remark. There is a dense crowd, numbering by thousands of heads, filling the entire area of the large hall, which is divided longitudinally in three parallel passages by two rows of columns or pillars supporting the roof. By universal admission, a kind of rule seems to have been established, perhaps without its having ever been expressed in words. This rule refers to the division of the total space in the hall between the different branches represented there. One of the outer passages belongs to engineers and machinists; the central part is devoted to the manufacturers of textile fabrics; and the part of the hall at the opposite side is occupied by the mercantile part of the assembly, the cotton brokers, exporters of goods, &c.
“A stranger entering the hall for the first time may recognise the side belonging to the engineers at a single glance. Their faces, their general appearance, and their whole bearing are characteristic, and not to be mistaken. There is, of course, no possibility of knowing one engineer from one merchant at first sight, but an assembly of, say, two hundred engineers looks as different from a congregation of two hundred merchants as two groups of men possibly can be. Those habits of thought and observation, that consciousness of—we may say—creative power, that determination to succeed in spite of difficulties, which are the attributes of the mind of an engineer, never fail to show themselves in the outward appearance of the man; they may be too faint for recognition in the single individual, but they are stamped upon an assembly of the members of our profession, where the marks common to the group come out more prominently by repetition. There are other things clearly visible in the appearance of the great crowd collected ‘on Change’ which are not perceptible by observation of single individuals, and that is the state of the trade and the nature of the transactions afloat. Looking at the crowd from above, and knowing the positions which the different branches habitually occupy in the building, the manner in which the groups cluster together, and the greater or less speed with which they change their positions, give remarkably clear indications to the practised eye. The Manchester Exchange is to be rebuilt and very considerably enlarged. At a public competition of plans for a new Exchange building, Messrs. Mills and Mergatroyd, architects of Manchester, have gained the two first prizes, and they are now entrusted with the construction of the new building. There are some other points, with regard to which the town of Manchester has just commenced to take up its proper position as the great centre of mechanical engineering. A college for engineering science is to be established in the cotton metropolis very shortly, and the funds for this purpose have been raised by subscriptions amongst the leading members of our profession, who have responded to the call with a princely munificence.”
[51] The earliest historical notice that exists respecting stamps freeing letters through the post, dates as far back at 1653. In that year M. de Velayer, _Maître des Requêtes_ in the French Court of Chancery, established an office close to the law courts, in pursuance of a Royal Decree of Louis XIV., authorising him to sell for two sous each, stamped slips of paper with the words printed on them, _Port payé———— le———— jour du mois———— de l’an_. The date of the privilege ceasing is not known; it was at M. de Velayer’s death. As regards modern postage stamps, Sir Rowland Hill, in 1838, gave the credit of them to Mr. Charles Knight; on the other hand, Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, claimed to have suggested them in 1834; and Mr. Charles Whiting, of Beauford House, Strand, in his evidence before the Postal Committee of 1838, stated that as early as 1830, he had proposed them to the Government for franking printed matter, and he exhibited several specimens to the Committee. Mr. Lewins, in _Her Majesty’s Mail_, does not take a correct view on this subject.
On the 23rd of August, 1839, the Lords of the Treasury offered to “all artists, men of science, and the public in general,” a premium of £500 for the best design of an envelope that should fulfil the double purpose of illustrating the universality of the new postal system, and of acting as a frank of the value of one penny. The premium was awarded to the late Mr. Mulready, R.A., but the appearance of the envelopes caused such fun, banter, and amusement, that they were withdrawn as soon as possible, and they are now extremely scarce. We hope we shall not be accused of one of the highest of crimes, if we mention a belief very current in 1840, that it was not to Mr. Mulready, but to a very exalted personage, that the authorship of the design should really have been attributed.
At the first institution of postage stamps, there were only two forms, black (very shortly afterwards changed to red), one penny; blue, twopence. There are now ten forms, the value of each of which varies from one penny to five shillings.
In France, in Switzerland, and in Belgium, in consequence of the cost of transmission of newspapers and other printed matter in those several countries being so low, there are postage stamps of the value of one centime, two, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and eighty, each. France has also postage stamps of the value of five francs (four shillings) each.
The number of stamps of different values circulating in the different countries of the civilised world that issue them (and there is hardly one such country that does not do so), is rather over 2,000. In case the reader should be travelling abroad, he may perhaps like to know what he must ask for, as the equivalent for the English compound word “Postage-Stamp.” If in France, Switzerland, or Belgium, the word is “_Timbre-Poste_;” if in Prussia proper or Sweden, “_Freimarke_;” Hamburg or Lubeck, “_Postmarke_;” Austria, “_Post-Stempfel_;” the territory that was Hanover, “_Bestelgeld-frei_;” Holland, “_Post-zegel_;” Italy, “_Franco-bollo_;” Spain, “_Timbre_ (with the final _e_ pronounced) _de Posta_.”
Timbromaniacs (so collectors of postage stamps are called), give employment, as we learn from the editor of the _Every Boy’s Annual_, for 1866, to a considerable number of persons who are especially engaged in the collection and sale of foreign stamps. These for the purposes of the trade are of two orders, the “maculate,” or those which have gone through the post, and the “immaculate,” or those which, if the owner were in the country to which they belong, would give free transmission to his letters, the adequate amount of stamps being fixed upon them. Some postage stamps have already become out of date, in consequence of the dominions in which they were issued having been absorbed in other kingdoms. Thus, in Italy, there are no longer the postage stamps issued in the former kingdom of Naples, or in the overthrown Grand Duchies of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena. (The last Stuart Queen of England, wife of James the Second, was the Princess Mary of Modena.) In 1866, Hanover, Frankfort, Nassau, and Electoral Hesse, having been seized by Prussia and absorbed into that kingdom, have ceased to issue postage stamps. The sovereign of the largest territorial possessions, since the time of Imperial Rome, Charles the V., of Spain, reigning also as Emperor over Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and the Netherlands, gave authority in or about 1540, to the Prince of Thurn and Taxis, to establish a line of posts from Vienna to Brussels; and the family of this House has, ever since, held special rights and privileges in relation to the postal systems of Germany, their posts being distinct from those appertaining to the Crown, in the kingdoms through which their rights extended. But these privileges absolutely ceased in the countries absorbed by Prussia in 1866, and negotiations have since been completed for the transfer to Prussia of the remaining postal rights of the princely house of Thurn and Taxis. Their cessation, however, will have no consequence as regards postage stamps, those of the Governments of the countries through which their privileges extended, only having been issued in them.
Had France at the commencement of this year, been able to obtain possession of the Duchy of Luxemburg there would not have been an absorption of postage stamps, as those in use are Dutch.
But, apart from political considerations, France has had a very fortunate escape, in one respect, by not obtaining the desired annexation. In the canton of Diekerch there are three rather picturesque villages, the names of which are respectively, Schindermanderscheid, Oberschindermanderscheid, and Nederschindermanderscheid. What the French, with their dislike to consonants, would have converted those words into it is impossible to say. Even “Nantzig,” when they got possession of Lorraine, was changed to “Nancy,” and Metz, instead of retaining its original German pronunciation, is invariably spoken in France as if it were written “Messe.” Although the _Annuaire des Postes_ for 1867, gives the names of upwards of 19,000 foreign post offices in Europe and North America, it has not ventured to include in it the above named Luxembourg villages; yet, there are among them several Welsh, Polish, and Russian towns, with many names totally unpronounceable except by natives, and even they must, at times, experience difficulty; witness—Solnychewsku, Wysselok, Domojirowe, Oiaskoe Sermanske (Russian); Jjewsku, Zawod, Wjätka (Poland); Yaysymudw, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, and Llanfairynghornwy (Wales).
[52] The Furies have the faces of women; their looks are full of terror, they hold lighted torches in their hands, snakes and serpents coil around their necks and shoulders. They are sometimes called in Latin _Furiæ_, because they make men mad by stings of conscience. They are the offspring of Nox and Acheron, and are esteemed virgins, because, since they are the avengers of all wickedness, nothing can corrupt or pervert them from inflicting the punishment that is due to offenders. There are only three Furies; some add a fourth, called Lisso, that is rage and madness, but she is easily reduced to the other three. The office of the Furies is to punish and torment the wicked by frightening and following them with burning torches.—_Tooke’s Mythological Systems of the Greeks and Romans_, 36th edition, revised, corrected, and _improved_. London, 1831.
[53] The following is a statement of the traffic receipts and dividends on unguaranteed stock, for 1865, of the leading English railways. For their mileage see page 107. London and North-Western, receipts £6,312,056, dividend 6⅝ per cent.; Great Western, £3,585,614, 1 per cent.; North-Eastern, £3,529,288, 3 per cent.; Great Eastern, £1,690,269, no dividend; North British, £1,309,865, no dividend; Midland, £2,728,131, 5⅜ per cent.; London and South-Western, £1,477,843, 5 per cent.; Caledonian, £1,432,475, 5¼ per cent.; Lancashire and Yorkshire, £2,150,643, 5⅞ per cent.; Great Northern, £1,064,799, 7⅛ per cent.; London, Brighton and South Coast, £1,055,116, 5¾ per cent.; London, Chatham and Dover, £446,896, no dividend. It is a fact worthy of notice, that some of the smallest lines pay the largest dividends. Thus the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont (10 miles), paid 10 per cent.; the Whitehaven Junction (13 miles), 10 per cent.; the Furness (53 miles), 10 per cent.; Taff Vale (76 miles), 9½ per cent.; Blyth and Tyne (36 miles), 9¾ per cent. In Ireland, the Dublin and Kingston 7½ miles long, is guaranteed nearly 9 per cent. by the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Company. The reverse and black side of the picture is, that there were no less than ninety-one railways in England, twenty-eight in Ireland, and eleven in Scotland, which paid no dividend at all.
[54] Statements have recently appeared in the newspapers to the effect that the per centage available for division upon the _whole_ capital invested in English railways is 4, in Scotch 4½, and in Irish 3½. This, no doubt, is correct, but the average is diffused over both debenture and share capitals.
[55] The National Debt was diminished £3,994,102 in the year ending the 31st March, 1867. Its amount then was £800,848,847, composed as follows:—£769,541,004 funded, £23,351,043 annuities capitalised, and £7,956,800 unfunded. The interest and management were £151,510 less than in the previous year.
[56] Our American cousins do not exactly agree with us in notions respecting Free Trade. A worthy writer in the _New York Times_, of September last, under the _nom de plume_ of MONADNOCK, writes thus:—
“The correspondents of English papers give melancholy accounts of dull business in commerce and manufactures in America, but the remedy for this is so easy, as pointed out in a _Times’_ leader, that it is only necessary to call an extra Session of Congress and adopt it. You have only to remove all restrictions upon Free Trade. Repeal all duties upon imports, and every shipyard would be alive with workers, every factory in full operation, and the whole country prosperous and happy. But the trouble is that nobody in America knows anything about political economy. Under the actual tariff it is said that American manufacturers are undersold by those of England and Germany, and Free Trade would bring all right again. It happens, however, that England, with Free Trade, is scarcely building any ships, and that she is in serious danger from Continental competition. How is this muddle to be disposed of? With Free Trade, half the labouring population in England lives upon wages just above the point of starvation, with no resource in sickness or old age but the workhouse, and Ireland is in a state of chronic poverty and discontent. With Free Trade there is a perpetual war between capital and labour, and the enormous burden of pauperism is increasing. Americans may be ignorant of political economy, but I cannot see that the English are overburdened with wisdom, or that the practical results of their system are of a very enticing character. The working men of England believe in Protection, and the English Colonies practise it to the great annoyance of the theorists at home.
“After all, Free Trade is a proved impossibility. Parliament is constantly interfering with what, according to our philosophers, should regulate itself. The Poor Law system is itself a Protective measure. So are all the laws limiting the hours and ages, and regulating the conditions of labour. There are Acts of Parliament forbidding the employment of women in coal-pits, where a few years ago they worked naked like brute beasts; Acts forbidding the employment in factories of children of twelve years; and during the last Session laws have been passed for the protection of children in the numerous trades and in the agricultural gangs which would disgrace Dahomey. There is need of abundance more of such interference. In the black country, north of Birmingham, there is a large population engaged in making nails by hard labour, especially horseshoe nails. On an average, three females are employed in this work to one male. I wonder if in all America there is one female blacksmith. Even the strongest-minded of the advocates of woman’s rights have not claimed for women the trade of a blacksmith. But here little girls from seven to nine years old, are set to work and kept to work, as long as they can stand, hammering at the anvil, roasting by the forge, blacked with soot, never seeing schoolhouse or playground, but employed their whole lives making horseshoe nails for a bare subsistence. Absolute Free Trade sets women and children to work at forge and mine, and reduces wages to the lowest possible standard, and that is the system against which humanity protests, and with which Parliament, in spite of theories, finds it necessary to interfere. Free Trade, as ultimated in England, is the most debased ignorance, the most abhorrent cruelty, the most disgusting vice, and the most heartbreaking misery that can be seen in any country calling itself civilised and Christian. There is too much freedom of all kinds in England, and especially a great deal too much in Free Trade.”
The _Times_, of the 5th of October last, replies at great length. Having fully explained the reasons why the United States adhere to Protection, the writer proceeds:—
“Free Trade in this country has been the labour of several generations of scientific and public-spirited men; it has been established on principles that have acquired the force of axioms, and is now proved and illustrated by splendid results. It may be said to have outlived prejudice, and to require no vindication. This, at least, is true as regards the educated classes, for it cannot be denied that lower down in the social scale Protection lingers still, in company with many other heresies, superstitions, and manifold forms of unreason. Free Trade requires a man to look beyond himself, beyond his own employment, beyond his own class, to the common right and weal, and this requires a certain amount of moral education. But it would be scarcely possible to detect in any respectable organ of opinion any trace of the old error, however ingeniously disguised.
“The _New York Times_ abuses Free Trade, by charging upon it everything unhappy or disagreeable in the condition of this country, and by asserting that Free Trade cannot be carried out consistently, and is therefore a hollow hypocrisy. Our agricultural labourers work like slaves for a pittance, our women and children make horseshoe nails, or traverse the country in gangs such as would disgrace the kingdom of Dahomey. Our shipyards are idle, our workhouses full, and the most repulsive and incessant toil receives wages just above starvation point. The English labourer pines for Protection; the Irish peasant for any possible escape from the allegiance and laws that keep him poor and degraded. Meanwhile, when the pinch comes, we give up Free Trade. In the opinion of the _New York Times_, it is an abandonment of Free Trade to provide workhouses for destitution, sickness, and old age; to prohibit the employment of women and girls in coal-pits; to limit the hours of factory children and provide for their schooling; to interfere with any trade for sanitary ends; or to aid any man, woman, or child to be what they ought to be, to have what they ought to have, or to do what they ought to do. Free Trade, the writer says, has produced all this hideous mass of misery, and, having done it, recoils in horror from its own work, and hands the matter over to Protection in the shape of public charity and philanthropy.
“As the writer has taken his picture of England from the columns of its public press, and from its Parliamentary debates and returns, we should be the last to deny that there is in it a foundation of truth. But it is only as if an American were to fill his boxes with the very worst and filthiest rubbish he could pick up in this metropolis, and take it home as a fair average and faithful representation of the capital of the mother country. There is no falsehood so mischievous as truth partially and malignantly selected. As to Free Trade, the writer does not know what it is, and probably does not care to know. It is trade emancipated from all restrictions and burdens which are not in the interest of all the parties concerned; that is, which are for one person against another, one class against another, or one nation against another. As it is in the interest of common humanity—that is, of all the world—that the destitute, sick, and aged should not be left to perish; that children should not be worked above their strength, or left without education; that women and girls should not be made mere beasts of burden, or reduced to savagery, these are not questions of trade at all, free or not free. Little as “MONADNOCK” seems to be aware, he is himself interested in the maintenance of human nature at its highest possible elevation all over the world. At all events, he must allow Englishmen to indulge the sentiments of benevolence without having it imputed to them that they do it on protective—that is, selfish—principles, and, in so doing, are offending against the great doctrine of Free Trade. But is it Free Trade that has produced the scandals which Protection, this writer says, is invoked in vain to mitigate? They all existed, far worse, in the days of Protection. They are the evils of a crowded country. The population of these isles has doubled since the beginning of the century, but it is impossible to rescue an acre from the surrounding seas except generally at an extravagant cost, or even to reclaim an acre without risk of loss. The land won’t employ all, and the surplus must do what they can. America, on the contrary, has millions upon millions of the best land in the world to draw upon as fast as she wants them. She has all the charm of novelty, as well as its more solid advantages. Till her citizens fell out with one another in the mere excess of youthful energy, and the mere exuberance of wealth and power, they had no need of an army to call an army, or of a fleet to call a fleet. It is folly, if not mockery, to compare such a country with England, as if the circumstances were equal, and laws responsible for all the difference. A septuagenarian may be healthy and strong for his years; his activity of mind and body may speak well for the moderation of his diet, the regularity of his habits and the calmness of his temper. What would be thought of a young man of twenty, of remarkable strength and stature, who taunted the old gentleman with his inability to carry a sack of corn, to throw a cricket ball a hundred yards, to run a mile in five minutes, to leap over his own height, to walk twenty miles in a day, to eat a dish of raw fruit or a quart of oats without indigestion? Should the old gentleman even confess himself unequal to such feats, that would be no disparagement of the habits and plan of life which have made him what he is—healthy for his time of life, strong, with good heart, and with duly cultivated mental powers.”
The following, from the _Scientific American_ of August last, furnishes a present comment upon the value of “Protection” in the United States:—
“The mills are running at a loss in Lowell, Lawrence, and most of the other manufacturing towns of Massachusetts, and throughout New England. The Manchester mills and print works have goods on hand unsold of the value of $2,000,000 (£430,000). The same state of things exists with the Amoskeag Company.”
[57] Since 1865 there is a regularly organised service for the conveyance of ice from Martigny, Sion, and intermediate stations in the Canton du Valais, Switzerland, _viâ_ Lausanne and Dijon, to Paris. As many as fifty tons a-day are during several months in the year, thus carried. As we write we have before us the traffic estimates of the proposed railway from Geneva to Chamounix, forty-four miles long, and one of the items of business expected is the conveyance of ice to Paris, Lyons, Avignon, and Marseilles, to be carried in the first instance on a tramway or siding not more than half-a-mile from one of the glaciers of Mont Blanc, and then to be hooked on to the railway.
Of the value of ice in actual railway transport, we have the testimony of recent American papers. The _New York Times_ says,—“Large quantities of dead meat are brought to New York from distances of 800 to 1,200 miles, by railway. Ordinary covered goods waggons are employed, and the meat, in quarters, is laid upon the ice, the ice being laid directly upon the floors of the waggons. Ice is laid also upon the top, and additional quarters are laid upon this, with a final layer of ice over the whole. At one time a break of gauge existed, and the waggons had to be unloaded, and the meat repacked in ice. This expense and delay are now saved. This mode of carrying meat is found to be very cheap and satisfactory.”
[58] On the death of the Earl of Spencer, father of the well-known Lord Althorp, in 1834, His Lordship succeeded to the Earldom. When Lord Melbourne went to Brighton to receive the king’s commands as to the appointment of a new Chancellor of the Exchequer, His Majesty informed the Minister that, under the circumstances, he considered the administration at an end. This announcement created great surprise and excitement in the political circles and throughout the nation. The Duke of Wellington being sent for, His Grace advised the King to appoint Sir Robert Peel premier, and this was done accordingly.—_Haydn’s Book of Dignitaries._ The Earl Spencer, whose death is above referred to, died on the 10th of November. The Duke of Wellington held several offices until the return of Sir Robert Peel to England, at the latter end of December. His ministry only lasted until the end of March, 1835.
