mania of 1845; and I consider, that the testimonial about to be presented to him will pass to the notice of pos terity, not as a token of his worth and merits, but as a monument of the cupidity and stupidity, the reckless folly and wide-spread insanity, which prevailed in England during the year which has just drawn to a close. Nothing can be more gross and palpable to the informed and capable mind, than the fallacies he has most industriously put forth, by speech and letter, and through the pens of his adherents, about the question as to the preferableness of direct or devious main trunk lines. The fact is, that when a main trunk line has to be made, such as that between London and Exeter, or London and Manchester, or London and York, the whole empire has an interest in it. Now, clearly it is the interest of the universal public that the line should be short and straight as practicable. But to argue, as Mr. Hudson does, that because such or such a town lies out of the direct line, and will not be so much benefited by hooking on with a branch as it would by a main line approaching it actually, it is, therefore, meet and proper that the line should, to accommodate these places, meander some five-and-twenty, or two-andforty miles out of the straight road, leads palpably to this absurdity, namely, that the interests of a town or two are to be preferred to the immediate interests of Great Britain, and to the more remote interests of all persons from the colonies or foreign parts, who want to use the road. For example, by one of Mr. Hudson's schemes for communication between London and York (and the least objectionable of the two, for the other is preposterous), in order that Cambridge may be on a main line, all the goods and passengers passing from and through the metropolis to the north of England are to be carried twenty-five miles out of their way; and, on the other side, the whole kingdom of Scotland and north of England is to be put to like inconvenience, expense, and delay, in their relations with the metropolis. Another absurdity, moreover, is involved in this proposition. It is that you are to look only at the state of the country, the position

and importance of the various towns that may lie between terminus and terminus at the actual moment when you trace the line on your map. But it is not so. If it were, how many miles of main trunk lines would there be in America? No, according to every dictate of sound policy and of science, select good termini for your project in the first instance, and then run your line between them as straightforward as you can. It is not even necessary (in America, for obvious reasons) that there should be a single house upon the route, or at the terminus to which you push forth your line, provided it only, in site and other circumstances, be well chosen. Open your line, and it will stand much in the position of the primal highway for travellers a long river. Inhabitants will flock to its banks, and communications from all sides will be opened with it; houses will, as if by magic, spring up in the wilderness and swell into villages, while at your remote terminus, an important, rich, and flourishing, and increasing town, like Buffalo, will, in the course of some ten years, have burst and grown into a vigorous existence. The drowsy, dreamy, purblind optimist will then be in a condition to speak of the railroad in the same pious and philosophic spirit he is reported to have spoken of the river: "How admirable is Providence! Behold

He has caused all the rivers to run by the great towns!" To a smaller extent, certainly, but still to an extent which must have effect upon the state and relations of the country, this must take place in the most thickly populated and settled countries-England, Belgium, Holland. Wherever you make a long main trunk line (long in itself, or as joining on to other long lines), towns and villages will spring up, and that before the lapse of many years. And thus, before the end of such a period of time, the direct line, in which there is no original error to correct, will pass through a large and rich population which it has itself attracted; will have feeders by branches to all those towns that stood out of its route when projected; and there will be no more notion of a competing line to it than there would have been in former times to the Appian Way.

I will next approach the fallacy which Mr. Hudson makes his great cheval de bataille-his destrier. But first it is necessary to remind the reader, that the question respecting direct or devious lines will be tried, amongst the earliest next session, in deciding on the relative merits of the competing lines from London to York; and this, whether one of those schemes has to go again before a committee of the Commons, or, as the chairman affects to imagine, will at once get to the Lords. The decision will assuredly make a leading case, and exercise vast influence on all the other cases to be tried. There are three schemes; the London and York, Eastern Counties Extension (Hudson's), and the Direct Northern. The last-mentioned goes as straight as possible from point to point; the London and York zig-zags to accommodate towns and villages; and Hudson's sweeps round far a-field to carry out a project for the benefit of an existing railway and its directors, of whom he is the chosen chairman and champion. The distance from London to York by his line would be 200 miles; by the London and York, 186 miles; and by the Direct Northern, 176. The first has the best gradients; the second the worst, and the most embankment, cutting, and tunnelling. Mr. Hudson is labouring to induce the shareholders of the London and York to repudiate the directors (who are only M.P.s and gentlemen of property on their line, and not professional speculators in railways), and to take shares, on amalgamation, in his scheme. The papers are full of correspondence on the subject, and no art is neglected to seduce or intimidate those same shareholders. Their chairman, Mr. Astell, writes to him, saying,—

"To the public you propose a scheme repudiated by a select committee in 1845, a scheme avoiding nearly every town that ours would serve, and longer than ours from twelve to fifteen miles, leaving the district bordering on the great north road from London to York without railway accommodation."

