Thus the price of coal has been reduced 7s. 10d. a ton since 1827, while the quantity delivered has been enormously increased, the total saving on the quantity consumed in the metropolis in 1867, compared with 1827, being equal to £2,388,000.

But the carriage of food and fuel to London forms but a small part of the merchandise traffic carried by railway. Above 600,000 tons of goods of various kinds yearly pass through one station only, that of the London and Northwestern Company, at Camden Town; and sometimes as many as 20,000 parcels daily. Every other metropolitan station is similarly alive with traffic inward and outward, London having since the introduction of railways become more than ever a great distributive centre, to which merchandise of all kinds converges, and from which it is distributed to all parts of the country. Mr. Bazley, M.P., stated at a late public meeting at Manchester that it would probably require ten millions of horses to convey by road the merchandise traffic which is now annually carried by railway.

Railways have also proved of great value in connection with the Cheap Postage system. By their means it has become possible to carry letters, newspapers, books, and post parcels in any quantity, expeditiously and cheaply. The Liverpool and Manchester line was no sooner opened in 1830 than the Post-office authorities recognized its utility, and used it for carrying the mails between the two towns. When the London and Birmingham line was opened eight years later, mail trains were at once put on, the directors undertaking to perform the distance of 113 miles within 5 hours by day and 5-1/2 hours by night. As additional lines were opened, the old four-horse mail-coaches were gradually discontinued, until, in 1858, the last of them, the "Derby Dilly," which ran between Manchester and Derby, was taken off on the opening of the Midland line to Rowsley.

The increased accommodation provided by railways was found of essential importance, more particularly after the adoption of the Cheap Postage system; and that such accommodation was needed will be obvious from the extraordinary increase which has taken place in the number of letters and packets sent by post. Thus, in 1839, the number of chargeable letters carried was only 76 millions, and of newspapers 44-1/2 millions; whereas, in 1865, the number of letters had increased to 720 millions, and in 1867 to 775 millions, or more than tenfold, while the number of newspapers, books, samples, and patterns (a new branch of postal business begun in 1864) had increased, in 1865, to 98-1/2 millions.

To accommodate this largely-increasing traffic, the bulk of which is carried by railway, the mileage run by mail trains in the United Kingdom has increased from 25,000 miles a day in 1854 (the first year of which we have any return of the mileage run) to 60,000 miles a day in 1867, or an increase of 240 per cent. The Post-office expenditure on railway service has also increased, but not in like proportion, having been £364,000 in the former year, and £559,575 in the latter, or an increase of 154 per cent. The revenue, gross and net, has increased still more rapidly. In 1841, the first complete year of the Cheap Postage system, the gross revenue was £1,359,466, and the net revenue £500,789; in 1854, the gross revenue was £2,574,407, and the net revenue £1,173,723; and in 1867, the gross revenue was £4,548,129, and the net revenue £2,127,125, being an increase of 420 per cent. compared with 1841, and of 180 per cent. compared with 1854. How much of this net increase might fairly be credited to the Railway Postal service we shall not pretend to say, but assuredly the proportion must be very considerable.

One of the great advantages of railways in connection with the postal service is the greatly increased frequency of communication which they provide between all the large towns. Thus Liverpool has now six deliveries of Manchester letters daily, while every large town in the kingdom has two or more deliveries of London letters daily. In 1863, 393 towns had two mails daily from London; 50 had three mails daily; 7 had four mails a day from London, and 15 had four mails a day to London; while 3 towns had five mails a day from London, and 6 had five mails a day to London.