[59] “Post,” in the middle periods of our Anglo Saxon history, was the man who conveyed a letter. “Haste! post haste!” was intended as an instruction or request to the bearer of it to use despatch in its conveyance, just as in modern days we occasionally see on the envelope of letters, “Immediate,” or on the letters of the humbler classes, “With Speed,” “A Post,” was a character often introduced in the masques and allegories of the middle ages, as well as in the pageants got up for the amusement of Majesty during royal “progresses.”
[60] “_L’Hora di Roma_ is now the time all over Italy. It is 36 minutes in advance of Paris, and 45 in advance of that of London.”
[61] “I know, gentlemen, that I have detained you at considerable length. There is, however, one most important subject upon which I must speak, and you must bear with me for a while. I claim that during the whole course of my political and private life I have been, and I will continue to be, the friend and well-wisher of the working classes; and I think I know those classes well enough, and more especially in this my own immediate neighbourhood, to know this, that there is nothing they wish for so much as plain speaking and plain dealing, and I venture in their presence, I hope of many of them—and I trust my words may reach many of those which are not present—I venture to warn them against one danger which I, in common with others, foresee as a possible consequence of the great measure which we have given. Apprehensions are entertained that the working men, not satisfied with overcoming that political influence to which they are entitled, will be disposed to lend themselves as dupes to designing persons, who may endeavour to cajole them, with the idea of returning representatives to Parliament, with loud professions of being the only friends of the working classes, and of being sent to Parliament especially to promote legislative measures intended to conduce to their welfare. Now, I believe that there never was a Parliament more disposed than the present to look to the interests of the working classes, and to consult for their benefit. I can only hope that the next Parliament may be equally desirous of effecting that object, and equally acquainted with the best modes of carrying it into effect. But I warn as a friend—as an earnest and sincere friend, and speaking from the deepest conviction—I warn the working classes not to be led away by the flattering delusion of men who will tell them that they can induce Parliament to pass a measure of exceptional legislation for their especial and immediate benefit. They cannot induce, I hope, any Parliament to pass any such measure; and if such a measure were to be passed, the workmen would find to their misfortune that it was the greatest injury that could be done them—I mean a measure attempting to regulate the rate of wages. To interfere between labour and capital is beyond the legislation of any Parliament; and, indeed, it would be, in short, only to lead Parliament to adopt such a course of legislation as has been recommended in some of the bye-laws we have heard so much of lately in connection with the various Trades’ Unions in the country. Do not let me be misunderstood. I am no adversary or opponent of Trades’ Unions. I think that, confined to their legitimate object, they are useful and salutary instruments for maintaining the rights of the labouring classes; and forty-three years ago I was the member of the House of Commons who first recommended and succeeded in carrying the abolition of those laws which made it illegal for workmen to agree to combine together not to work under a certain amount of wages. I therefore hope that what I say may be understood as not proceeding from one who desires to oppress the working man. I say that even strikes, objectionable as they are in principle, and injurious as they are to the working classes, are not an illegitimate or an illegal mode of proceeding. I say that if capital and labour cannot agree together, the only mode of bringing them together is the absence of one or the other—the capital to employ the labour, or the labourer to give the capital. I go further, and I say that so long as Trades’ Unions are charitable associations, and their contributions go to the relief of those who are thrown out of work by no fault of their own, they are unobjectionable and meritorious; but, from the disclosures we have recently heard, it appears they have gone far beyond those acts. I do not mean to refer to those gross acts of intimidation, picketing, rattening, and acts leading to murder. They are acts which no person will defend, and the members of Trades’ Unions themselves shrink from acknowledging their participation in them; but I say that these associations go beyond their limits when they agree not only themselves not to work, but to prevent and intimidate other persons from working. For my own part, looking to the public and private interests of the members, I cannot for the life of me understand how English workmen, entitled to make the most of their own industry and science, can submit to the tyranny under which they are groaning. Gentlemen, the whole course of our legislation for the last, I won’t say how many years, has been a protest against class legislation. It has been an argument in favour of the free admission of all foreign goods, an argument in favour of free-trade, an argument opposed to all class protection. What would you say if, in the city of Manchester, Government were to impose, as in Continental countries, an _octroi_ duty on the importation of every article of agricultural produce? The whole city would be in an uproar; and yet you submit to the bye-laws of associations which say that not only shall a tax be paid, but that not a single brick shall be laid in Manchester that is imported from a foreign country, that is, from beyond a single district, even from beyond the breadth of a canal. We are speaking here in the Free-trade Hall. What do you say of bye-laws which say that not a stone shall be worked in a quarry, to save an enormous additional amount of labour in carting it to the place where it is to be deposited, but that it shall be brought in bulk and worked by the workmen; and if it should have been worked in the quarry, then the farce is to be gone through of working it again by workmen in Manchester? If this system is to prevail, what is to become of your threshing machines and your steam ploughs, your mowing and reaping machines? You would have to resort to your old flail and other obsolete implements, and in manufactures to old handloom weaving; you would have to do away with the power-loom and all those inventions of genius which, while they have multiplied, to an indefinite amount, the productive capital of the country, have at the same time multiplied to an extent almost equally indefinite the amount and number of persons employed. I say that the British workmen would do well seriously to consider these things. Let me add that I have now been for two and forty years a married man; and let me advise the workmen when they fall into any difficulty to consult their wives. If the workmen are the bread winners, their wives are the bread managers; and let them ask their wives and their children, if they cannot answer for themselves, what they think in the long run they have gained from those strikes which they have carried on with so much perseverance and so much loss, greatly to the advantage of those who apply the strings and manage the puppet.”—_Speech of the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby at Manchester, 17th of October, 1867._
The author avails himself of this opportunity to give his experience of a strike, which he went through as principal officer of the Eastern Counties Railway Company in 1849. In that year the locomotive superintendent had frequently to direct engine-drivers of passenger trains, not to leave their engines at stations, except to oil or look after them. The order not having been attended to by some of the men, the locomotive superintendent issued a notice to the effect that a shilling fine would be inflicted upon any driver who quitted his engine except for the purposes above stated. A man, notoriously not a first-class man, but with an abundance of that quality which is vulgarly, though effectively, expressed by the word “jaw,” undertook, as was afterwards learned, to set the rule at defiance. Accordingly on the next day, he alighted from his engine at a first-class station, and ostentatiously walked up and down the platform with his hands in his trowser’s pockets; he was, of course, fined. He declined to pay the shilling; and, owing to what is unfortunately usual in such cases, the influence of outsiders, men who had never done the honest day’s work of an honest workman in their lives, the engine-drivers to a man, gave notice of their intention to leave the service in a week, unless the order were withdrawn. Had the demand been complied with, the discipline of the line was at an end. The Board, for it now became a Board question, therefore, after much serious and protracted deliberation, took this view. Orders were consequently given to the principal officers to lose not a moment, and to spare no expense in procuring engine-drivers elsewhere. This was no easy task to accomplish in so short a time as a week, but by arranging for the diminution of the number of trains, and through the sympathy of the public, which in the first instance had been altogether with the men, but was totally changed when the real facts became known, the service of the line was continued, and within nine days from that on which the old hands had given notice of retirement, almost all the usual trains were restored to the time table. The anxieties of a strike on a great leading railway are of a fearful character; those only who, like the author and his other brother officers, had to go through one, can attempt to describe them, and the very best description that could be written would fall far short of their reality.
But as regards the men; at first their leaders and the outsiders who were urging them to destruction, were very sanguine of success; in fact, at the meetings that were held three or four times a day (for there was a species of sittings _en permanence_) it was assured to them. But as days passed on and the order was not withdrawn, the passions of the leaders rose; not only were threats uttered, but notwithstanding apparently most careful watching on the part of men whose trustworthiness there was no reason to doubt, some of the engines were tampered with, tow was introduced along the piston rods to prevent their acting; parts that should be oiled were not oiled, and some other things were done that at the time were described as “not intended to do serious damage, just to maim and lame the engines a bit, not to destroy them.”
But in this strike, that happened which has happened in every other strike, combination, or conspiracy of men of the humbler classes, since the days that strikes, combinations, or conspiracies first existed—that is, there was what is usually known as “a traitor in the camp,” for the author knew, within less than an hour after each meeting broke up, all the material facts that had occurred at it. It is needless to say that the information given was of great value in check-mating the men, and leading to their eventual defeat.
So far as regards the strike during its progress, and until its death; and now for its consequences. The men were no sooner completely beaten than they were of course deserted by the leaders and the puppet-movers. The subscriptions that were promised by “the trades” during the strike were not forthcoming when the strike was over. The very word implies that the workers work not, but that, nevertheless, the employers require their service. But, unhappily for the men, this had ceased to be so on the railway.
The reverse of the picture was now seen by the men whom Lord Derby so happily describes as the “bread-winners,” as well as by the wives, whom His Lordship, with equal aptitude, names the “bread-managers.” The two pounds sterling a-week—or more—that the men were accustomed to receive each Saturday afternoon, were no longer ready at the pay-table; no, they did not even have the ten, fifteen, or twenty shillings a week, so vauntingly promised just a fortnight previously. “Strike-pay” was promised for six months certain, actual payment was for one week only.
Engine drivers, as a rule, are not more provident than the other sections of the working community of the railways; yet, some had saved a little money, with which they expected to hold out a few weeks, by which time they believed they would easily get into work again. But, in this respect, they were mistaken. There is a rule on railways that when an engine driver applies for a situation, the locomotive superintendent of the company at which employment is sought, writes for the man’s character at his last place. This is obviously requisite, not only as an ordinary precaution, but as an act of necessity, in case a man should have been dismissed in consequence of intoxication, or owing to having caused an accident. In the case of the Eastern Counties engine drivers, the locomotive superintendents of the already opened lines throughout the country refused to engage them for fully a year after the strike had ended.
The more necessitous of the men appealed to the author, and to his brother officers, to be reinstated. Many a man, hard working, honest, and worthy, accompanied his appeals by tears, caused by bitter sorrow and anguish at their positions; and, some of them, when reproached, that they, so esteemed and respected, as they knew they always had been, by their officers—yet had deserted—invariably replied, that they were told, in the plainest terms, that if they did not join the strike, they, their wives and children, should be made to suffer for it in their persons. No doubt they then knew, what the world at large has only recently known, that such threats were meant, not as threats, but as realities. It was felt, however, that it would be unjust towards the new men if the old were re-admitted, at all events at first; but, by degrees, as vacancies occurred, some of those who had not emigrated, or who had not been taken on lines which just then were opened in various parts of the kingdom, came back into the service. But they came back at the bottom of the list of drivers, with six shillings a-day, as goods engine drivers, instead of seven shillings and sixpence a-day as passenger drivers of the first class, and it took some of them two years after re-admission, before they regained their former first-class pay. Of the distress in many forms which the strike caused to men who had no alternative but to join in it, innumerable instances could be cited, and the author was able to confirm by personal experience what he had always believed to be the case, that in strikes, workmen are usually beaten, and that, if even apparently successful, they are, they must be, losers.
[62] We would not dare to invent a word of bi-lingual derivatives if we had not the authority of all the bishops for so doing, and to this we may add that the member of the Episcopal Bench, who is a distinguished philologist, especially sanctions word-coining. Dr. Chenevix Trench, Archbishop of Dublin, says (page 151 _et seq._ of his “_Study of Words_,”) that poets may at all times coin them, and prose (not prosy) writers occasionally, and His Grace refers, in proof, to Cicero and St. Augustine. “Pan,” is of the old Greek, but “Anglican,” as well as “Anglia,” are Latin words, that were coined two or three centuries after Latin was living and every-day-spoken. “Anglia” is in reality derived from the Angles, an ancient German nation, an off-shoot of the Suevi, who migrated to the parts of Denmark, now known as Schleswig and Holstein. In process of time they came over to this country in greater numbers than the inhabitants of the other nations that dwelt along the East Coast of Northern Europe. Tracing the derivation of “Angli,” we fear that the name comes from nothing more dignified than the Saxon word angel or engel, which signified a fish-hook. Being the most daring of all the pirates that infested the Northern Seas, they were specially distinguished as such among other nations, who said of the Angli, that they were like hooks, they caught all that was in the sea and made prey of it. Such were our ancestors of 2,000 years ago and upwards. (Has the vulgar saying of “with a hook,” any connection with our origin as an Anglo-Saxon nation?) But hear what Professor Henry Morley says of Englishmen, through Saxon and English Literature, for more than thirteen centuries. “Our writers before Chaucer, were men speaking the mind of our country during the period of the formation of the language, either in Latin, the common tongue of the learned, or in Anglo-Saxon, or in Anglo-Norman, or in English, of which the original elements were so variously proportioned and so incompletely blended, that it differs much from English of to-day. But with occasional impediment of a word that has passed out of use, the language of Chaucer, and those of his contemporaries who did not, like the author of “Piers Plowman,” write in the less developed English of a rural district, speaks to us all yet with a living warmth. With Gower and Chaucer, therefore, begins the literature of formed English; and as the best fruit of John Gower’s genius is contained, not in his English, but in his Latin poetry, it is by common consent to Geoffery Chaucer that we now look back as to the very spring and well of English undefiled.
“But our Chaucer was only a middle link in a long chain. Before his birth, the literature of this country had maintained, for a longer time than has passed since his birth, a foremost place in the intellectual history of Europe. To say nothing of the yet earlier Beowulf, English Cædmon poured the soul of a Christian poet into noble song 650 years before Chaucer was born. Six centuries before Chaucer, Bede, foremost of Christian scholars, was the historian of England, and Chaucer wrote his “Canterbury Tales,” not quite five centuries ago. It is only because we have done so much during these five centuries, and every stroke of the work has told upon our present, that we are content to look on Wycliff, Chaucer, Gower, and the author of “Piers Plowman,” as men of a remote time who lived in the dim caves about the bubbling source of our literature. They did not live at the source of our literature, and they are not remote. Their aspirations were ours, their ways of thinking ours, their battle ours, except that we have the advantage of a few points gained.
“With Chaucer our own day begins, but he is not the day-spring of our literature. In prose and verse for century after century before the time of Chaucer, there was a literature here of home-speaking earnestness, practical wit and humour, that attacked substantial ills of life; sturdy resistance against tyrannies in Church and State; and as the root of all its strength, a faithful reverence for God. With all this, Chaucer was in harmony; and so too, as we shall find, have been our best writers of every succeeding generation. For in our literature, which is but our voice as a people, the mind speaks, that has so laboured as to win for England, almost alone among the nations, the inheritance of an inalienable freedom.”—_English Writers from Chaucer to Dunbar._
The most distinguished among our classical scholars, the Rev. T. E. Yonge, says, in his recent edition of the complete works of Horace, that, partly in consequence of some resemblance in our present national character to that of the Romans in their cultivated age, our literature bears many traces of Horace. His sentiments, if not indicative of deep thought, are so instinct with the practical common sense on which we pride ourselves, so genial, and, above all, so charmingly expressed, that they are continually recurring to the recollection of every educated mind, and re-appearing in our best authors. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ hasn’t a good word for Mr. Yonge, nohow.
[63] The most remarkable instances of absence of mind that we can remember reading are the two following:—
A writer in the eighty-seventh volume of the _Quarterly Review_, in the course of a very pleasant article upon the mechanism of the Post Office as it was in 1850, says: “Of dead letters, a considerable number containing property valued in two consecutive years at upwards of £10,000, have actually been posted without any addresses at all! Indeed many years ago, a blank undirected letter, on being opened at the Dead Letter Office in London, was found to contain in notes no less than £1,500. The only way,” proceeds the writer, “in which this extraordinary, and at first sight almost incomprehensible, fact can be accounted for is, that the attention of the good lady or good gentleman who had folded and sealed such a valuable money letter had been so hysterically exhausted by the desire to do both with extreme caution, that, under a moral syncope, there had not remained between the crown of the head and the soles of the feet strength of mind enough to enable her or him to finish the operation. In short, the neglect had proceeded from what is properly enough called ‘absence of mind,’ which, in a description for which we humbly beg pardon, we will endeavour to exemplify by the following anecdote:—An over-tired Yankee, travelling in Kentucky, called at a log-hut for refreshment. The young woman of the hovel, that she might quickly spread the table, gave him her infant to hold, and in a few minutes laying before him a homely meal, she then modestly returned to her work. The long-backed man, naturally enough, was enraptured at the sight of the repast, and overwhelmed by conflicting feelings of gratitude to the young woman, of admiration of the lovely infant that sat smiling on his knee, and of extreme hunger, in a fit of absence of mind exactly such as caused the person in England to post a letter containing £1,500 without any address, he, to the horror of the hostess, all of a sudden, with great energy ... kissed the loaf, buttered the child’s face, and cut its head off—at least so runs the story in Kentucky.”
Our second case of remarkable absence of mind is also American, and it has in one respect the advantage over the foregoing, it occurred at the beginning of this year. A judge “out West,” presiding at a trial, so completely lost his presence of mind by the presence of a beautiful young English lady about to be examined as a witness, that when she had repeated the words of the oath, previous to her examination in the case, he placed his face for her to kiss instead of the book. The young English lady, not being acquainted with American jurisprudence, but having a great respect for the law, did as she was ordered to do by the judge. His absence of mind was so great, that when the witness had completed her evidence he swore her again, this time, however, varying the form of the oath slightly; “The evidence you have given is the truth, the whole truth,” &c. The kiss was in the act of being repeated, and there is no knowing how long the Judge’s absence of mind might have continued, had not his wife very fortunately come on to the bench in the very nick of time to administer to him a sharp blow on one ear, which, for fear of ear-jealousy, was passed on to the other with almost electric rapidity. The spectators in court, as well as the counsel, attorneys, jury, and officers, were unanimously of opinion that the remedy was equally effective as it was rapid and pungent. As regards the beautiful English lady, the only inconvenience she experienced was that she had to be sworn all over again and to be examined all over again. Both the direct and cross-examining counsel were bachelors. “The next news that is expected to be heard of one of them,” says the editor of the American newspaper from which the foregoing is extracted and its truth guaranteed, “and of the beautiful English lady, is in the portion of our advertisements that we call ‘Our Ladies’ Column’; and as regards the other counsel, we have already set up in type the following headings of a sensational article we intend to write: ‘Appalling suicide of a very distinguished and remarkable Member of the Bar.—Disappointed love.—A beautiful young English lady.’”
[64] The class of all others that sails closest to the wind on railways is the class of “Bagmen.” Ladies’ dogs occasionally lead them to do a little bit of cheating. Innumerable pleasant stories could be told in connection with this subject. “Sweet little pets!” hidden under shawls and in hand-baskets are the most common modes of concealment, but others more erudite are occasionally practised. For instance, shortly after telegraphs were laid alongside of railways, a principal officer of a Railway Company got into a compartment of a stopping train, at an intermediate station. The train had hardly left, when an elderly gentleman, in terms of endearment, invited what turned out to be a little Skye terrier to come out of its concealment under the seat. The dog came out, jumped up, and appeared to enjoy his journey, until the speed of the train slackened previous to stopping at a station; the dog then instinctively retreated to its hiding place, and came out again in due course after the train had started. The officer of the Company left the train a station or two afterwards. On its arrival at the London ticket platform, the gentleman delivered up the tickets for his party. “Dog ticket, Sir, please.” “Dog ticket! what dog ticket?” “Ticket, Sir, for skye terrier, black and tan, with his ears nearly over his eyes; travelling for comfort sake under the seat opposite to you, Sir, in a large carpet-bag, red ground with yellow cross-bars.” The gentleman found resistance useless; he paid the fare demanded, when the ticket collector, who throughout the scene had never changed a muscle, handed him a ticket that he had prepared beforehand. “Dog ticket, Sir; gentlemen not allowed to travel with a dog without a dog ticket; you will have to give it up in London.” “Yes; but how did you know I had a dog?—that’s what puzzles me?” “Ah, Sir,” said the ticket collector, relaxing a little, but with an air of satisfaction; “the telegraph is laid on our railway. Them’s the wires you see on the outside; we find them very useful in our business, Sir. Thank you, Sir, good morning.” It is needless to tell what part the principal officer of the Company played in this pleasant little drama. On arrival in London the dog ticket was duly claimed, a little word to that effect having been sent up by a previous train to be sure to have it demanded, although, as a usual practice, dog tickets are collected at the same time as those for passengers.
Sometimes scenes that ought to be very heart-rending and touching occur when a dog for which the fare has been regularly paid is separated from its owner, but as a rule, objection is not made to a dog travelling with passengers if they have no objection, and the dog be only a small one. We have more than once had conversations with ladies on “the great dog question,” and some of them say truly that, as there is no charge on railways for “nasty cats and parrots, and other birds,” or “for babies under three years of age,” why should they be made to pay for what does not give a twentieth part of the trouble that only one baby causes. But after all, the number of dogs that are paid for, as compared with “free” dogs, is very small indeed.
[65] It is to be understood that, although the numbers of passengers carried, as stated above, do not correspond with the numbers given at page 40 _et seq._, there is in reality no difference, as in the previous pages the journeys of the ticket-holders are not included, but in this page they are.
[66] As these sheets are going through the press, we find circulating through the newspapers the following account of _carriage accidents only_ in the streets of London for 1866 and the first nine months of the present year:—“Of the persons who frequented the streets of London last year, 205 were killed by horses and carriages of various kinds, or, on an average, four persons met with a violent death by this class of accidents every week. In 1865 the number was still greater, 232 persons being killed by street vehicles. These numbers, however, only represent the cases which terminated fatally; of those persons who were seriously, but not fatally, injured, there is no record. Of the 205 deaths in 1866, 36, or 17·4 per cent., were the result of falls from vehicles, and 17, or 8·4 per cent., occurred by collisions, &c., death resulting through being knocked down by or thrown out of vehicles. Of the number of persons who were run over, 14, or 6·6 per cent., were killed by omnibuses; 7, or 3·6 per cent., by carriages; 25, or 12·0 per cent., by cabs; 105, or 51 per cent, by heavy vehicles, such as carts, vans, drays, and waggons. In glancing at these results, it is worthy of notice that the greater portion of the fatal carriage accidents in the streets of London were not caused by cabs or omnibuses, the deaths by these vehicles amounting only to 29 per cent. of the total number. One-half of the accidents were caused by the heavy vehicles, and about 20 per cent. of the total deaths occurred among carters and carmen. Of persons run over, about 77 per cent. were males and 23 per cent. were females. Among males 26 per cent. of the deaths were those of children under ten years of age; among females about 60 per cent. of the deaths were those of children under ten years of age. The number of carriage accidents in the streets of London which terminated fatally in the first nine months of 1867 was 129.”
Dr. Ogden Fletcher, the Medical Officer of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, in his recent interesting work, _Railways in their Medical Aspects_, to which, as well as to the subject upon which it treats, we hope to refer hereafter, says that there are five times more people killed by carriages in the streets of London every year, than were killed on all the railways in Great Britain during any of the last seven or eight years.
[67] The aggregate number of vessels entering and clearing outwards from all the ports of the United Kingdom in 1866 was 403,598, being 5,657 less than in 1865. The total tonnage of these vessels in 1866 was 31,262,450, of which 21,255,726 was British, and 10,006,724 was foreign. Of this total tonnage about a third, or 10,761,413 was tonnage of steam vessels, of which 9,484,594 was British, and 1,276,819 was foreign. Thus, whilst the steam tonnage of Great Britain was not far from being one-half of its total tonnage, the tonnage of foreign steam vessels frequenting the ports of the United Kingdom was only a little more than an eighth of its total tonnage. The tonnage of the ships lost or damaged on or near the British coasts in 1866 was 428,000. The _Times_, in the course of a most interesting and lengthened summary of ocean and coast disasters for 1866, speaks in terms of just indignation of the unseaworthy state that colliers and other coasting vessels, but especially colliers, are permitted to go to sea, and concludes by stating that, “The aggregate loss of life is enormous, and so is the aggregate destruction of property. The former is a species of woe inflicted on humanity; the latter is practically a tax upon commerce. While the art of saving life on the coast is understood, thanks to the progress of science and to the stout hearts of our coast population, the art of preserving property is as yet but imperfectly known among us, and still more imperfectly practised.
“On reviewing the dismal record, we are bound to take courage from the many gratifying facts it reveals in regard to saving of life, which, after all, is our principal object in commenting on this doleful _Register_. Noble work has been done, and is doing, in that way, which has not only elicited the admiration of the British public, but also that of many foreign nations; and this was strikingly illustrated last July by the International Jury of the Paris Universal Exhibition awarding to the National Lifeboat Institution one out of their nineteen great gold medals, in acknowledgment of the important services it had rendered to shipwrecked sailors of all nations, hundreds of whom, and thousands of our own hardy sailors, it had rescued from a premature grave, and many homes from the desolation of widowhood and orphanage.”
[68] The return issued by the Statistical Committee of Lloyd’s, October, 1867, shows that the number of lives lost by casualties to ships for the half-year ending the 30th of June last was 687, being only 209 less than during the whole of 1866. 503 crews of sailing ships were saved and 17 crews of steamers. The number of crews drowned was 29. The return goes on to state that the total number of casualties to sailing ships in the half-year was 5,525, to steamers 500. The number of ships missing was 64, of steamers 7. Total number of ships abandoned 228, steamers 5. Of these 190 were totally lost. The number of collisions to ships is 808, to steamers 147; total, 955. Of these 85 were sunk. The number of vessels sinking from causes other than collision was 281. The number of ships stranded was 1,483, of steamers 126. There were three cases of piracy. The number of vessels burnt or on fire was 65 ships and 5 steamers. The number of cases of mutiny, sickness, casualties to crew, and refusing to do duty was 201. There were 11 ships waterlogged. Totally lost, 1,072 ships and 37 steamers.
[69] Captain Shaw, the Superintendent of the London Fire Brigade, stated in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons that sat in 1867, on protection of life and property from fire, that there were 681 fires in London in 1840, one to every 2,800 inhabitants, and one to every 379 houses. In 1850 the number of fires was 868, or one to every 2,673 inhabitants, one to every 347 houses. In 1860 the fires were 1,056, one to every 2,613 inhabitants, one to every 335 houses. The fires in 1865 were unexceptionally high—1,502, or one to every 1,900 inhabitants, one to every 250 houses. In 1866 the number of fires was 1,338. The “heavy fires” are now about 25 per cent. of the whole number, but in 1860 they were above 40 per cent. The average sum spent upon a fire in London for many years has been £18. But fires are much more expensive in America: Brooklyn (opposite New York), costs £35 each fire; Baltimore, £90; Boston, £157; New Orleans, £172. Of 29,069 fires which have occurred in the last 33 years in London, candles caused 11 per cent. of them; curtains nearly 10; gas nearly 8; flues nearly 8; sparks from pipes, 4½; lucifer matches, children playing, smoking tobacco, and stoves, each, 1½ per cent. The Fire Insurance Companies and the Fire Brigade consider one-third of the London fires as involved in suspicion; but Sir Thomas Henry, the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street, does not concur in this opinion.
[70] A proof of the value and economy of steel rails is afforded by what has occurred at Chalk Farm station. At this part of the London and North-Western Railway the traffic is literally unceasing. On one line, for a short length, are ordinary rails, and Bessemer rails on the other. The latter have already outlived twenty-five sets of iron rails, and appear very nearly as fresh as when first laid down. Very nearly the same result has been obtained at the locomotive shops of the London, Chatham and Dover Company.
“STEEL-LAID RAILWAYS.—A line of railway laid in steel is now well known to be superior, in respect of economy of working, to one laid in iron. It requires less labour in keeping up, and, all other things being equal, it can be maintained in a better running condition than an iron way. The reasons of its superiority are apparent enough. A yielding roadway is a bad roadway for traction; and while bad at all speeds, it is especially bad at high speeds. Whatever may be the explanation, the following are well-established facts:—The axle friction of carriages, and the mere resistance to rolling along a smooth rail, are constant at all speeds. The actual resistances to the motion of trains upon our best railways are, however, considerably greater at high than at low speeds, and the excess is very much beyond that known to be due merely to the atmosphere. Besides the latter resistance, there is a considerable resistance known to increase in the ratio of the square of the speed, and it is, we believe, the universal custom of the profession to speak of this as the resistance due to “concussions;” and what but an irregular, uneven, or yielding line can cause concussions? These increased resistances apply to lines in good and even first-rate condition, and are much greater on lines not well kept up. The constant resistances are but from 8 lb. to 10 lb. per ton for the engine, tender, and train, so that the resistances due to “concussions” are about equal to the constant resistances at 40 miles an hour, and twice as great at 60 miles an hour. At the high and increasing speed at which railways are now worked, these “concussions,” due to the irregularities of our lines, thus absorb the principal portion of our locomotive power, and entail a heavy charge in the shape of working expenses. But for these “concussions” our lines might be worked, probably, at 35 per cent. instead of 50 per cent. of their present gross receipts, there being always a considerable proportion of the working charges which, like management, station attendance, &c., are independent of the condition of the line. Although we have no precise data to show the superior working condition of a steel-laid, as compared with an iron-laid line, it is notorious and beyond dispute that the steel lines are worked at less expense, not only so far as renewals of rails are concerned, but in respect also of maintenance of way, locomotive power, and wear and tear of carriage and waggon stock. Steel rails, by their superior hardness, strength, and stiffness, approach much nearer than iron to the mathematical planes to which all rails should conform, in order to diminish the resistance to traction to a _minimum_. Taking the working expenses of railways at their present average rate, it would be a low estimate indeed to say that, even apart from all consideration of the _renewals_ of rails, the superiority of steel over iron rails does not amount to at least 2d. per train mile, taking into account the saving of locomotive power, wear of carriage and waggon stock, maintenance of way, &c. At this rate a line, having fifty trains each way daily, and having 240 tons of steel per mile of double line, would save, yearly, £304 per mile of way, equal to more than 25s. per ton of the steel in the line. One great objection heretofore made to the introduction of steel has been the extent to which the compound interest upon its increased cost would mount up in a series of years; but even if the saving in working expenses were but half that estimated above, it would fully pay for the _whole_ interest of steel, at £12. 10s. per ton, at which rate steel rails are now often sold. Under the hardest wear, steel rails have outworn twenty-five times their weight of iron, and no estimate now made of their service is ever less than that of a three-fold durability over iron; but if their durability was only as much greater than that of iron as their cost is greater, or even if it were absolutely no greater, it is virtually certain that they would prove cheaper in use than iron, because of the superiority of working condition of a steel-laid as compared with an iron-laid line, and the consequent very considerable saving in working expenses.” Abridged from _Engineering_, October 11, 1867.
[71] The first admission of crinoline into England is thus described by Miss Agnes Strickland in Vol. 3 of her “_Lives of the Queens of England_”:—“On the day of St. Erkenwald, the 14th of November, 1501, writes the herald to whom we are indebted for the particulars of the marriage of Prince Arthur with Princess Catherine of Arragon, the Duke of York led the infanta from the Bishop’s Palace to St. Paul’s. Strange diversity of apparel of the country of Hispania is to be ‘_descriven_,’ for the bride wore, at the time of her marriage, upon her head a coif of white silk with a scarf bordered with gold and pearl and precious stones, five inches and a half broad, which veiled great part of her visage and of her person; this was the celebrated Spanish mantilla. Her gown was very large, the body with many plaits, and beneath the waist certain round hoops bearing out their gowns (those of the princess and of the four Spanish maids of honour who attended her) from their bodies, after their country manner. Such was the first arrival of the famous farthingale in England.” Ladies, a friend of ours recently asked us, “What is the length of a crinoline”? Having of course “given it up,” he informed us that it is usually _over two feet_!
[72] Miss Aldworth of Newmarket House, County of Limerick, concealed herself in the case of a clock in the room of a house at which a masonic lodge was held. Before the completion of the day’s proceedings her hiding place was discovered. She was immediately brought forth and on the spot she was made a mason. She took the oaths, and like a good member of the craft as she was, never divulged the secret to the day of her death. Even now (1867) her insignia as a masoness are preserved with religious care at Newmarket House, and the chair in which she used to sit when at her lodge is in the dining room; above the chair is her portrait.
[73] The latest statistics show that there are 50,117 miles of railway in Europe; North and South America, 40,866; Africa, about 300; India, 4,070; Australia, 480. Of the North and South American railways, 33,896, belong to the United States, and there are about 16,000 miles constructing. Almost all American railways are very inferior in point of construction to European railways, and they are nearly all single lines. They have, however, been of inestimable value in developing the material resources of the country.
[74] Penny-a-lining, so called, because it is paid for by the newspapers at the rate of three-half-pence a line!
[75] There is only one part or portion of railway practice which, with all our railway experience, we are unable to account for. Yet the practice is universal. We (always in the singular number, we are plural, editorially, only) have travelled in a great many parts of the world, but wherever we have gone we have never found but one undeviating and unalterable rule among the door-opening and the door-closing portion of the railway community. Is it an instinct or an abstract idea with them that the door of a compartment cannot be closed unless the closing be accompanied with a loud and violent bang, which pleases nobody and sets nervous persons into a state of glowing trepidation? Or is there a masonry among the officials of this grade, from participation in which the higher classed portion of the railway fraternity is excluded, the secret of the craft being that all railway carriage doors must be banged as they close them? Dear colleagues of the class of carriage door shutters, country station masters, inspectors, ticket collectors, guards of the first class, guards of the second, and temporary guards, foremen porters, ordinary porters and good-looking porters, porters of the strong back, and porters of brachial muscle much developed, let us entreat and implore you to retire from the brotherhood and learn to close carriage doors gently, quietly, and as becomes your gentle natures. There is a Latin proverb which means do your work vigorously, but be gentle in the mode of doing it,—_suaviter in modo, fortiter in re_. One word from a cordial friend to a wise man, suffices.
[76] Turpin’s ride to York turns out, notwithstanding the bright and vivid description of it by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, to have no real existence as regards his hero. Nevertheless, Mr. Ainsworth had fact for the foundation of his story, a noted burglar of the latter end of the 17th century having actually ridden, after the commission of a great and daring robbery, from, if we recollect rightly, Stamford or some place to the south of it, and on his trial (for he was subsequently indicted) he was able to produce persons who had seen him in York early the following morning. The evidence, however, against him on other points was clear and decisive, and he paid the penalty for his crime, in the manner usual in those days; they hanged him.
[77] The oldest of the great public schools, or “grammar” schools, of England is Winchester, founded in 1381 by William of Wykeham, a Bishop of Winchester, the year after he had founded “New College,” Oxford. There is no doubt, however, that Winchester school, in its original shape, is of much greater antiquity than the time of William of Wykeham, some authorities tracing its existence to the introduction of Christianity into Britain. It has the only English motto of all our great public schools, “Manners makyth man.” Royalty frequently visited the school for the first two hundred years after Wykeham’s endowment. In 1570, Queen Elizabeth pleasantly asked one of the scholars whether he had ever endured the famous Winton birching. He happily replied from the “Æneid,”
“Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem,”
which produced a most gracious smile from Her Majesty.
Eton College was founded by Henry VI. The Procuratory is dated the 12th September, 1441; but the Charter is dated twenty-nine days later—on the 11th October; and the royal endowment was not completed until 1443. The most pious, but most unfortunate, of English sovereigns took the warmest interest in the success of the school, and whenever he heard of any of the boys visiting his officers and attendants at Windsor Castle, he would send for them, and admonish them to follow the paths of virtue; besides his words, he would give them money to win over their good will, saying to them “_Sitis boni pueri; mites et docibiles, et servi Domini_.” “Be good boys, be gentle and docile, and servants of the Lord.” The motto of Eton is, “_Floreat Etona_.”
John Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, founded St. Paul’s School in 1509. The motto is “_Doce, Disce, et Discede_.”
Westminster School (the motto of which is “_In patriam populum que_”) was established in its present shape by Henry VIII.; but it existed as a school even in the time of Edward the Confessor. The Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth, who took an interest in the school from the patronage bestowed upon it by her father, are the oldest extant about it. They bear date the 11th of June, 1560.
Rugby School, founded by Laurence Sheriff, grocer and citizen of London, celebrated the tricentenary of its existence on the 26th of June, 1867, with Dean Stanley, of Westminster, as President. Rugby’s motto is, “_Nihil sine Laborando_.”
The Royal Grammar School of Shrewsbury was founded by the Corporation of the town in 1549; and in two years afterwards obtained from Edward VI. for its endowment, a portion of the estates of the dissolved collegiate churches. Its motto is “_Intus si recte, ne labora_.”
Edward VI. founded several grammar schools, the first of which was that of Norwich, but his name is more intimately associated with that of Christ’s Hospital, London (popularly known as the Blue Coat School), than with any other. He died on the 6th July, 1553, having just one month previously signed its charter of incorporation. Christ’s Hospital is without a motto.
The foundation of the Merchant Tailors’ School is due to the wisdom and munificence of the ancient “Company of the Marchaunt Tailors,” which, according to Stow, has been a guild or fraternity from time immemorial. The statutes of the School, which has for a motto “_Homo plantat, homo irrigat, sed Deus dat incrementum_,” were authorised and sanctioned on the 24th September, 1561.
The motto of Harrow is “_Stet fortuna domus_.”
The site upon which Charterhouse School stands was purchased by Thomas Sutton in 1611 from Thomas Earl of Suffolk, fourth son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk (beheaded in Queen Elizabeth’s reign), for the establishment of a hospital for the support of poor and aged people, and a free school for the maintenance and education of poor children. Letters patent to carry out both these objects were immediately granted by James I.; the motto is “_Floreat Æternum Carthusiana Domus_.” For full particulars of these schools see “The Great Schools of England,” by Howard Staunton; and for details concerning the early history of Eton College, and of all authors who have written respecting it previous to 1858, Vols. 1 and 2 of the “_Annals of Windsor_,” by Messrs. R. R. Tighe and J. E. Davis, should be consulted.
[78] Byron has left us the following recollection of his Harrow School-boy days:—
Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollections Embitter the present, compared with the past; Whence science first dawned on the powers of reflection, And friendships were formed too romantic to last;
Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance Of comrades in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me your ne’er-fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied!
Again I revisit the hills where we sported, The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought; The school where, loud warned by the bell, we resorted, To pore o’er the precepts by pedagogues taught.
Again I behold where for hours I have ponder’d, As, reclining at eve, on yon tombstone I lay; Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander’d, To catch the last gleam of the sun’s setting ray.