Another feature of the railway mail train, as of the passenger train, is its capacity to carry any quantity of letters and post parcels that may require to be carried. In 1838, the aggregate weight of all the evening mails dispatched from London by twenty-eight mail-coaches was 4 tons 6 cwt., or an average of about 3-1/4 cwt. each, though the maximum contract weight was 15 cwt. The mails now are necessarily much heavier, the number of letters and packets having, as we have seen, increased more than tenfold since 1839. But it is not the ordinary so much as the extraordinary mails that are of considerable weight, more particularly the American, the Continental, and the Australian mails. It is no unusual thing, we are informed, for the last-mentioned mail to weigh as much as 40 tons. How many of the old mail-coaches it would take to carry such a mail the 79 miles' journey to Southampton, with a relay of four horses every five or seven miles, is a problem for the arithmetician to solve. But even supposing each coach to be loaded to the maximum weight of 15 cwt. per coach, it would require about sixty vehicles and about 1700 horses to carry the 40 tons, besides the coachmen and guards.

A few words, in conclusion, as to the number of men employed in working and maintaining railways. According to Mr. Mills,[1] 166,047 men and officers were employed in the working of 13,289 miles open in the United Kingdom in 1865, besides 53,923 employed on lines then under construction. The most numerous body of workmen is that of the laborers (81,284) employed in the maintenance of the permanent way. Being mostly picked men from the laboring class of the adjoining districts, they are paid considerably higher wages, and hence one of the direct effects of railways on the laboring population (besides affording them greater facilities for locomotion) has been to raise the standard of wages of ordinary labor at least 2s. a week in all the districts into which they have penetrated. The workmen next in number is that of the artificers (40,167) employed in constructing and repairing the rolling-stock; the porters (25,381), the plate-layers (12,901), guards and brakesmen (5799), firemen (5266), and engine-drivers (5171). But, besides the employés directly engaged in the working and maintenance of railways, large numbers of workmen are also occupied in the manufacture of locomotives and rolling-stock, and in providing the requisite materials for the permanent way. Thus the consumption of rails alone averages nearly 400,000 tons a year in the United Kingdom alone, while the replacing of decayed sleepers requires about 10,000 acres of forest to be cut down annually and sawn into sleepers. Taking the various railway workmen into account, with their families, it will be found that they represent a total of about three quarters of a million persons, or about one in fifty of our population, who are dependent on railways for their subsistence.

While the practical working of railways has, on the whole, been so satisfactory, the case has been very different as regards their direction and financial management. The men employed in the working of railways make it their business to learn it, and, being responsible, they are under the necessity of taking pains to do it well; whereas the men who govern and direct them are practically irresponsible, and may possess no qualification whatever for the office excepting only the holding of so much stock. The consequence has been much blundering on the part of these amateurs, and great loss on the part of the public. Indeed, what between the confused, contradictory, and often unjust legislation of Parliament on the one hand, and the carelessness or incompetency of directors on the other, many once flourishing concerns have been thrown into a state of utter confusion and muddle, until railway government has become a by-word of reproach.

And this state of things will probably continue until the fatal defect of government by Boards—an extremely limited responsibility, or no responsibility at all—has been rectified by the appointment, as in France, of executives consisting of a few men of special ability and trained administrative skill, personally responsible to their constituents for the due performance of their respective functions. But the discussion of this subject would require a treatise, whereas we are now but writing a preface.

Whatever may be said of the financial mismanagement of railways, there can be no doubt as to the great benefits conferred by them on the public wherever made. Even those railways which have exhibited the most "frightful examples" of scheming and financing, so soon as placed in the hands of practical men to work, have been found to prove of unquestionable public convenience and utility. And notwithstanding all the faults and imperfections that are alleged against railways have been admitted, we think that they must, nevertheless, be recognized as by far the most valuable means of communication between men and nations that has yet been given to the world.

The author's object in publishing this book in its original form, some ten years since, was to describe, in connection with the "Life of George Stephenson," the origin and progress of the railway system, and to show by what moral and material agencies its founders were enabled to carry their ideas into effect, and to work out results which even then were of a remarkable character, though they have since, as above described, become so much more extraordinary. The favor with which successive editions of the book have been received has justified the author in his anticipation that such a narrative would prove of general, if not of permanent interest, and he has taken pains, in preparing for the press the present, and probably final edition, to render it, by careful amendment and revision, more worthy of the public acceptance.