I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo overthrown; While to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone;
Or, as Lear, I poured forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdoms and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself as Garrick revived.
Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you! Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast; Though sad and deserted, I ne’er can forget you, Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.
To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me, While fate shall the shades of the future unroll! Since darkness o’ershadows the prospect before me, More dear is the beam of the past to my soul.
But if through the course of the years which await me, Some new scene of pleasure should open to view, I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me, “Oh, such were the days which my infancy knew.”
Byron used to lay on the tombstone above referred to for hours, when labouring, even as a boy, under those morbid excitements that embittered his comparatively short life. It is still called “Byron’s Tombstone.”
[79] Subjoined is Sir Francis Head’s description of the Wolverton Refreshment Rooms as they were in their palmy days:—
“In dealing with the British Nation, it is an axiom among those who have most deeply studied our noble character, that to keep John Bull in beaming good humour it is absolutely necessary to keep him always _quite full_. The operation is very delicately called ‘refreshing him;’ and the London and North-Western Railway Company having, as in duty bound, made due arrangements for affording him, once in about every two hours, this support, their arrangements not only constitute a curious feature in the history of railway management, but the _dramatis personæ_ we are about to introduce, form, we think, rather a strange contrast to the bare arms, muscular frames, heated brows, and begrimed faces of the sturdy workmen of railways.
“The Refreshment Establishment at Wolverton is composed of—1. A matron or generalissima. 2. Seven very young ladies to wait upon the passengers. 3. Four men and three boys, ditto ditto. 4. One man-cook, his kitchen-maid, and his two scullery-maids. 5. Two housemaids. 6. One still-room maid, employed solely in the liquid duty of making tea and coffee. 7. Two laundry-maids. 8. One baker, and one baker’s boy. 9. One garden-boy; and lastly, what is most significantly described in the books of the establishment—10. ‘An odd-man.’
“‘_Homo sum, humani nihil à me aliemun puto._’
“There are also eighty-five pigs and piglings, of whom hereafter.
“The manner in which the above list of persons, in the routine of their duty, diurnally revolve in the ‘scrap drum’ of their worthy matron, is as follows:—very early in the morning—in cold winter long before sunrise—‘the odd-man’ wakens the two housemaids, to one of whom is intrusted the confidential duty of awakening the seven young ladies exactly at seven o’clock, in order that their ‘première toilette’ may be concluded in time for them to receive the passengers of the first train, which reaches Wolverton at 7·30 a.m. From that time until the departure of the passengers by the York mail train, which arrives opposite the refreshment room at about eleven o’clock at night, these young persons remain on duty, continually vibrating, at the ringing of a bell, across the rails (they have a covered passage high above them, but they never use it), from the north refreshment room for down passengers to the south refreshment room, constructed for hungry up-ones. By about midnight, after having philosophically divested themselves of the various little bustles of the day, they all are enabled once again to lay their heads on their pillows, with the exception of one, who in her turn, assisted by one man and one boy of the establishment, remains on duty receiving the money, &c., till four in the morning for the up mail. The young person, however, who in her weekly turn performs this extra task, instead of rising with the others at seven, is allowed to sleep on till noon, when she is expected to take her place behind the long table with the rest.
“The scene in the refreshment room at Wolverton, on the arrival of every train, has so often been witnessed by our readers, that it need hardly be described. As these youthful handmaidens stand in a row behind bright silver urns, silver coffee pots, silver tea pots, cups, saucers, cakes, sugar, milk, with other delicacies over which they preside, the confused crowd of passengers simultaneously liberated from the train, hurry towards them with a velocity exactly proportionate to their appetites. The hungriest face first enters the door, ‘magnâ comitante catervâ,’ followed by a crowd very much resembling in eagerness and joyous independence the rush at the prorogation of Parliament of a certain body following their leader from one house to the bar of what they mysteriously call ‘another place.’ Considering that the row of young persons have among them all only seven right hands, with but very little fingers at the end of each, it is really astonishing how, with such slender assistance, they can in the short space of a few minutes manage to extend and to withdraw them so often; sometimes to give a cup of tea, sometimes to receive half-a-crown, of which they have to return two shillings, then to give an old gentleman a plate of warm soup, then to drop another lump of sugar into his nephew’s coffee cup, then to receive a penny for a bun, and then again threepence for four ‘lady’s fingers.’ It is their rule, as well as their desire, never, if they can possibly prevent it, to speak to anyone; and although sometimes, when thunder has turned the milk, or the kitchen-maid over-peppered the soup, it may occasionally be necessary to soothe the fastidious complaints of some beardless ensign by an infinitesimal appeal to the generous feelings of his nature, we mean, by the hundred-thousandth part of a smile, yet they endeavour on no account ever to exceed that harmless dose. But while they are thus occupied at the centre of the refreshment table, at its two ends, each close to a warm stove, a very plain matter-of-fact business is going on, which consists of the rapid uncorking of, and the emptying into large tumblers, innumerable black bottles of what is not inappropriately called ‘stout,’ inasmuch as all the persons who are drinking the dark foaming mixture, wear heavy great-coats, with large wrappers round their necks, in fact are _very_ stout. We regret to have to add, that among these thirsty customers are to be seen, quite in the corner, several silently tossing off glasses of brandy, rum, and gin.
“But the bell is violently calling the passengers to ‘Come! come away!’ and as they have all paid their fares, and as the engine is loudly hissing—attracted by their pockets as well as by their engagements, they soon, like the swallows of the summer, congregate together, and then fly away.
“It appears from the books that the annual consumption at the refreshment room averages 182,500 Banbury cakes; 56,940 Queen’s cakes; 29,200 patés; 36,500 lbs. flour; 13,140 lbs. butter; 2,920 lbs. coffee; 43,800 lbs. meat; 5,110 lbs. currants; 1,277 lbs. tea; 5,840 lbs. loaf sugar; 5,110 lbs. moist sugar; 16,425 quarts of milk; 1,095 quarts of cream; 8,088 bottles of lemonade; 10,416 soda water; 45,012 stout; 25,692 ale; 5,208 ginger beer; 547 port; 2,095 sherry; 666 gin; 464 rum; 2,392 brandy. To the eatables are to be added or driven, the eighty-five pigs, who after having been from their birth most kindly treated and most luxuriously fed, are impartially promoted, by seniority, one after another, into an infinite number of pork pies.
“Having, in the refreshment sketch which we have just concluded, partially detailed at some length, the duties of the seven young persons at Wolverton, we feel it due to them, as well as to those of our readers who, we perceive, have not yet quite finished their tea, by a very few words to complete their history. It is never considered quite fair to pry into the private conduct of any one who performs his duty to the public with zeal and assiduity. The warrior and the statesman are not always immaculate; and although at the opera ladies certainly sing very high, and in the ballet kick very high, it is possible that their voices and feet may reach rather higher than their characters. Considering, then, the difficult duties which our seven young attendants have to perform—considering the temptations to which they are constantly exposed, in offering to the public attentions which are ever to simmer and yet never to boil; it might be expected that our inquiries should considerately go no further than the arrival at 11 p.m. of the ‘up York mail.’ The excellent matron, however, who has charge of these young people—who always dine and live at her table—with honest pride declares, that the breath of slander has never ventured to sully the reputation of any of those who have been committed to her charge; and as this testimony is corroborated by persons residing in the neighbourhood and very capable of observation, we cannot take leave of the establishment without expressing our approbation of the good sense and attention with which it is conducted; and while we give credit to the young ladies for the character they have maintained, we hope they will be gratefully sensible of the protection they have received.” _Stokers and Pokers_, by the author of “Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau.” London: John Murray, Albermarle Street, 1849.
[80] Ladies, it is sometimes dangerous to conceal your exact ages. We will give you a case in point, that only occurred in the summer of the present year. A lady, as far back as 1825, insured her life for the benefit of her relatives. She only died a few months ago; but on coming to compare her age, as given by herself at the time of effecting the insurance, with that on the certificate of births required by the office, to be obtained, after death, from the parish register, it was found that although the lady was in reality 42 years, in 1825, she only owned to 35, and paid premiums on that scale for 42 years. The office, had it been so disposed, might have declared the policy absolutely forfeited. It took a more generous course; the policy was admitted, as a claim, but from the amount that would have come to the legatees, if all had been in order, the difference of premium between 35 and 42, for 42 years, with interest and compound interest thereon, from the period that each premium became due, was deducted. The legatees thus received not more than half the nominal amount stated on the policy.
[81] Both ladies have since been married. “No cards.” Were we a newspaper proprietor, we should charge two and sixpence additional for the two last words of this announcement.
[82] _Engineering_, of September the 27th, and October the 4th, 1867, contains several extremely well executed views of some of the bridges and viaducts of the Highland Railway. “They are engraved,” says the Editor, “not because of any special peculiarities of their mechanical structure, but mainly on account of the fine character of the abutments and approaches; in short, the artistic qualities of their general design. For variety and originality, for pleasing outline and detail, and for their dignity and their harmony with the associations of the district traversed by the line, these bridges are admirable works in every respect. They have an artistic as distinguished from their merely material character, and they are, notwithstanding, economical structures.”
Mr. Joseph Mitchell, the engineer, by whom the line was constructed, read a paper descriptive of it at the Meeting of the British Association at Dundee in August last. This paper is given in full in _Engineering_ of September the 13th.
[83] Great, and it is hoped successful, efforts are now making to connect the North-East and the North-West of Scotland by a line to be made from Dingwall, eighteen miles beyond Inverness and the most western station of the Highland Railway, through Strathpeffer to Loch Carron, a distance of fifty miles, whence there will be steam communication with the Isle of Skye. The Dingwall and Skye Railway Company has been formed some time, but now, in consequence of the amount of capital subscribed, and the liberality of the landowners, application is to be made for an Act of Parliament to authorise the construction of the line; Mr. Matheson, M.P., is the Chairman of the Company. At the conclusion of its half-yearly meeting, held on the 30th October last, Mr. Kenneth Murray proposed a vote of thanks to the Chairman, Mr. Matheson, M.P., and in doing so, expressed his most cordial good wishes for the prosperity of the Skye Line. “Every thing,” said Mr. Murray, “that lays in my power to promote it as a shareholder and otherwise, I feel it my duty as a Ross-shire man to do, and every one who has the interests of the North of Scotland, and of the people at heart, must sympathise with the efforts made to open up the distant West country. To Mr. Matheson, almost solely, the very high merit of having pushed forward the scheme is due, and I think he has very strong claim on every gentleman, whether proprietor, farmer, or minister even, that they should come forward and assist him in an object so very dear to him, as no line projected for a long time had such a claim on public sympathy and on the purse of the public.” Mr. Matheson, in returning thanks, expressed the hope that by 1870 passengers from Edinburgh and Glasgow might reach Postree, the capital of Skye, in about thirteen hours, and passengers from Inverness in about six hours.
[84] The following is an extract from a speech delivered in October, 1867, by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie, on the occasion of re-opening the parochial schools at Niddrie. “I was once present in a congregation in the town of Thurso, which contained as many as 1,200 people, and, perhaps, you will hardly believe me when I tell you that on that occasion I saw what I never saw before, and what, I am sure, you never saw, and what I hope I shall never see again—I saw 600 people asleep! 600 people asleep! I happened at the time to be living with Sir George Sinclair, a very excellent gentleman, who resides in the immediate neighbourhood of that town. I told him what I had seen in the church. “Oh,” said he, “that is nothing to what I have seen myself; I have seen in almost every pew the whole people asleep, with only here and there an exception.” The Rev. Doctor’s opinion is that the cause of drowsiness in church, during sermon time, is “bad ventilation.” No doubt—— of the subject.
[85] The Post Office traducers of the railway are boastful enough of its services when it suits them to be so. Of Thurso it is thus written, at page 6 of the Postmaster-General’s Eleventh Report (undated)—“The most northern town of Scotland is Thurso, 755 miles distant from London, and the combined effect of these accelerations was to admit of a letter despatched from London on Monday night being delivered in Thurso early on Wednesday morning, and of its reply, if posted about four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon (“about;” is that the way in which letter receptacles are closed in the north of Scotland?), reaching London in time for the first delivery on Friday morning.” As the Post Office chooses to make unfair attacks upon railways, the Post Office must expect retaliation. Therefore, Mr. Seely, of the Admiralty, may we beg you to note there is no end of Post Office “pigs” that can be placed in your hands to work upon, and we beg you to take one, now, to start with. At the commencement of 1867, the department gave the year’s notice it is bound to give, to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, that its Mediterranean contracts should cease on the 31st of January, 1868. In March, 1867, advertisements were issued inviting tenders for the conveyance of these mails, the service to commence on the 1st of February, 1868. Attached to the form of tender are thirty-eight conditions. By the 31st of these it is stipulated that “the contract shall not be binding until it has lain on the table of the House of Commons for one month without disapproval, unless, previous to the lapse of that period, it has been approved by a resolution of the House.” We believe we were the first to call the public attention to the fact that, as the day for receiving tenders was Monday, the 16th of September, 1867, and as the new contractors would have to commence on the 1st of February, 1868, they would, in that case, not only incur all the risk of providing vessels and suitable arrangements for carrying on the service for a period that might last six years, but they would have actually commenced it several days before the contract could be laid upon the table of the House of Commons. This was in consequence of the House not usually meeting until the 3rd or 4th of February, and it might not be approved until the same date in the following month.
As soon as the blot had been hit it was discovered by the Post Office. It was therefore determined to postpone the commencement of a new contract for six months. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company was applied to, to continue the service for that period. The Company expressed its willingness to comply with the request, upon receiving an advanced price of ten shillings a mile instead of four shillings, the price now paid for the service. Mr. Hunt, the Secretary of the Treasury, in a debate upon this question and upon the attempt of the Post Office to place the conveyance of our eastern mails in the hands of _Compagnie des Messageries Impériales de la France_, designated the demand of the Company as “preposterous.” Whether that be so or not, the omission on the part of the officials of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, an omission or blunder which a junior clerk in a large commercial establishment would at once be dismissed for being guilty of, is to cost the country rather more than £60,000, equivalent to what the Post Office pays for over two millions miles of railway conveyance for mail bags.
_Punch_, in its number for the 2nd of November, 1867, has a vignette of Toby holding the envelope of a letter for Lord John Manners, Chief Commissioner of Works, and says, “I will not, for the moment, adopt the tone of my friend, the _Pall Mall Gazette_, who bitterly says, a new principle governs the performance of official duties in England. Elsewhere, where certain men are appointed to take part in the Government of a country, they understand that they are to do the duties of their offices forthwith. With us the understanding is quite different: no work is to be begun except under such emphatic demand as in private life would answer to the practice of regularly kicking your footman to the coal-scuttle, when the fire needs replenishing.” _Punch_ then reminds His Lordship, that at the commencement of this year it was resolved that the water of the lake in Regent’s Park should be drawn off, the mud of half a century be cleared away, and the lake be rendered shallow and safe for skaters this winter. _Punch_ having learned that, practically, nothing is done as yet, proceeds, “Here I repeat, my dear Lord John, is November. We shall have frost soon, and when the ice forms, the foolish crowds will be rushing upon it. I say no more. The rate at which Government work is done, singularly contrasts with the rate at which private work is performed. But, of course, John Bull’s servants never hurry themselves.” On the 30th of September we wrote to the Post Office, complaining that a letter posted in a London pillar box by a member of our family was not delivered to its address in London in due course. On the _25th of October_, an answer comes, the whole gist of which is, that as the letter was not delivered at the time expected, it could not have been posted at the time stated. It is hardly necessary to say, that this allegation is unfounded. On the 2nd of October, and again on the 8th, we wrote to complain of the continuous irregularity in the transmission of our book packets; in one instance a letter to us and a book-packet having been posted at Lombard Street post office, and by the same fingers at the same time. The letter came in two hours and a-half, the packet in 39 hours and 20 minutes. Exactly on the day of our closing this sheet for the press (the 8th November), the promised answer to our complaints was delivered. _Mr. Punch_ may well say, “John Bull’s servants never hurry themselves.” The Post Office not only never hurries itself, but, like Mr. Sturgey, the stockbroker, and other immaculate persons, considers itself always in the right.
[86] The latest advices from India announce the commencement, in November, 1867, of a passenger service between Calcutta and Bombay, which is to be done in 116 hours, or 4 days 20 hours. Of these, 80 are to be by rail and 36 in dâk. The journey by dâk will be between Jubbulpore and Nagpore, but the latter station will cease to be on the line of railway communication between Calcutta and Bombay when the existing gap is completed. Eighty hours in the railway seem very long, especially as it is intended, when the through line is opened, to run the whole distance between the two capitals in forty-four hours. The fares for the temporary service are to be 231 rupees (£23. 2s.) first class, 165 rupees (£16. 10s.) second class. Passengers, whether first or second, pay 100 rupees (£10) each by dâk between Jubbulpore and Nagpore.
[87] Can it be possible that the two following paragraphs, the first copied by _Engineering_ from an Indian journal, the second an original article—correctly represent “Travelling in India” at the present time, or even recently?
“Proceeding to the Calcutta terminus of the East Indian Railway, a line 1,000 miles in extent, we find a wretched little building with brick flooring and no punkahs, where tickets are so slowly issued as to raise doubts as to how the demands of a Derby-day would be discharged. Scores of coolies dash down upon our boxes, and, after much altercation, succeed in carrying them off. The waiting-rooms resemble lock-ups intended for the worst species of pick-pockets, and are simply uninhabitable. Parcel’s office, book-stalls, refreshment rooms, and other and more necessary conveniences are wanting. As there is no accommodation for any class of traveller, the public sit and stand about the verandahs and covered ways, choking the approaches, thus rendering impossible any attempt at order. The railway staff, represented by baboos and a few lounging slovenly policemen—there are no porters—are swallowed up in the crowd, whilst the two English sergeants content themselves with keeping the carriage-ways clear. All care appears to cease after the traveller has committed himself to the hands of the East India Railway. By-and-by the steam ferry-boat arrives, bells ring, and the living stream pours and crushes down a covered path, which, stopping suddenly, leaves some thirty or forty paces of open platform, upon which the sun and rain beat uninterruptedly, inconveniencing children, delicate women, old age, invalids, and what not. We are not in the least surprised; thirteen years of neglect has accustomed us to this sort of thing. Immediately afterwards, the Howrah side of the Hooghly is reached, and another uncovered platform presents itself; and if the crushing has hitherto been excessive, the natives being hustled and driven together like sheep, what shall be said of the scene at the Howrah station platform—a narrow stone terrace of considerable length, where other crowds of travellers are already collected and arriving, shrieking and gesticulating? A dense mass of natives, from which an Englishman, by pure muscular power, may occasionally be seen to break, flows onwards, and fills the railway carriages to overflowing. Resistance is out of the question. The pressure onward and inward towards the train, by a simple law of gravity, accomplishes the desired end amid cries and protestations, and forces the human units into acquiescence and the railway carriages. Anything is preferable to being left behind, and such is the option offered to four-fifths of the travelling native population of India. Whether the crowd be great or small, we have never known it considered necessary, so remarkable is the elasticity of the carriages, to afford extra accommodation. Nothing is impossible to the policeman’s baton and the brutality of a station-master, not even death itself. Last year no less than seven or eight corpses, if we remember rightly, were taken from the carriages of this line alone—victims to a barbarous system of overpacking. How many subsequently die from exhaustion will never be known. Men and women are often so crushed in third-class carriages as to be compelled to remain standing for the entire length of a journey, sometimes 400 or 500 miles, and at the hottest season of the year. Scenes daily occur at our Indian railway stations which make an Englishman’s blood burn with shame and anger, not that natives should oppress natives, but that his countrymen should be guilty of, and tolerate in others, acts at once unjust, cowardly, and inhuman; for, as the confusion subsides, many railway officials may be discerned, some on duty, others from the adjoining offices, all connected with the line—all supremely indifferent to its proper management—all smoking, spitting, and gossiping.
“By the time the train has reached Sahibgunge and Jumalpore, this free-and-easy behaviour has passed into absolute rowdyism and terrorism. At one station some respectable natives, travelling by second class are permitted to be insulted and dragged from their carriage by a drunken barrack-sergeant. At another, villagers who had been forced into intermediate class carriages, in course of being knocked about by policemen, are crying and protesting against being charged a fare not voluntarily incurred. Nowhere are the natives treated otherwise than as wild beasts. Tickets for distances under those paid for are constantly issued to the ignorant; and the possession of a small bundle too frequently, under threat of arrest, necessitates the payment of a douceur. These, and hundreds of similar occurrences, are forced upon the attention of the most unobservant European traveller in the course of a few stages. Much remains unseen. With the exception of the private rooms of station-masters, generally extravagantly furnished for men drawing small salaries, five stations out of six are filthy and altogether uncared for, useless to the public, and a disgrace to the line. In all the distance between Calcutta and Delhi, the railway traveller is only reminded of travelling at home by the unbroken absence of every pleasure he has been accustomed to associate with that species of progression. If he has not suffered personally, or not excessively, he has witnessed the sufferings of others more poor and humble, and to a right-thinking Englishman the difference will not appear very material; he will also have witnessed an amount of neglect of, and contempt for, the public such as, we venture to assert, was never before exhibited either in England or abroad.”
“TRAVELLING IN INDIA.—In October, 1866, a petition was presented to the Governor-General of India by the British Indian Association of the North-Western Provinces, bearing the signatures of 3,251 persons, praying for the introduction of certain reforms, with a view to affording further and better accommodation for the native travellers, who constitute by far the greatest source of revenue to the railway companies. The construction of railways in India has, as a matter of course, put a stop to the old modes of transit, and the natives have therefore no alternative but to resort to them as a means of conveyance from one place to another; but the accommodation provided for them, either at the stations or in the railway carriages, would, from their complaints, appear to fall far short of what is required.
“One of the principal points to which attention is directed by the memorial is the want of shelter and accommodation at the different stations for third-class passengers. These passengers consist of the poor, the ignorant, and the helpless; many among them are weak and feeble, some sick and old, many women and children. These have always to wait in crowds of hundreds, for several hours at a time, in an open and unsheltered place to purchase their tickets. The few rich and wealthy have waiting-rooms, or the sheltered platform to accommodate them; but the masses of the poor have absolutely no shelter at all. It cannot be expected from these that they should come in only at the proper time, for most of them have but an indefinite idea of time, and a large number come in from surrounding villages and rural districts where no time is kept. But, besides this, the trains themselves arrive so very irregularly—sometimes six hours behind the time—that, without any fault of the passengers, they are compelled to wait; and whilst thus waiting, there is no shelter to be had from the fierce rays of the sun, from the heavy and drenching showers of rain, from the hot winds and clouds of dust, or from the cold cutting blast. In winter, in summer, and in the rains, at all times alike, these masses of weak, ill-clad human beings are left exposed to all the inclemencies of the wind and weather, and suffer and contract diseases which not rarely result in death.
“Another complaint is of the want of proper restaurants for the same class of people, the want of proper nourishment, especially in long journeys, being no less the fruitful source of disease and suffering than the want of proper shelter and accommodation, and, owing to their prejudices of caste, life is often sustained during the railway journeys under great difficulties by the Hindoos and Mohammedans. They also complain of the absence of medical assistance in the event of an accident, and request that some one possessed of medical experience and surgical training may be placed in medical charge of each through train.
“The subject of bad treatment to native travellers is also forcibly brought to notice, for not only are native passengers of all classes and grades, without distinction, subjected to disrespect, but they have also to suffer the greatest insolence, impudence, hard language, contempt, and even sometimes ill-usage, from the menials of the railway police and other officials. Indiscriminate abuse, and often on their superiors in the social scale, is freely lavished, without let or stint or a regard to its quality. Passengers have even been struck and otherwise treated with great indignity, and second-class passengers are not allowed to get in even to the platform, but are made to herd with the mass outside. The most respectable Hindoos and Mohammedans further complain that they are liable to ill treatment and loss of honour from their European fellow-passengers in the second-class carriages; and thus native gentlemen of birth and respectability, in striving to avoid the crowd and pressure and company to be found in third-class carriages, find themselves even worse off in a second-class seat. Lastly, this memorial draws attention to the utter impossibility of native ladies of respectable birth and breeding taking advantage of the railway, as matters are at present carried on. The absence also of any proper retiring-room at the station for such of the better class of native ladies as have to wait for trains, places further obstacles in the way, and tends to keep them from the use of railways whenever they can be avoided.”
[88] For a very complete and interesting history of the East Indian Railway and of the existing arrangement for its management and control, the reader is referred to the letter and memorandum of Mr. R. W. Crawford, M.P., chairman of the board of directors, dated the 21st of March, 1867, and addressed to the Secretary of State for India.
[89] Whilst the area of British India is 956,436 square miles, with, in 1861, 143,271,210 inhabitants, the area of the “Native States,” is 596,790 miles, with 47,909,197 inhabitants, and the area of Portuguese India is 1,066 square miles, with 313,262 inhabitants, the area of the French settlement of Pondicherry is only 188 square miles, with a population of 203,887 souls.
[90] Bombay will have to go a-head in various ways, if she wish to manage with credit the immense traffic of which she is destined to be the centre almost immediately. First, as regards her docks and docking accommodation. At present there are two belonging to the Government. They were built by the old East India Company. One, though useful at the time it was built, and for many years afterwards, is no longer available for the steam vessels that now navigate the Indian seas. The second, the “Duncan” Dock, has only sixteen feet of water at the Lock Gates. This unfits it for many vessels, and will render it useless for most of the steamers that will shortly navigate to and from Bombay. The Peninsular and Oriental Company have two docks, one of which, although only 390 feet long, has 20 feet 6 inches at the lock, and will admit any vessel afloat except the “Great Eastern.” But the company requires both docks for its own purposes, and it will find it difficult to lend them, even occasionally, for docking the new transport steamers shortly to be put on between Suez and Bombay, until further docks are provided. It may be stated, _en passant_, that these steamers will, with the exception of the “Great Eastern,” be the largest vessels afloat—length of each, 381 feet; breadth, 49 feet; tonnage, 500 tons. When placed on the line between Suez and Bombay, all British troops destined for or from the East will be conveyed by them, instead of by vessels taking the passage by the Cape of Good Hope.
An illustration of the value of eligible docks constructed for the accommodation of important lines of ocean communication connected with arterial railways, is afforded by what has occurred at Southampton since 1840. They have proved themselves to be not only an advantageous investment, but to their presence are, no doubt, due the immense commercial development, and the equally great increase which has taken place in its population in the last twenty-five years. The docks were opened for business in 1840, and at the end of four years the revenue yielded by them was only £4,018; but in 1844 Southampton was made the port of arrival and departure of the Peninsular and the West India Mail steamers. The revenue of the docks had therefore risen to £20,614 in 1850. Five years afterwards, by which time the steamers of the several companies had increased in magnitude and in frequency of arrivals and departures, the dock revenue had risen to £55,442. In 1860 it was £54,558; in 1861, £55,342; in 1862, £58,121; 1863, £57,739; 1864, £58,358; 1865, £62,449; and in 1866, £66,011. In 1854 the inhabited houses within the postal limits of the town and neighbourhood, of which the Post Office is the Head-centre, were 14,290, and the population had risen from about 45,000 in 1844 to 78,829. In 1863, the population was 108,079, the inhabited houses 19,969. In 1867, the population and the inhabited houses within the same limits had increased still further. The estimated population of the actual borough, in the middle of 1867, was 56,107, and the inhabited houses, 9,263.
Bombay is also very defective as regards hotel accommodation. The defect, however, is, to a certain extent, about to be remedied. One is in course of erection on the Esplanade, and nearly ready for opening, which will be a valuable acquisition, as well as an ornament, to the city. Messrs. Ordish & Lefeuvre, of London, are the architects. The building (of four stories), will be 190 feet long, 90 wide, 85 high.
It is by works such as these, and others suited for great commercial purposes, that Bombay may eventually become successful in its aspirations to be the capital city of the Indian Empire. In population she already exceeds those of the two other great capitals of India. The population of Calcutta, is, according to the latest estimates, about 700,000; of Madras, according to the Administrative Report for 1863, 427,771; whilst that of Bombay was, according to the census of February, 1864, 816,562.
[91] “Sir Bartle Frere sees at a glance the immense importance, both politically and commercially, of the Punjaub lines in the whole economy of the railway system of India; he sees, too, no doubt, their bearing and intimate connection with that direct route to Europe through the Euphrates valley, which, by the untiring exertions of the very able Chairman of the Punjaub and Scinde Railways, must sooner or later be a _fait accompli_. Nor does he stand alone in the view he takes of this great question. The Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjaub is strong on the same side, and the whole press of India is unanimous in urging the completion of those lines with the utmost speed.
“At the recent Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Dundee, in August last, Sir Samuel Baker, President of the Geographical section, when speaking of our Indian possessions, said: ‘It appears to many of us as the affair of yesterday that the overland route to India was established by the indefatigable Waghorn (whose name should ever be held in honour); but in the short space of about fifteen years the camel has ceased to be “the ship of the desert” upon the Isthmus of Suez. A railroad connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean; a canal already conveys the sweet waters of the Nile through deserts of arid sand to Suez, and a fleet of superb transports upon the Red Sea conveys our troops to India. Who can predict the future? Who can declare the great French work to be impossible, and deny that within the next half century the fleets of the Mediterranean will sail through the Isthmus of Suez upon the Lesseps Canal? England has been the first to direct to general use the power of steam. Our vessels were the first to cross the Atlantic and to round the stormy Cape to India. But have we not thus destroyed the spell that kept our shores inviolate. Not only ourselves, but the French, possess a magnificent fleet of transports on the Red Sea. We can no longer match the dexterity of our sailors against overwhelming odds. Steam breaks the charm. Wars are the affairs of weeks or days. There are no longer the slow marches that rendered inaccessible far distant points. The railway alters the former condition of all countries. Without yielding to exaggerated alarm, we must watch with intense attention the advances of Russia upon the Indian frontier, and, beyond all geographical enterprises, we should devote extreme interest to a new and direct route to India by the Euphrates Valley and Persian Gulf, thus to be independent of complications that might arise with Egypt.’
“So long as the Indian Empire exists, the connection between India and this country must be kept up; and if that connection were interrupted for many months, the doom of our Eastern Empire would be practically sealed. England maintains her position in India by force of arms; and it is a principle, both of war and of common sense, to take efficient means to keep open the lines of communication between the base and the field of operation.
“It is impossible to contemplate, without a shudder, the consequences which must result if the Government should ever neglect to maintain effectively the means of communication with the East. The present route, _viâ_ Egypt, might at any time be rendered unavailable by political combinations in Europe, and yet our Government have hitherto been content to rely upon one means of communication, notwithstanding that it is in their power to establish not only an alternative, but an infinitely better one by way of the Euphrates Valley.
“But we feel well assured that the great design of connecting Europe with Central Asia, by the telegraph and the rail by the Valleys of the Euphrates and Indus, is at length approaching its accomplishment. The Euphrates and Indus Railways completed would be the grandest pledge that could be given for the peace and the prosperity of the world.”—_Allen’s Indian Mail._
[92] The length of the Euphrates, in its direct course from North to South, is about 700 miles; but with its various windings, it is nearly 1,800. The current is sluggish, not exceeding two and a-half to three miles an hour, except during the floods, when it increases to about five miles. The river navigation would extend from Ja’bar Castle to Bir, 120 miles, or to Bussorah, 70 miles from its mouth, and the vessels must not draw more than eight feet. The draught of the ocean vessels into which the mails and passengers would be transferred at Bir or Bussorah, must be limited, as there are not more than twelve feet on the bar at the mouth of the Euphrates at low water.
[93] The intelligence respecting Kurrachee Harbour is unsatisfactory. It is quite clear that with any increase of trade there, the capabilities of the place as a harbour will be surpassed, notwithstanding the fact that, on the recommendation of the late Mr. James Walker, upwards of a quarter of a million sterling has, since 1859, been expended on works for increasing its capacity. But now, according to the opinion of Messrs. Stevenson, of Edinburgh, all this outlay has been useless, although it has had the effect of adding from 70 to 100 acres to the dimensions of the harbour. Naturally the report of Messrs. Stevenson has given rise to much disappointment, for it means that the money expended, if not absolutely wasted, has not been usefully laid out, and that all the valuable time consumed between 1859 and 1866 has been virtually lost. One of the subjects specially referred to Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, on his appointment, early this year, as Governor of the Bombay Presidency, was Kurrachee Harbour. In the meantime the works were to be suspended and not to be resumed until the Home Indian Government had received the additional data for a satisfactory settlement of the question, which Sir Seymour was directed to collect. His report has not yet been received at the India Office.
[94] Perhaps there is an additional reason of more or less weight for urging on the early construction of at least the section of the Euphrates Valley line from the Mediterranean to navigable water on the Euphrates. If the Isthmus of Suez Canal be completed, France will, in all likelihood, hold the keys of it—a very dangerous fact for England in case of war between the two countries. That the canal will be finished seems more than probable. Mr. Daniel A. Lange, the English representative and director of the company for its construction, in his published letter of the 2nd of November, 1867, says that “by the last official reports from Egypt, there remained on the 30th of September last 44,000,000 cubic metres of earthwork to be done. During the month of September 1,342,000 cubic metres have been excavated, the highest figures as yet obtained, and this work has been performed with only forty-three dredging machines, thus leaving, at the same rate, on the 1st of January next, 40,000,000 cubic metres for excavation, the original total required to be removed being 74,000,000 cubic metres. When the full complement of seventy-eight dredging machines now being fitted up on the spot is in working order, it may readily be calculated that the returns will show a result of at least two millions of cubic metres per month, which, in other words, means that the time required for completing the entire earthworks of the Suez Canal will not exceed twenty months from the present time. The construction of the jetties at Port Said is being pushed forward with similar rapidity. The manufacture of blocks on the spot during the month of September amounted to 9,472 cubic metres, which, together with those already made, gives a total of 164,031 cubic metres, leaving 85,969 to be manufactured, the total required for both the jetties being 250,000 cubic metres. The entire quantity already sunk in the sea at the end of September amounted to 142,776 cubic metres; remained to be immersed, 107,224 cubic metres—total, 250,000 cubic metres for both jetties. Taking 6,000 cubic metres per month, both the jetties will be completed in eighteen months from the present time. It may not be out of place to mention that these so-called blocks weigh about twenty tons each.” Mr. Lange concludes thus:—“Having said thus much on the subject of the progress of the Suez Canal works, I trust I may be permitted to add, that the time is near at hand when these gigantic works will be completed for the benefit of all nations, as by means of them the passage from sea to sea will be secured for the largest ships.”
[95] Mr. Frederick Hill was the principal witness from the Post Office examined by the Committee of the House of Commons, that sat in 1866, upon the postal and telegraph communications of England with the East. The whole tendency of Mr. Hill’s evidence was, that no further accommodation or increased frequency of mails should be given to the public, unless the Post Office were indemnified against all hazard of loss—even temporary—either by increasing the rates of postage, or by the obtention of a special appropriation from the Government of India. It was in consequence of the character of this evidence, and of correspondence which had passed between the India Office, the Treasury, and the Post Office department (which appears in the Appendices to the Report) that the Committee inserted the following paragraph:—
“Your Committee cannot assent to the doctrine that interests so important from every point of view, whether political, social, or commercial, as those which connect the United Kingdom with the largest and most valuable possessions of the Crown, should be prejudiced by an insufficient postal service, because the establishment of an efficient service might leave an apparent loss of no great magnitude to be borne by the two countries. They submit that a question of profit or loss, within reasonable bounds, is a consideration entitled to little weight in the case of so important a postal service as that between England and India. They concur in the views expressed on this subject in a letter addressed by the Indian Office to the Assistant Secretary to the Post Office, on the 5th October, 1865, in which it was said, ‘Sir Charles Wood cannot, however, regard the question as one merely affecting the charge on the Imperial revenues. It has been the perception of the bearing of increased postal communication on the wealth and progress of a country that has induced statesmen of late years to consent to fiscal sacrifices for the purpose of obtaining it. There can be no doubt that increased postal communication with India implies increased relations with that country, increased commerce, increased investment of English capital, increased settlement of energetic middle-class Englishmen; and from all these sources the wealth and prosperity of England are more greatly increased than that of India.’”
It seems extraordinary, it is nevertheless a fact, that Sir Rowland Hill, whose name and reputation have been built solely upon the foundation of cheap postage, should, through the medium of several Postmaster-General’s Reports, urge the necessity of increased postal charges whenever an ocean mail communication did not pay _per se_ in postages realised.
In 1853, a Commission, consisting of the late Lord Canning, the Right Hon. Wm. Cowper, Sir Stafford Northcote, now Secretary for India, and the late Sir R. Madox Bromley, Accountant-General of the Navy, was appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to report upon the contract packet services of the country. The Commissioners went very fully and elaborately into the whole subject, examined witnesses, and had various returns prepared for their consideration. The gist of their views and opinions upon oceanic communication, by means of first-class contract steamers, is as follows:—“The value of the services thus (by the establishment of large vessels built for the conveyance of ocean mails at high speed) rendered to the state cannot be measured by a reference to the amount of mere postal revenue, or even by the commercial advantages accruing from it. It is undoubtedly startling at first sight to perceive that the immediate pecuniary results of the packet service is a loss to the revenue of about £325,000 a-year; but although this circumstance shows the necessity for a careful revision of the service, and though we believe much may be done to make the service self-supporting, we do not consider that the money thus expended is to be regarded, even from a fiscal point of view, as a national loss. The objects which appear to have led to the formation of these contracts, and to the large expenditure involved, were to afford a rapid, frequent, and punctual communication with those distant ports which feed the main arteries of British commerce, and with the most important of our foreign possessions; to foster maritime enterprise, and to encourage the production of a superior class of vessels which would promote the commerce and wealth of the country in time of peace, and assist in defending its shores against hostile aggression. These expectations have not been disappointed. The ocean has been traversed with a precision and regularity hitherto deemed impossible; commerce and civilisation have been extended; the colonies have been brought more easily into connection with the Home Government, and steam ships have been constructed of a size and power that, without Government aid, could hardly, at least for many years to come, have been built by private enterprise unaided.”