London, May, 1868.

PREFACE
TO THE EIGHTH EDITION, 1864.

The following is a revised and improved edition of "The Life of George Stephenson," with which is incorporated a Memoir of his son Robert, late President of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Since its original appearance in 1857, much additional information has been communicated to the author relative to the early history of Railways and the men principally concerned in establishing them, of which he has availed himself in the present edition.

In preparing the original work for publication, the author enjoyed the advantage of the cordial co-operation and assistance of Robert Stephenson, on whom he mainly relied for information as to the various stages through which the Locomotive passed, and especially as to his father's share in its improvement. Through Mr. Stephenson's instrumentality also, the author was enabled to obtain much valuable information from gentlemen who had been intimately connected with his father and himself in their early undertakings—among others, from Mr. Edward Pease, of Darlington; Mr. Dixon, C.E.; Mr. Sopwith, F.R.S.; Mr. Charles Parker; and Sir Joshua Walmsley.

Most of the facts relating to the early period of George Stephenson's career were collected from colliers, brakesmen, engine-men, and others, who had known him intimately, or been fellow-workmen with him, and were proud to communicate what they remembered of his early life. The information obtained from these old men—most of them illiterate, and some broken down by hard work—though valuable in many respects, was confused, and sometimes contradictory; but, to insure as much accuracy and consistency of narrative as possible, the author submitted the MS. to Mr. Stephenson, and had the benefit of his revision of it previous to publication.

Mr. Stephenson took a lively interest in the improvement of the "Life" of his father, and continued to furnish corrections and additions for insertion in the successive editions of the book which were called for by the public. After the first two editions had appeared, he induced several gentlemen, well qualified to supply additional authentic information, to communicate their recollections of his father, among whom may be mentioned Mr. T. L. Gooch, C.E.; Mr. Vaughan, of Snibston; Mr. F. Swanwick, C.E.; and Mr. Binns, of Clayross, who had officiated as private secretaries to George Stephenson at different periods of his life, and afterward held responsible offices either under him or in conjunction with him.

The author states these facts to show that the information contained in this book is of an authentic character, and has been obtained from the most trustworthy sources. Whether he has used it to the best purpose or not, he leaves others to judge. This much, however, he may himself say—that he has endeavored, to the best of his ability, to set forth the facts communicated to him in a simple, faithful, and straightforward manner; and, even if he has not wholly succeeded in doing this, he has, at all events, been the means of collecting information on a subject originally unattractive to professional literary men, and thereby rendered its farther prosecution comparatively easy to those who may feel called upon to undertake it.

The author does not pretend to have steered clear of errors in treating a subject so extensive, and, before he undertook the labor, comparatively uninvestigated; but, wherever errors have been pointed out, he has taken the earliest opportunity of correcting them. With respect to objections taken to the book because of the undue share of merit alleged to be therein attributed to the Stephensons in respect of the Railway and the Locomotive, there will necessarily be various opinions. There is scarcely an invention or improvement in mechanics but has been the subject of dispute, and it was to be expected that those who had counter claims would put them forward in the present case; nor has the author any reason to complain of the manner in which this has been done.

While George Stephenson is the principal subject in the following book, his son Robert also forms an essential part of it. Father and son were so intimately associated in the early period of their career, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to describe the one apart from the other. The life and achievements of the son were in a great measure the complement of the life and achievements of the father. The care, also, with which the elder Stephenson, while occupying the position of an obscure engine-wright, devoted himself to his son's education, and the gratitude with which the latter repaid the affectionate self-denial of his father, furnish some of the most interesting illustrations of the personal character of both.

These views were early adopted by the author and carried out by him in the preparation of the original work, with the concurrence of Robert Stephenson, who supplied the necessary particulars relating to himself. Such portions of these were accordingly embodied in the narrative as could with propriety be published during his life-time, and the remaining portions are now added with the object of rendering more complete the record of the son's life, as well as the early history of the Railway System.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.