M. Vandal, in his _Annuaires des Postes_, published on the 1st of January 1867, having given in detail the whole of the ocean postal service of France, thus expresses the views both of the French Government and of the department of which he is the head: “And these great results have been obtained, not by the exclusive action of private industry, for industry would have been rash to have attempted them; and also not by the exclusive action of the State, for the State, which governs, is unfitted for commerce, but by the happy combination of the two elements—the State and private enterprise. On the one side, it is the duty of the State to study the whole subject in view to its own wants and to those of the public. Therefore it is that, in order to open new routes of communication to the spirit of industry and enterprise of the nation, the State pays subventions to the amount of upwards of twenty-four millions of francs, and by means of them industry invests its capital with the encouragement of the Government. The benefit is common to both sides. The State obtains the advantage of increased influence throughout the world, and at home increased customs revenue, with increased and general prosperity, and on the other hand private enterprise is adequately remunerated for its capital and investments.”
[96] The whole of the sea service of the Indian, China, Japan, and Australian Postal Communications of Great Britain is, with the exception of that between Dover and Calais, performed by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. This company is the largest Ocean Steam Company in the world. It has a fleet of 53 steamers, with an aggregate tonnage of 86,411, and 19,230 horse-power; its largest ship is of 2,800 tons; its next largest is of 2,600 tons, five are between 2,000 and 2,500 tons, and eighteen are between 1,500 and 2,000 tons each. Its routes extend from Southampton and from Marseilles to Alexandria, from Suez to Bombay, from Suez to Point de Galle and Calcutta, from Bombay to Calcutta, from Point de Galle to Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama, Japan, and from Point de Galle to Melbourne and Sydney. The total number of _knots_ performed by the postal vessels of the company in 1866 was 1,194,952.
The total contract land mileage of our Eastern mails is at the present time as follows:—
————————————————————————┬—————————┬———————————┬———————— Route. │ Length, │ No. of │ Total. │ Miles. │ Journeys. │ ————————————————————————┼—————————┼———————————┼———————— London and Dover │ 88 │ 96 │ 8,448 Calais and Marseilles │ 740 │ 96 │ 70,080 Alexandria and Suez │ 250 │ 192 │ 48,000 London and Southampton │ 78 │ 96 │ 7,488 │ │ ├———————— │ │ │ 133,916 ————————————————————————┴—————————┴———————————┴————————
It should be explained that the “heavy mails” which are conveyed between Southampton and Alexandria are taken across the Isthmus of Suez by separate trains from those which convey the light mails _viâ_ Marseilles; hence there are 96 trips of Eastern mails per annum across the Isthmus for the Marseilles mails, and 96 for those _viâ_ Southampton. Thus the total annual length of this great postal service is—
Water 1,374,194 English miles. Land 133,916 ” ” ————————— 1,508,110 ” ”
or 4,132 miles _per diem_, 173 _per horam_, nearly 3 _per minutam_.
[97] _In summer_ the journey from London to Constantinople, _viâ_ Paris, Strasburg, Vienna, and Basiach by railway, and thence by steam on the Danube and Black Sea, can be accomplished in seven days.
[98] Almost immediately after the above extract was made from Mr. Juland Danver’s report we read the following portion of a telegram, dated Calcutta, October the 9th: “Unprecedented floods have inundated the districts of the Ganges. Numerous villages have been swept away, and the Eastern Bengal Railway has suffered severe damage.”
[99] When the railway to Peshawer is made, it will have to cross the Indus either by a bridge, or to go under it by a tunnel at Attock, a thousand feet above sea-level, and 942 miles from the river’s mouth. For many miles above this great fortress the river flows in a wide divided stream at no great velocity; but as it approaches Attock, it becomes contracted and united, the velocity increases, and during the wet season it flows past the fortress at the rate of fully thirteen miles an hour. Numerous schemes have been tried for bridging the Indus at this point, but none have been successful, owing to the enormous difference of the water level at different periods of the year. It was therefore proposed, in 1859, to carry a tunnel under the river, and some progress was made with the work. Further reference to this subject will be found at a subsequent page.
[100] Colonel Glover, late Director-General of Indian Telegraphs, in his recent memorandum, pointing out the difficulty of maintaining telegraphic communication in India, says—“In many parts of the country the wires are laid through forests, jungle, and desert, where means of transit do not exist; where there are literally no roads; where unbridged rivers of first magnitude cross the route, rendering inspection difficult, and at times impracticable; where the population, whether dense or sparse, only affords labourers unskilled, and as such, of use only for the amount of brute force they are capable of exerting, adding considerably to the cost and difficulty of construction and repairs. In many parts the climate at certain seasons of the year is of a character so deadly that inspection is carried on by European officers at the risk of life; while native subordinates simply refuse to face it. In some places the rainfall and natural humidity are of a magnitude almost unknown elsewhere, and the case of Arracan may be instanced, where 240 inches of rain fall annually, of which 224 inches fall during the months of June, July, and August. On the western coast the climate is very similar, and Assam can scarcely be considered more favourable. Storms and hurricanes are of regular and not exceptional occurrence, and during the last monsoon they occurred with unusual violence, destroying the telegraphic wires for miles, as well as the embankments of the railways in Scinde, Goozerat, and Bengal. These and other influences peculiar to the country involve an unexceptionally heavy expenditure in repairs and renewals, and necessitate the retention of a large conservancy establishment.”
In India, owing to the dense forests and jungles, swarming with birds and animals, it is necessary to make the wires very much stronger than they are made in Europe. They are, in fact, small bars of iron three-eighths of an inch in thickness. An amount of rigidity is thus obtained, which is necessary to meet the requirements of the country. The bars of iron are placed on the top of bamboos at a sufficient height to allow the country carts to pass underneath them, and even to give passage to loaded elephants. The size of these conducting bars is necessitated by the heavy rains of India. Even in England, the rain dripping in a stream from the telegraphic wire to the post is sufficient to stop the working of the wire, inasmuch as the electric current escapes directly to the earth, and is then dispersed. Notwithstanding the difficulties that the construction and maintenance of the telegraph system have to contend against in India, there were 13,400 miles of lines of communication open in the three Presidencies on the 30th of April, 1867. The first cost of their erection and of furnishing the necessary instruments, batteries, &c., was £1,345,328. As regards rainfall, taking the Registrar-General’s return for the first six months of 1867 and doubling it, it would appear that the highest annual rainfall in the United Kingdom is, at Bristol, 41·0; at Glasgow it is 40·2; Sheffield, 36·4; Birmingham, 31·0; Manchester (including Salford), 29·5; Edinburgh, 28·0; Dublin, 26·2; Leeds, 26·0; London, 25·2; Liverpool, 20·2; and Newcastle, only 16·2.
[101] In the report of the Directors of the Madras Company for the half-year ending the 30th June, 1867, it is stated, as regards the South-West Line and Bangalore Branch—“The maintenance of a great part of this line and branch is still enhanced in cost by the replacement of wooden sleepers, as they decayed, by iron sleepers and by the greater expense of maintaining the wooden road in the western district, though wooden sleepers were good and cheap there. It has been found impossible to bring down the cost of maintaining a line with wooden sleepers to anything like an equality with the iron sleeper line.” On the North-Western section of the line, where iron sleepers only are used, the cost of maintenance for the past half year had been at the rate of only £66. 18s. per mile per annum, whereas on the South-Western Line and Bangalore Branch it had been at the rate of £159 per mile per annum.
[102] COAL IN INDIA.—The chief part of the following information is taken from _Engineering_, one of the best “Class” papers ever published in any country. The article is compiled from all the Government reports and statistical statements that the editor could avail himself of.
“Viewed as a coal-producing country, it may fairly be asserted that the British territories in India cannot be considered as either largely or widely supplied with this essential source of motive power. Extensive fields do occur, but these are not distributed generally over the districts of the Indian empire, but are almost entirely concentrated in one and that a double band of coal-yielding deposits, which, with large interruptions, extends more than half across India from near Calcutta towards Bombay. This band extends throughout about 5° of latitude, that is, between the 20° and 25° parallels of latitude. All the country lying to the south of the 20° parallel, and all the country lying to the north of the 25° parallel up to the foot of the Himalayas, with the exception of the widely detached coal-beds of Eastern Bengal, Assam, and the Khasia hills, and the poor coals of Tenasserim, presents, so far as those portions of the country are known geologically, either no probability whatever of any deposits of coal being found within their limits, or if coal does exist, it can only be expected to be found at such a depth below the surface that it could not be profitably worked or economised. As British India stretches from 8° north latitude to 35° or 36°, or through some 28°, the very local disposition of its deposits of coal becomes evident; and it would seem that they are so far removed from several of the railway systems of India as to preclude the hope that such lines could ever profitably employ the extracts from those beds as fuel, for they could be more cheaply supplied from England, the cost of land carriage on the one hand being so much more expensive than the freight by sea on the other.
“Up to the present time it may be said that little more than surface workings have been carried on in India. The deepest pits there scarcely exceed seventy-five yards, while certainly one-half of the Indian coal used up to the present date has been produced from open workings or quarries, in which the coal has been worked like any ordinary stone. In parts of the Raneegunge field these open workings are of marvellous extent and size, covering hundreds of acres.
“Many causes have combined to lead to this mode of working. Cropping out at the surface with a very small dip, and, in most cases, with a very limited covering of clay or rocks, the valuable mineral could be removed at a very small cost. No expense was incurred for lights; drainage was easily and cheaply effected; all the coal was obtained, and the heavy waste incurred in cutting or hewing brittle coals, such as are most of the Indian coals, was avoided. But even more than all these considerations, the facility of obtaining labourers who would work in the daylight, and the difficulty, or even impossibility, of procuring those who would work in a pit, combined with the ease of inspection and measurement in the one case, and the cost and difficulty in the other, all led to the vast extension of open-work quarrying of coal, and, consequently, to the economy with which the mineral could be obtained and sold. This system is, however, now rapidly disappearing. Much of the coal accessible in this way has been removed, while at the same time the managers and proprietors are daily becoming more alive to the injudiciousness of exposing valuable seams by these diggings towards the outcrop. Every year is also adding to the number of labourers, and also of the tribes or castes to which they belong, who will work underground.
“Even in the only Indian coal-field which has as yet been worked to any extent, namely, Raneegunge field, very much more must yet be done before safe and satisfactory conclusions can be reached as to the amount of coal and its position. Up to the last year or two, in no single instance was a survey of the underground workings made or plans kept. The memory of the ‘old men’ was the only source from which information could be obtained as to the extent of the workings, the mode of occurrence of the seams, the disturbances to which they had been subjected, &c. This system, however, or rather want of system, has been changed in some cases, and plans are now kept. On this subject Professor Oldham justly remarks, ‘Considering the many ways in which danger to public safety (putting aside altogether the serious risks to private property and to individual life) results from abandoned mines and excavations, and from an ignorance of their true limits, I am compelled to think that the keeping and recording of such plans ought to be rendered compulsory. The cost to the colliery proprietors would be slight, while the advantages, even to them, would be inestimable. In hundreds of cases the safety, nay, the very possibility, of working certain mines, or parts of mines, will depend upon the accuracy of the knowledge of the limits of adjoining excavations, or upon sacrificing much valuable material by leaving unwrought greatly larger barriers than may be necessary. Such plans ought, I think, to be therefore insisted on, under penalties for neglect of this precaution.’
“The following list gives the names of the several coal-fields of India in the order of their successive geographical distribution, commencing with those nearest to Calcutta and proceeding westwards, taking first those which occur in the great band of coal-fields stretching from Calcutta towards Bombay, and then those which are comparatively distant or isolated:—
1. Rajmahal Hills. 2. Raneegunge. 3. Kurhurbali. 4. Jherria. 5. Bokaro. 6. Ramghur. 7. Karunpoora, North and South. 8. Eetcoora. 9. Palamow. 10. Sirgoojah, Singrowlie. 11. Upper Sone. 12. Koorba, or Belaspore. 13. Talcheer. 14. Nerbudda, and Pench River. 15. Chanda. 16. Kota. 17. Cutch. 18. Sind. 19. Salt Range. 20. Murree, and other places. 21. Darjeeling. 22. Assam. 23. Khasia Hills. 24. Garrow Hills, Cachar. 25. Cheduba, Sandoway. 26. Burmah. 27. Tenasserim Provinces.
“The Raneegunge coal-field is at a distance of 120 to 160 miles north-west of Calcutta. It extends from a few miles to the east of the village of Raneegunge to several miles west of the Barakur, the greatest length being, near east and west, about 30 miles, and the greatest breadth about 18 miles. The area included by the coal-bearing rocks is about 500 square miles. The coal of this field, like most Indian coals, is a non-coking bituminous coal, composed of distinct laminæ of a bright jetty coal, and of a dull more earthy rock. The average amount of ash is some 14 to 15 per cent., varying from 8 to 25 per cent. The Raneegunge field has the advantages of two branches of the East Indian Railway, which traverse its richest portions, and afford great facilities for the removal of coals.
“The small, but valuable, coal-field of Kurhurbali is about eighty miles distant from the Luckieserai station of the East Indian Railway. When the chord line from Luckieserai to Raneegunge is opened this colliery will be put into active working. Patches of coal or lignite have been found along the outer range of the Himalaya Mountains, and at the foot of the Darjeeling Hills. In Assam several good coal seams have been discovered. There is also very good coal in the Khasi Hills; but the coal beds exist at an elevation of 4,000 feet above the adjacent country. It is known that there is not any coal in British Burmah. On the whole, the East Indian coal, especially that accessible to railways, is so inferior in quality that it comes nearly as expensive as English coal. It is, therefore, evident that companies will have in the main to rely upon wood as fuel for their locomotives.”
[103] “The coal mines of the East India Coal Company Limited, situated in the district of Raneegunge, Bengal, were sold by auction to-day by Mr. Murrell for £20,000 under the Winding-up Act.”—_Times_ (City article), 13th November, 1867.
[104] The Madras Railway continues to exhibit very striking results, both as regards its progress of development and its working expenses. During the half-year ending the 30th June, 1867, the number of passengers conveyed over the North-Western line was 1,019,164 as against 930,845 in the corresponding half-year of 1866. The goods were 164,334 tons as against 132,052 tons in the first half of 1866. The gross receipts were £241,010, against £213,676; the net £141,182, against £117,873. While the receipts had increased upon the half-year 12¾ per cent. the expenses had only increased by 4¼ per cent. Of the general goods traffic of the railway, salt still held its place as the largest item; the quantity carried in the half-year was 24,697 tons, yielding a gross receipt of £20,191. The quantity of cotton carried to Madras was 9,422 tons, against 3,486 tons in the corresponding half of 1866.
The receipts per train mile on the South-Western Line and Bangolore Branch were 6s. 11¾ d. in 1867 as against 6s. 9¼d. in 1866. The expenses, in 1867, 3s.½d. as against 3s. 1¾ d. in 1866. On the North-Western Line the receipts per train mile were in 1867, 7s. 10¾ d. as against 6s. 5d. in 1866, the expenses 2s. 5½d. as against 2s. 1¼d. in 1866.
[105] The following are the lengths of some of the European Railways open for traffic on the 1st of January, 1867:—France, 8,989 miles; Prussia, 5,483; Austrian Dominions, including the non German Provinces of Austria 4,001, excluding them 2,066 miles; Bavaria, 5,208; Saxony, 1,587; the total length of railways in Germany and the German Provinces of Austria were 12,450 miles, not including amongst them those exclusively used for coals and minerals; Belgium, 1,910; Italy, 3,040; Spain, 3,216; Russia, 2,893.
[106] THE DEBT OF INDIA.—“The public debt of India has expanded very considerably of late years. In 1840 it was £34,484,997; in 1841, £35,922,127; 1842, £38,404,473; 1843, £40,478,640; 1844, £41,833,451; 1845, £43,502,750; 1846, £43,891,849; 1847, £46,884,225; 1848, £48,757,213; 1849, £51,050,512; 1850, £53,934,768; 1851, £55,099,315; 1852, £55,114,693; 1853, £56,233,686. During several of the foregoing years wars of more or less magnitude prevailed. In 1854 the debt was reduced to £53,683,468; but it rose in 1855 to £55,531,120, and in 1856 to £57,764,239; then came the Indian Mutiny. In April, 1857, the debt was £59,461,969; but by April, 1858, it had risen to £69,473,484. In April, 1859, it was £81,171,308; April, 1860, 98,107,460; in April, 1861, £101,877,081; April, 1862, £107,514,159. By April, 1863, it had fallen to £104,495,235; April, 1864, to £98,518,145; April, 1865, to £98,477,555. During 1866 and 1867 there has been some increase of the debt, making it about £100,000,000. The charge for interest in 1840 was £1,595,778. In 1845 it had risen to £2,009,039; in 1850, to £2,558,939; in 1855, it had fallen to £2,189,433; in 1860, it had risen to £3,889,191; in 1865, to £4,482,385. The increased charge for interest in 1865, over that for 1860, was £593,194, whilst the increase of capital was only £370,095, thus showing that India pays a higher rate of interest on her loans than formerly.”—_Times_, 28th of August, 1867.
[107] The value of the imports into the United Kingdom only, from British India, £36,897,743, deducted from the gross exports from India, will show that our Eastern Empire has done trade of the value of more than twenty millions sterling with other nations. In 1865, the value of the British Indian merchandise imported into Great Britain was £37,395,425; in 1864, it was £52,295,595; in 1863, £48,434,740; in 1862, £34,133,551; in 1861, £21,968,752; in 1860, £15,106,597; in 1859, £15,244,869; in 1858, £14,989,030; in 1857, £18,650,223. The high price of cotton and the large imports of that staple from India since 1861 have, of course, swelled the totals of the last few years. But quite apart from this trade, our commercial relations with India have experienced both a solid and a permanent extension.
[108] The cotton importations of the first nine months of the present year have amounted to 988,314,096 lbs., being 9½ per cent. less than in the same period of 1866, and 62 per cent. more than in 1865. The supply of American this year, however, has been 5 per cent. beyond that of last year, while the quantity from India has experienced a reduction of 29 per cent. Of the total arrivals, the proportions this year have been as follows:—American, 46 per cent.; Indian, 33 per cent.; Egyptian, 10 per cent.; Brazilian, 6 per cent.; Turkish, 1 per cent.; and other countries, 4 per cent.
The total amount of the cotton crops of India is about 2,400,000,000; so that England only receives about a fourth of it. The average weekly consumption of cotton for all purposes in Great Britain is about 45,000,000 bales. The weight of a bale is 320 lbs.
[109] The only other British Colonies from which we receive cotton, are the West Indies, including the Bahamas and Bermuda. In 1852, they only sent to the mother country 703,606 lbs.; in 1865 the quantity had risen to 19,814,480 lbs.
[110] The _New York Albion_, of September 15th, 1867, very truly says:—“A oneness of purpose, and that mutual sympathy which inspires mankind with a collective and national patriotism, is rapidly taking root throughout British North America, and it is in these deep-rooted, but slow-growing sentiments that we implicitly place our trust for the future. When the Canadian is animated by the same feeling which wrought the ‘seven days’ wonder’ last year in Central Europe, and which still adheres to ‘German Unity’ as its watchword; or is inspired with the enthusiasm that recently made Italy one, ‘from the Alps to the Apennines;’ or with the national pride of even the Frenchman or Russian, there will be no fear of her policy being fixed or her destinies materially influenced by the outer world, no matter how boisterous the demonstrations, or unprincipled the purposes of her assailants.”
[111] “EASY TRAVELLING.—The Pullman Sleeping Car Company have just placed on the Great Western Railway of Canada a new passenger car, which they call an ‘Hotel Car,’ and which combines the comforts of a first-class hotel, the luxuries of a drawing-room, and the speed of an express train. Like all American passenger cars, it is open at each end, with a platform in front of the doors; its length to the end of the platform is 71 feet 4 inches, width 10 feet 6 inches, with a ceiling 10 feet 6 inches from the floor. At each corner of the car, making four in all, is a private bed-room or state cabin, containing a sofa, two arm-chairs, and a centre table. These are convertible into comfortable beds, with mattresses, pillows, sheets, &c. The rooms are adorned with mirrors of large dimensions. The doors and fittings are of black walnut; carved and gilt ornaments of bronze are introduced. Each of these rooms will contain six passengers. Then follows a small room, fitted as a kitchen and steward’s pantry. Here meals will be cooked, coffee or tea prepared, and drinks dispensed. A bell with wires communicating all over the car—or shall we say the edifice—will summon the steward. A central passage runs down the length of the car from door to door, and on each side are three other compartments, each intended for four passengers. Berths are made up exactly as on board a steamer, the bed appurtenances being conveniently stowed away during the daytime. The partitions dividing the compartments being moveable, when used as a drawing-room rise no higher than the backs of the seats, which are covered with rich Genoa velvet; the floor is carpeted, the ceiling is painted in _fresco_, and the walls richly carved and gilt. A stove heats the interior, with provision for ventilation, and a washing-room and other conveniences complete the internal arrangements.
“The exterior is painted a rich lake crimson, relieved with gold ornaments. On two oval panels on either side are copies in bronze of Thorwaldsen’s figures of Sight and Hearing. The car is placed on two trucks of eight wheels each, with lateral motion springs.”—_Railway News._
[112] We learn from the _Sydney Empire_, that the first locomotive made in New South Wales was launched from the yard of Messrs. Vale and Lacy, engine manufacturers, in January last. She is upwards of seventy horses power, and is now employed on the inclines and zig-zags of the Great Western (of Australia), between Redfern and Pyemont. “The trial,” says the _Sydney Empire_, “was pronounced by the scientific gentlemen present to be very satisfactory.”
[113] The Telegraph system of Australia deserves a few words of record:—At the end of 1866, New South Wales had 2,624 miles, upon which, during the year, 138,175 messages had been sent; Victoria, 2,626 miles, its messages 256,380; Queensland, 1,131 miles, messages 47,697; South Australia, 855 miles, messages 112,344. The reason of South Australia having so many messages in proportion to its mileage, is that St. George’s Sound is on the direct course of the mail steamers to and from Suez. It is, therefore, the first Australian land touched at on the outward passage, and the last on the homeward.
The lowest telegraph charge within New South Wales is one shilling for 17 miles; from 20 to 50 miles, it is two shillings; all above 300 miles, four shillings. The longest telegraph distances in New South Wales are from Sydney to Moama, and from Sydney to Hay, each 520 miles. The Border passed, there is a uniform charge with the other colonies; to Victoria (excepting a few Border Stations), eight shillings; Queensland, nine shillings; South Australia, nine shillings. Within Victoria the highest charge is three shillings. To the other colonies there is a uniform rate; to South Australia (with one exception, to Port Augusta, seven shillings), six shillings; to Queensland, nine shillings. In Australia each single message consists of ten words only, exclusive of the addresses of sender and receiver.
[114] The following are the heights, at their summits, of all the passes of the Alps available for carriages. Two of them, however, are not carriage roads throughout their entire extents—the Little St. Bernard and the Great St. Bernard. Commencing at the Western extremity the height of the Col di Tenda is 5,890 feet; Mont Genevre, 5,850; Mont Cenis, 6,658; Little St. Bernard, 6,780; Great St. Bernard, 8,200; Simplon, 6,636; St. Gothard, 6,808; Benardine, 7,115; Splugen, 6,940; Stelvio, 9,272; Brenner 4,650. These passes are referred to, _ante_, at pages 8 to 13.
Mr. John Ball, late President of the Alpine Club, in the Indices to his two Guides for the Western and Central Alps (1863 and 1866) enumerates 370 Alpine Passes for the former, and 239 for the latter. The following are the names and heights of those exceeding 9,500 feet:—On the Western Alps, the Col d’Argentière, 12,556 feet; Blanchet, 9,544; De Bréona, 9,574; De Collon, 10,269; Cristillan, 9,771; Cula, 10,076; Dora Blanche, 11,668; Pas de la Forcetta, 9,898; Galambre, 10,200; Garin, 10,393; Grancron, 11,034; Lauzon, 9,500; Levornea, nearly 10,000; Pas de Lore, 10,049; Maison Blanche, 11,212; Grand Motte, about 11,500; Nenaude, 10,036; Del Color del Porco, 9,604; Des Rayes Noires, 9,680; Mont Rouge, 10,958; Jeleccio, 9,600; Torrent, 9,593; Traversette, about 10,000; Turbat 9,800; Vacornère, 10,335; Val Pellina, 11,687; Zwischenbergen, 10,742.
Those among the central Alps are Passo di Boudo, about 10,000; Capütschin, about 10,600; Cercen, 10,030; Diavolezza, 9,670; Diavolo, 9,541; Fex Forcla, 10,112; Forus, 11,100; Hohenferner, 10,000; Jungfrau, 11,095; Langenferner, 10,765; Lobbia Alta, 9,956; Lobbia Bassa, 9,541; Lötschen Lücke, 10,512; Madritseh, 10,252; Matsch, 10,750; Oberaar, 10,264; Orteler, 11,000; Peter’s Grat, 10,550; Presena, 9,647; Salet, 9,565; Scerscen, 9,912; Sforzellino, 9,950; Strahleck, 10,994; Sterla, 9,515; Zufrid, 9,905.
Mr. Ball also enumerates 398 peaks or mountains in the Western Alps, and 685 in the central.
[115] During the progress of these sheets through the press, we lighted upon the following most interesting account of “Holborn Past and Present,” in the _Morning Advertiser_ Newspaper. Its introduction here, will, we are sure, not be considered inappropriate.
“Perhaps no part of London has undergone such an alteration and business-like remodelling within the last few years as High Holborn, consequent on the construction of the Holborn Viaduct and other contemplated improvements. A few particulars relating to this locality, therefore, may not be thought, perhaps, uninteresting at the present time to our readers.
“Holborn extends from the north end of Farringdon Street to Broad Street, Bloomsbury. It was anciently called Oldbourne, from being built upon the side of a brook or bourne, which Stow says ‘broke out of the ground about the place where now the Bars do stand, and ran down the whole street till Oldbourne-bridge, and into the river of the Wells or Turnemill-brook.’ Holborn was first paved in 1417, at the expense of Henry V., when the highway ‘was so deep and miry that many perils and hazards were thereby occasioned, as well to the King’s carriages passing that way as to those of his subjects.’ By this road criminals were conveyed from Newgate and the Tower to the gallows at St. Giles’s and Tyburn; whither a ride in the cart ‘up the heavy hill’ implied going to be hung, in Ben Jonson’s time. As an instance of the way persons were conducted to the place of execution in by-gone times, we can quote Swift’s lines:—
‘As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling, Rode stately through Holborn to die of his calling, He stopt at the George for a bottle of sack, And promised to pay for it when he came back.’
And as to the lessons of morality taught in those days, it is said that an old councillor in Holborn used every execution-day to turn out his clerks with this compliment,—‘Go, ye young rogues; go to school and improve.’
“The average annual amount of traffic between Fetter Lane and the Old Bailey, which has been increasing rapidly during the last thirty years, was in 1838 assumed to be 20,000,000 pedestrians, 871,640 equestrians, 157,572 hackney coaches, 372,470 carts and waggons, 78,876 stages, 82,256 carriages, 135,842 omnibuses, 460,110 chaises and taxed carts, and 352,942 cabs. It was Alderman Skinner, who built Skinner Street, that first proposed to construct a bridge from Snow Hill across the valley to Holborn Hill, and part of the late Mr. Charles Pearson’s plan was to lift the valley seventeen feet.
“On the north side of Holborn Hill, approaching Farringdon Street, is Ely Place. All that remains of this once celebrated Palace, anciently called Ely House, which was then the town mansion of the Bishops of Ely, is the Chapel of St. Etheldreda. The crypt of this chapel during the interregnum became a kind of military canteen, and was subsequently used as a public cellar to vend drink in. It is now a Welsh Church, at the entrance being written—
‘Y.R. E.G.L.W.Y.S. C.Y.M.R.A.E.G.’
underneath
‘St. Etheldreda’s Chapel.’
“Evelyn records the consecration here of Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, in 1668, when the famous Dr. Tillotson preached; and here, on the 27th April, 1693, Evelyn’s daughter Susannah, was married to William Draper, Esq., by Dr. Tenison, then Bishop of Lincoln.
“At the south-east corner of Middle Row (now in course of demolition), Sir James Branscomb kept a lottery office sixty years ago; and at the ‘Golden Anchor,’ Holborn Bars, Dr. Johnson lived in 1748.
“At Ely House, ‘Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster’ died, February 13, 1399, and Shakspeare has made it the scene of Lancaster’s last interview with Richard II. Here were kept divers feasts by the serjeants-at-law in olden times. At an entertainment given by them in 1495, Henry VII. was present with his Queen; and again in 1531, on the occasion of his making eleven new serjeants, Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine were banqueted here with great splendour, ‘wanting little of a feast at a coronation,’ and open house was kept for five days. In 1576, at the mandatory request of Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Cox leased to Sir Christopher Hatton, for twenty-one years, the greater portion of the demesne, on payment at Midsummer-day of a red rose, ten loads of hay, and £10 per annum, the Bishop reserving to himself and his successors the right of walking in the gardens and gathering twenty bushels of roses yearly. Hatton largely improved the estate, and then petitioned the Queen to require the Bishop to make over the whole property, whereupon ensued the Bishop’s remonstrance, and the Queen’s threat to ‘unfrock’ him.(A) In 1578, the whole property was conveyed to Hatton, and Elizabeth further retaliated by keeping the See of Ely vacant for eighteen years from the death of Bishop Cox, in 1591.
“An old map, still in existence, shows the vineyard, meadow, kitchen garden, and orchard of Ely Place, to have extended northward from Holborn Hill to Hatton Wall and Vine Street, and east and west from Saffron Hill to nearly as far as Leather Lane; but except a cluster of houses (Ely Rents), on Holborn Hill, the surrounding ground was entirely open and unbuilt on. The Bishops of Ely made several attempts to recover the entire property, but during the imprisonment of Bishop Wren by the Long Parliament, most of the palatial buildings were taken down, and upon the garden were built Hatton Garden, Great and Little Kirby Streets, Charles Street, Cross Street, and Hatton Wall. During the interregnum, Hatton House and offices were used as a prison and hospital. In 1772 the estate was purchased by the Crown; a town house was built for the Bishops of Ely in Dover Street, Piccadilly; and the present Ely Place was built about 1775, the Chapel remaining on the west side. At Ely House was arranged the grand masque given by the four Inns of Court to Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria at Whitehall on Candlemas-day, 1634, at a cost of £21,000, when the masquers, horsemen, musicians, dancers, with the grand committee, including the great lawyers, Whitelocke, Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon), and Selden, went in procession by torchlight from Ely House, down Chancery Lane, along the Strand, to Whitehall.
“Holborn, in past times, was famed for its fruit gardens. Before 1597, John Gerrard, ‘citizen and surgeon,’ had a large physic garden near his house in Holborn, where he raised 1,100 plants and trees—‘a proof,’ says Oldys, ‘that our ground could produce other fruits besides hips and haws, acorns and pig-mess.’ Baldwin’s Gardens were so named after Richard Baldwin, one of the Royal gardeners, who began building here in 1589. Gray’s Inn Gardens were laid out under the direction of Lord Bacon, and in these gardens he erected a summer-house, where it is probable he frequently mused upon the subjects of those great works which have rendered his name immortal. At the corner of Furnival’s Inn, and in Queen Street, Cheapside, Mr. Edward Kidder, the famous pastry-cook, who died in 1739, had two schools, in which he taught 6,000 ladies the art of making pastry.
“The Holborn end of Fetter-lane was formerly a place of execution. Proceeding farther eastward we come to a part which was once supposed to be the worst part of London, and where stood Field Lane, described as ‘an infamous rookery of the dangerous classes,’ which extended from the foot of Holborn Hill northward, parallel with the Fleet Ditch. In 1844 was taken down the first part of Old Chick Lane, which turned into Field Lane. Here was a notorious thieves’ lodging-house, which was formerly the ‘Red Lion’ Tavern, where were various contrivances for concealment, and the Fleet Ditch in the rear, across which the pursued often escaped by a plank into the opposite knot of courts and alleys. But these places, in common with the Fleet Prison, are now nearly forgotten. Dickens, writing about Field Lane in 1837, thus describes it:—‘It is a commercial colony of itself—the emporium of petty larceny, visited, at early morning and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back parlours, and go as strangely as they come.’
“Skinner Street and Snow Hill would hardly now be recognised by their old inhabitants. Skinner Street, extending from Newgate Street to Holborn Hill, was built at the commencement of the present century, to avoid the circuit of Snow Hill. In Skinner Street, in 1817, was hung Cashman the sailor, who had joined a mob in plundering a gunsmith’s shop (No. 58). At the sign of the ‘Star’ on Snow Hill, at the house of his friend Mr. Strudwick, a grocer, died on the 12th of August, 1688, the famous John Bunyan, and was buried in that friend’s vault in Bunhill-fields burial-ground.
“The foregoing are only a few of the many interesting circumstances connected with this immediate locality; and no doubt, as improvements rapidly progress, very little of this portion of ‘Old London’ will be allowed to remain standing, and large mercantile buildings will be erected on the few spots where small tenements are now standing, and Holborn will be only a reminiscence of the past.”
(A) Sir Harris Nicolas, in his _life of Sir Christopher Hatton_, written to expose and disprove the almost innumerable blunders of Lord Campbell in his lives of the Chancellors of England, gives the exact words of this celebrated letter.
“PROUD PRELATE, I understand you are backward in complying with your agreement; but I would have you to know that I who made you what you are, can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement by G—— d, I will immediately unfrock you.
“Yours, as you demean yourself, “ELIZABETH.”
[116] “The ‘City’ has an area of less than one square mile. During the past fifty years the number of houses in the City have been reduced to 5,581, yet the value of the remainder has so increased that the present few outbid the former many. During the last ten years only, the annual value of the City has increased no less than a million and a-half sterling, or at the rate of 273 per cent. The 17,413 inhabited houses of 1811 had decreased to 13,431 in 1861, but the rental of 1811, which was £565,243, had increased to £2,109,935 in 1866. Therefore, the fewer houses of 1866 are worth more by £1,544,692 than the more numerous houses of 1811. The houses in the City were worth £32 per house, annual value in 1811. They are now worth £137 each, annual value. They were worth, to capitalise them at twenty-five years’ purchase in 1811, £14,131,075; they are now worth, by the same process, £52,748,375, equal to the total revenue of Great Britain only a few years since, and equal to five-sixths of the present revenue.”—_City Press, April, 1867._
[117] The following, from the “Brook,” may be taken as an English reading, with additions and variations, of the above lines:—
“With many a curve my banks I fret, By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow, weed, and mallow:
“I slip, I slide, I gleam, I glance, Among my skimming swallows, I make the netted sunbeams dance Against my sandy shallows,
I chatter, chatter, as I flow, To join the brimming river, For men may come, and men may go, But I go on for ever.”
[118] A writer in one of the French journals, describing the passage of the first locomotive and train over the Mont Cenis, doubtless, having Switzerland and her legendary hero in his mind, says, that “the railway is laid on the system of the distinguished Swiss engineer, M. Guillaume Tell!” The Edinburgh Review, in 1865, described Mr. Fell as an American. He is, however, of English birth and of Saxon descent. In the course of an excellent description of the trial trip on the 26th of August, published in one of the London papers, reference is made to the railway over the Brenner, and the writer adds that, in point of precedence, the Austrian engineers had beaten their English _confrères_, but the printers, by omitting one letter, made it appear as if the Austrian engineers had _eaten_ those of England!
[119] It is wonderful how ingenious men can be when they are out of temper, and want to vent anger and disappointment. A writer in a professional paper, from whom better things might have been expected, and who has fairly and honestly won reputation in fields where imaginery grievances have not warped and overset truthful judgment, argues that because Mr. Fell’s engine must go up the mountain by the centre rail system, it is most costly, and therefore practically useless on account of the great loss of power occasioned by the necessity of the engine coming down again. Nearly as much power, says the writer, is thus lost in the descent as is required to get the train up to the summit. This maybe so, and very probably is so, but is not this loss the penalty that has to be paid for crossing the mountain at all. If the writer have crossed the Mont Cenis he could not fail to have seen that instead of the eight or ten horses or mules that are required to draw a carriage or a waggon up the pass, only two are required in the descent for the former, and one for the latter, all the other horses coming down the mountain loadless. After all, the disease is not half so bad as the remedy suggested for curing it—twenty-four to thirty miles of tube or tunnel, to say nothing of the mode of propulsion through it.
[120] An article appeared in the _Times_, of the 18th September last, upon the subject of engines ascending steep gradients and sharp curves. The Fell system was condemned, and grooved rails, within which the phlanges of the wheels were to move, were recommended in substitution of the centre rail, and of horizontal wheels upon the engine. Railway men could at once recognise the writer of the article, both from its style and from the extensive reference made to the plans of one individual who was specially named more than once in it. It does not require to be an engineer to know that the plan recommended would, instead of giving increased _adhesion_, create friction to an extent that would soon render a locomotive fixed and buried in its own sand, for it should be mentioned that the continuous pouring of sand from the sand-box of the engine on to the rails, and into the groove, was one of the sources from which it was stated, increased adhesion was to be obtained.
Mr. J. M. Heppel, C.E., declining to enter into criticism or controversy upon this point, and doubting the necessity of using sand with the Fell engine, unless in very limited and exceptional cases, proceeds to state, in answer to the assertion, that its vertical and horizontal wheels would not act together:—“The vertical and horizontal wheels of Mr. Fell’s engine are all driven from one pair of cylinders, and so coupled that they must all revolve exactly together; so that, abstracting for a moment from the slip or scrub of the vertical wheels which takes place on curves, if one slips they must all slip; and so long as the total adhesion is sufficient to take up the power, it is a matter of very little importance how it is distributed among them.
“The adhesion of the vertical wheels is due to the weight of the engine, and for any given condition of the rails, is a constant quantity. On the other hand, the adhesion of the horizontal wheels is, within its _maximum_ limit, completely under control, and is given by a powerful screw motion, acting upon springs, which keep them always pressed against the rail with a force practically uniform. Notwithstanding any small inequalities of dimensions, all therefore that is requisite in ascending a heavy incline, is to set up the screws till the adhesion of the horizontal wheels makes up with that of the vertical ones, the total amount required for utilising the traction power of the engine.
“One obvious advantage of this arrangement is that it admits of all improvements of construction by which an engine, at the same time powerful and light, is obtained, a most important point on steep gradients, where gravitation is so formidable an obstacle, and one which has, as far as I am aware, been obtained by no other system in a way to be practically useful.
“Another great advantage is the power of regulating the adhesion to suit the requirements of the case, thereby avoiding superfluous and useless friction, which is always the necessary concomitant of adhesion; and when the latter is in excess must, so far as it goes, both absorb the power uselessly, and wear out the machinery unnecessarily.
“I will not enter into a discussion with regard to the polishing of the rails by the breaks, and the consequent loss of adhesion. I believe that adhesion depends much more on the accidental condition of the rails, due to atmospheric causes, than on any permanent mechanical condition of their surface; but, at any rate, that quite sufficient adhesion will always be obtainable by the means I have endeavoured to describe, to what ever state of polish the rails may have attained.”
[121] Baron Seguier evidently still considers himself the inventor of the centre rail system, for after the announcement in the newspapers of the successful crossing of the Mont Cenis Pass, on the 26th of August 1867, he published a letter in the _Moniteur_, making a statement to the above effect. He added, however, that he did not intend “to raise any question as to the pecuniary advantages that would be derived by others from the invention.”
[122] It has recently come to light that, through some members of the Mont Cenis Board interfering in details connected with the construction of the engines—upon which they were not competent to pronounce an opinion, but which were, nevertheless, adopted in opposition to the recommendation of Mr. Fell—considerable alterations will have to be made in the rolling stock before the line can be opened for traffic. These alterations can hardly be completed before February of next year.
[123] Tunnels are not the only monuments of great antiquity that have come down to us. In the course of a very interesting article upon the Suez Canal, in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for May 1865, the writer, speaking of the obelisk in front of the Temple of the Sun, at Heliopolis, says, “It is thirty-eight centuries old. It is the father of all obelisks that have arisen since. It was raised a century before the coming of Joseph; it has looked down upon his marriage with Asenath; it has seen the growth of Moses; it is mentioned by Herodotus; Plato sat under its shadow. Of all the obelisks which sprang up around it, it alone has kept its first position. One by one it has seen its sons and brethren depart to great destinies elsewhere. From these gardens came the obelisks of the Vatican and the Porta del Popolo, and their venerable pillar (for so it looks from the distance) is now almost the only landmark of the seat of the wisdom of Egypt.”
[124] The extract in the text is taken from Book II, chapter 1, of the “Books of Diodorus Siculus, made English by G. B. Booth, of the City of Chester, Esqre.,” published in London, _Anno_ 1700.
[125] Of Anne, we learn that she was the daughter of James, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem; that she was married in 1433 to Louis, second Duke of Savoy, and second son of Amadeus VIII., who abdicated in 1434, and, although not an ordained priest, was nominated Pope in January 1440, and was the last of the Anti-Popes; his abdication of the Papacy took place in 1444, and his death in 1451. Anne, considered the most lovely woman of the period in which she lived, gained by the beauty of her person and her intellectual capacity such ascendency over her husband, from the time of his coming to the throne, that she not only disposed of all the honours and appointments of the duchy, but founded several useful industrial establishments. She gave the best proof of her own industry and attention to domestic duties by being the mother of sixteen children, most of whom grew up to man’s and woman’s estate. Anne’s death took place at Geneva in 1463; her husband survived her two years.
[126] The language in the text is confirmed by the following paragraph in the _Times_ of the 13th September, 1867. The Genoa _Morimento_ has the following from Nice:—“The news of the success of the Fell system for passing mountains has been received here with pleasure, and two distinguished Nizzards intend visiting Mont Cenis to see how far that system can be applied to the Col di Tenda. The people of Nice well know that the only thing that can give life to their trade is a rapid communication with Cuneo, because by that town they would be in direct intercourse with Piedmont, Lombardy, and Venetia. When the necessary studies shall have been made of the development of the line in question, and of the outlay it would require, the company which would be formed to carry it out would probably ask the Alta Italia Railway Company to take charge of at least the construction of the section which would end at the short tunnel that must be made on the Col itself. The town of Nice would put itself at the head of the company for promoting the work, and would take a large number of shares.” Negotiations are in progress for carrying this intention into effect.
[127] These are four in number of the respective lengths as follows:—Oakley, 800 yards; Belsize, 1,460; Elstree, 900; Ampthill, 640. Total 3,800 yards, or two miles and a sixth.
[128] In 1865 the London and North-Western Railway Company promoted in Parliament the Buxton Chapel-en-le-Frith and Sheffield Railway, the length of which was to have been twenty-four miles. When the Bill had passed the House of Commons, it was withdrawn under arrangements made with its opponent, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Company. If the line had been constructed, it would have had upon it the two longest tunnels in Great Britain. One would have been three and one-eighth miles, and the other four miles long.
[129] “While upon tunnels, the construction of that upon the West End and Crystal Palace Railway may be referred to, in consequence of the anxiety that was felt on account of its passing very close to the south-west angle of the Crystal Palace, between that point and the Water Tower, the foundations of which were being laid just as the tunnelling was proceeding at that spot. It will be remembered that the present Water Tower replaced one of which the foundation was deemed insufficient. Considering the enormous weight and height of the Water Tower, with its huge tank at the top, capable of containing several hundred tons of water, it became necessary to take every precaution, the matter being of great importance both as regards the safety of the tunnel, with its huge superincumbent weight, and the Water Tower, which, from its great height, and also from being placed at some little distance laterally from the tunnel, might easily have been thrown out of the perpendicular, had any settlement taken place after its erection.
“The precautions taken with the tunnelling were: never to leave the earth resting upon the bars longer than absolutely necessary; to build the crown bars into the work, instead of withdrawing them, as is usually done in less important places; to select the hardest and best bricks, and to have them set in Portland cement, under careful and independent inspection on the part of the Engineers, the Contractors, and the Crystal Palace Company. The average thickness of the brickwork at this part, consisting of nine rings in the arch, five in the invert and side walls, was 3 feet 9 inches. The general shape of the tunnel was a semi-ellipse, 24 feet wide by 16 high.
“No settlement took place, nor was the Water Tower at all affected, although at other portions of the tunnel a small motion of the side walls took place, by their slightly approaching each other, with some crushing of the brickwork.”—_Extract from Letter of G. H. Phipps, Esq., to the Author, dated the 16th of October, 1867._
[130] There are about 3,000 miles of canals and navigable rivers in France.
[131] In constructing shafts, French engineers prefer to place them on one side, and not over the centre of the tunnel, partly because they consider it more convenient for purposes of construction, and partly because they think it safer for the line, which is thus less exposed to accident or ill-will, or to the annoyances experienced from wet or dripping shafts.
French engineers construct tunnels on curves more than has been the practice of English engineers. One tunnel, that of Vierzon, 208 metres long, is on a reversed curve, one radius being 1,093 yards, and the other 1,366 yards.
[132] For full particulars of this tunnel see reports of Mr. Storrow, and of Messrs. Laurie & Latrobe, embodied in the report of the Commissioners of the State of Massachusetts on the Troy and Grenfield Railroad, and the Hoosac Tunnel, dated the 12th March 1863.
[133] Drawings of the tunnel entrances, and a section of it, are given in _Engineering_ for September 27, 1867.
[134] Under water between France and England is not going to have it all its own way. In 1864 there was a scheme for very large ferry-boats between Dover and Calais, the boats to come, at each harbour, into a groove or dock specially to be made for them. The plan, however, was abandoned at an early stage, mainly, it is believed, because the French Government declined incurring the very great outlay that would have been unavoidable at Calais. In fact, the plan would have rendered necessary the construction of a new and much enlarged harbour there, involving an expenditure of three or four millions sterling. The present year has brought out several ferry schemes, one of which only we purpose referring to—that of Mr. T. B. Daft, C. E. This gentleman proposes to run his vessels between Dieppe and Newhaven. He has not, however, quite decided whether each ship is to consist of one hull or of two. If the hull be single, his deck is to be 500 feet long and 150 wide. If double, each is to be 50 feet wide, the pair to be placed 30 feet apart, and to be connected together by iron beams covered over by a broad deckway, so that passengers might go from one ship to another at their convenience. But no vessels so united could hold together in a heavy cross sea. The beams would be smashed to atoms by its violent and irregular action, and the difference of elevation of waves only a few feet distant from one another.
Mr. Daft proposes four pairs of engines of the collective power of 2,400 horses for his boats, to receive which there are to be special floating harbours at Dieppe and at Newhaven, so arranged that the trains can at once be put on the deck of the vessels at the departure harbour, and landed at that of arrival without disturbing passengers or luggage. Mr. Daft makes up his figures as follows:—Expenditure on capital account £1,000,000; 600,000 passengers during the year at 5s. each, £150,000; 300,000 tons of merchandise at 8s. each, £120,000; gross probable receipts £270,000. _Per contra_, wages of crew, £4,680; coals, 15,200 tons for twelve voyages per week, £11,250; stores, light dues and pilotage, £920; interest at 5 per cent. on capital £50,000; insurance, repairs, and depreciation, £100,000, making a gross annual expenditure of £166,850, thus showing a divisible profit (besides the 5 per cent. interest on the million of capital) of £103,150. We sincerely hope that the shareholders may find it, if ever these vessels and harbours be constructed. The only objection we shall dare to offer to the plan is the possible inconvenience to which a gallant male passenger may be subjected when a lady, whom he had perhaps found a most charming conversational _compagnionne de voyage_ on _terra firma_, may all of a sudden, in a rough sea, ask him to be so good as to hand her the basin!
[135] M. Metres.
[136] C. Centimetres.
[137] For the first Half of 1867 only.
[138] On the other hand, Captain Tyler, in his report to the Board of Trade of his inspection of the Mont Cenis Railway, dated the 4th September, 1867, states, that, by the favour of the Italian Government, he visited the tunnel works on the 24th of August, when “on going with Signor Copello, the chief engineer of the French side, into the Grand Tunnel on that side of the Alps, I found that a great improvement had been effected in its ventilation since my visit of last year. A wooden partition had been completed under the roof for a distance of 1,500 metres. Four cylinders had been constructed, each four metres in diameter, and with a stroke of two metres, for drawing out the foul air at a maximum rate of ten strokes per minute. The head of water for working these cylinders was 70 metres.
“The one cylinder which alone was at work during my visit produced a strong current through the heading, and a perceptible current almost up to the face of the excavation. I learnt that a fan ventilator was employed to produce similar effects on the Italian side.”
[139] There are no such shafts upon railways as there are in mining. The shafts of the Consolidated and United Mines, Cornwall, are 1,488 and 1,650 feet. The shaft of the Nesvain Copper Mine is 2,180 feet; of the Veta Grande Mines, Mexico, 1,092 feet; of the Valenciana Mine, Mexico, 1,860; of the mines of Himmelsfurst, Saxony, 1,080 feet; of the salt mines near Cracow, 1,783 feet. Several mines in the Harz Mountains, in Bohemia, and in Cornwall, have also been worked to a depth exceeding 2,000 feet. The deepest in Bohemia is Keettenburg, said to be 3,000 feet below the surface of the soil. The deepest in Cornwall is that of Fowey Consols. The shaft of the Fahlam Copper Mine of Sweden is 1,300 feet deep. The shaft of Mr. Astley’s colliery at Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, is 2,100 feet deep. The deep workings are 1,500 feet below the bottom of the shaft. The shaft of Wearmouth Colliery is 1,600 feet deep; that of Dukenfield, Cheshire, 2,004 feet; and the lowest working in the colliery is 2,504 feet. At Pendleton, coal is worked from a depth of 2,505 feet. One of the collieries at Wigan is 1,775 below the surface. Many of the Durham collieries are equally deep. For further particulars see Dr. Ure’s _Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines_, edition of 1861.
[140] See note, page 373.
[141] This is a suggestion that may prove of great value in the working of the railway through the Great Tunnel of the Alps.
[142] The largest number of passengers ever conveyed in one day was on the 10th June, 1867 (Whit Monday), 113,075. The total carried that week was 542,833.
[143] It will be seen by the subjoined extract from the _London and China Telegraph_ of the 15th November, 1867, that a contract for the conveyance of our Eastern mails (referred to _ante_, page 241), has been entered into between the Government and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Henceforth, the service to and from Egypt and India will be weekly, instead of four times a month; to and from China, fortnightly, instead of twice a month; to and from the Australian Colonies, once every four weeks, or thirteen times a year, instead of twelve times, or once each calendar month, as at present. It will be perceived that, as usual, St. Martin’s-le-Grand is opposed to a more complete postal system, because the outlay involved “is more than the Post Office will sanction.” The service is undoubtedly an improvement on the existing one, but it falls far short of what will have to be conceded, probably even within another twelvemonth.
“At length the terms of a new contract for the conveyance of the India and China mails have been arranged with the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and the new service, which will come into operation in February next, will be organised on a basis which in most respects must be considered very satisfactory. The contract is for a longer period than the previous one, and its terms are much higher. The Marseilles route will still be adhered to, and between that port and Alexandria there will be a weekly direct line of steamers in conjunction with a weekly line between Suez and Bombay. The Bombay mails will be made up in London each Friday evening, and the service abroad will be arranged with a view to insure the delivery of the homeward mails in London on Monday morning. There will be a fortnightly service between Suez and Calcutta and China, connecting at Galle, as at present; and the mails for these places will be despatched with every alternate Bombay mail. In like manner the homeward China and Calcutta mail will be timed to reach Suez simultaneously with every alternate Bombay steamer. In short, the China mail in future will be a fortnightly one, instead of twice in the calendar month; it will be despatched every alternate Friday, and delivered here, all circumstances being favourable, every alternate Monday. On this side of the Isthmus the whole system will consist of a weekly vessel between Marseilles and Alexandria direct, with another to and from Southampton, touching at Malta as at present. It will be observed that no contract has been made for a line between Brindisi and Alexandria; as the port of Brindisi could not be substituted entirely for Marseilles, an extra service has been decided against, on the score of outlay. The Australian mail will be once in every four weeks, joining the China steamer at Galle, as at present. The advantages of the scheme are obvious. The uncertain intervals between the making up of the mails, owing to the difference in the lengths of the months and the intervention of Sundays, disappear in favour of a system of regularity and fixed days. The partial amalgamation of the two services cannot fail to have a favourable effect in promoting increased punctuality in the delivery of the inward mails. The days selected for despatch and arrival are beyond doubt the most suitable ones. And it is satisfactory to know that the new era we are about to enter upon is a permanent and not an experimental one. It will be observed that the existing system of one line between Suez and Calcutta, and another between Bombay and China, with transhipment at Galle, is still to be retained, instead of giving place to the direct trunk line from Suez to Hongkong that we have always advocated. We must, however, rest content with this arrangement for the present, as the outlay involved by the direct line is more than the Post Office will sanction. We are assured, however, that the boat from Calcutta will always be despatched in time to avoid the possibility of detention to the China mail. It will be seen that the new service, however satisfactory in itself, will not harmonise with the French line at all; indeed, if the Messageries steamers continue to be despatched on the 19th of the month, probably in most cases the facilities at present offered by the French mail will be absolutely nullified. We imagine, however, that the French company will find it expedient to make a corresponding alteration by despatching their vessels on a given day in every fourth week, so as to bring their departure midway between two of the Peninsular and Oriental mails. We trust some such arrangement as this will be urged by our own Government on that of France. We may add that Saturday is the day fixed for both arrival and departure of the Southampton steamers, and that the duration of stay at Singapore, and the question of calling at Penang, are still undecided.”
By the now existing contract the company have a subsidy of £230,000 per annum, equal to about 4s. 6d. per nautical mile. By the new contract the subsidy will be £400,000 per annum, or at the rate of 6s. 1d. per mile. There are two new and special conditions attached to the contract. It is to be for twelve years instead of six, as heretofore; and when the net profits of the company exceed 8 per cent., a fourth of the surplus is to go to the Post Office, it being understood, on the other hand, that when the dividend sinks, from unavoidable causes, below 6 per cent., the subsidy is to be raised to an amount that will cover the deficiency, but it is not, in any case, to exceed £500,000 a year.
[144] The Government press of Rome has just published the census of the population of the city for 1867:—The city and the suburbs are divided into 59 parishes, containing a population of 215,573 souls, being an increase since 1866 of 4,872. Of these 30 are cardinals, 35 bishops, 1,469 priests and ecclesiastics, and 828 seminarists. The occupants of religious houses are 5,047, 2,832 being monks and 2,215 nuns. These belong to 61 different congregations or orders. There are also 49 seminaries or colleges, among which are the French Seminary, tenanted by 48 pupils; that of South America by 50; that of North America by 33; the German Seminary has 58 pupils; the English 21, and the “Pie Anglais” 14; the Scotch 12; and the Irish 52, &c. The number of males educated in colleges amounts to 258, and females in _pensionnats_ to 1,642; 775 males and 1,088 females live in charitable institutions. The number of families is 42,313, composed of 98,176 males and 93,438 females—to whom must be added 7,360 following the military profession, 320 _detenus_ 4,650 Jews, and 457 other dissidents. There have been 1,615 marriages contracted during 1867.
[145] It appears, from the Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage, 1838, page 49, that in the mails despatched from London at that time, the chargeable letters formed only 7 per cent. of the whole weight. An increase in the number of those letters to nine-fold, or by 800 per cent., would therefore advance the total weight of the mails by only 56 per cent., or little more than one-half, even if the average weight of a letter had continued the same. That average has, however, been considerably reduced.
[146] The evidence more particularly referred to is that of Mr. Louis, the Surveyor and Superintendent of mail coaches, who had a thorough knowledge of the details of the service under his control.
[147] This amount includes the cost of the inconsiderable extent of railway mail service at that time in operation.
[148] Only a portion of the bags which these mails formerly carried is now sent by the London and North-Western Railway.
[149] This statement, as regards weight, is completely refuted at pages 85, _et seq._—C. P. R.
[150] In 1856 the Eastern mails were only forwarded twice a-month, _viâ_ Marseilles. They are now forwarded four times a-month, or forty-eight times a-year. From and after the 1st of February, 1868, they will be despatched weekly, or fifty-two times a-year. The average number of boxes despatched on the three nights of each month, when the Australian mail is not forwarded, is 178; on Australian mail night the number is 374.—C. P. R.
[151] The successive Reports of the Postmasters-General, from one to twelve, both inclusive, abound in misstatements similar to the above. They are very discreditable to the department.—C. P. R.
[152] Since the 1st of October, 1860, the mail trains run twice a-day in each direction between London and Holyhead, in 6 hours 35 minutes. The distance is 263 miles.—C. P. R.
[153] In consequence of the service now being performed by the finest steamers in point of speed at present afloat, in 3½ hours, instead of a _minimum_ of 4 hours 40 minutes, in 1856, the price paid is £78,000 a year.—C. P. R.
[154] The Royal Commissioners upon railways disapprove in their Report, dated 7th May, 1867, of the Post Office becoming parcel carriers. See _ante_, page 122.—C. P. R.
[155] This mis-statement is dealt with at page 80.—C. P. R.
[156] This is quite true. The Post Office has been unceasing in its efforts to put a stop to the transmission of newspapers through the post, _except with postage stamps_ affixed to them. In 1855, the Treasury, at the urgent instance of the Post Office, abolished the transmission of newspapers with the impressed stamp to foreign countries and our colonies, unless, _in addition_, postage stamps were affixed.—C. P. R.
[157] Since the 1st of October, 1860, the mails are conveyed between London and Dublin in eleven hours and-a-half. The distance is 335 miles.—C. P. R.
[158] It now costs £100,000 a-year.—C. P. R.
[159] Unfortunately, Mr. Stephenson died without mentioning his proposed arrangement; but if he had lived until now, he would have seen that the ill-will of the Post Office towards the railways is as great as ever it was.—C.P.R.
[160] _Viâ_ Mont Cenis.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the title page of the original book. The image is placed in the public domain.
End of Project Gutenberg's Rambles on Railways, by Cusack Patrick Roney