And then, after characterising his project as merely a daring attempt to raise the value of Eastern Counties stock and rid the Midlands of a rival, he says:

"Again, let me ask you why, in your new position of chairman to the Eastern Counties, you should be so jealous of a line passing through Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, while you proclaim that the Eastern Counties Railway, with its present lines and branches, may be made to pay ten per cent that portion of the kingdom lying upon and east of the London and Cambridge line, forming a district quite as extensive as the one proposed for the London and York?

"Why should you wish to compel passengers to go even twelve miles round by Cambridge, while that town will cer tainly have its railway to the east, west, north, and south? Why, then, endeavour to prevent Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire from similar advantages?"

Yet though it might not be easy to answer those questions, yet Mr. H. has his objections. At a meeting at Cambridge, he said,―

"I tell the parties promoting the London and York line that it will be as great a blunder as ever disgraced a railway management. The honourable gentleman tells you his line will effect a saving of ten miles; but he ought to have measured that ten miles by time, and not by distance. A railway ought not to be measured by distance, but by the time it takes in accomplishing that distance. Any one knowing any thing of what railway travelling is, must be fully aware of what it is to get bad gradients and a quantity of tunnels. There may be a large parallel case (but I hope there are not any) in which there is a tunnel having gradients of one in a hundred."

This is an instance of a gross ponderacion. The Report of the Board of Trade admits that the gradients of the London and York "are for moderate lengths, and have nothing in themselves that can be considered as objectionable." But here is the proposition on which Mr. II. relies: "A railway ought to be measured not by distance, but by the time it takes in accomplishing that distance." Now if trains of equal weight, drawn by engines of equal power, were always to run at the greatest possible speed they could command and attain, this would be true; but, as these circumstances do not and never can exist, practically, the proposition is a fallacy, involving the assumption that the line, with better gradients, will be, in its ordinary traffic, traversed at a greater rate of speed than one with those less favourable. But this

is not truc. The speed will be kept up on both lines alike up to the point which will afford fair profit and satisfy the just requirements of the public up to, in Stephenson's phrase, the commercial limit. But the speed will cost less on the better graded line than it does upon the other; and thus in so far as the difference may be in amounts respectively of cost it will affect one of the points on which the cost of transport mainly depends, namely, cost of conveyance. This, in the annual expenses of working a line, would not, under any circumstances, unless the gradients were outrageously bad, make a very large item. But how would it be with respect to the longer line with the better gradients as to the other principal point on which cost of transport depends, namely, cost of construction? Why, for every mile it exceeds in length, there will be an annual expense for working it of, according to the Board of Trade's Report, 1000l. a mile, and capital, at a minimum of 12,000l. per mile sunk, together with its interest and compound interest, for ever.

Let us, however, examine this matter a little farther. Taking for granted that there must always be a commercial limit of speed on railways, I say that the fundamental distinction between two lines of equal length, and still more of unequal length, will be found to result in the relative cost of transport. In other words, the respective cost of transport is the ultimate exponent of the relative value of competing lines. Now that cost depends, 1st. upon the cost of construction, to which is to be added, a part of the cost of management and repairs; 2d. on the cost of conveyance properly so called, to which is also to be added a part of these same secondary expenses. In fact, the total expense of transporting a ton from one extremity of a railway to the other consists of four elements. 1st. The annual interest of the expenses of construction, and the annual expenses of management and repairs divided by the number of tons transported annually; 2d. The expenses of the locomotive engine expressed by a formula given by Navier; 3d. the expense of the waggons, carriages, &c. which is proportional to the length of the railway;

4th. the expense of warehousing and despatching, which we shall also consider as proportionate to the length of the railway.

We then see, says Navier, that the valuation of the total price is thus reduced in each particular case to the determination of a very small number of elements; that is to say, the expense of construction and repairs, for which data are given by the formation of the project, the estimate of the annual tonnage, the determination of the weight of the train, which should be drawn by a locomotive engine of a given power, and, lastly, the length of the line of railway. It will be at once perceived and acknowledged that the vitally important elements are the cost of construction and the length of the line.

If, then, Hudson's line be twelve miles longer than the London and York, while he will have little to take off for his cheaper working, he will have a great deal to put on for the additional length to increase the cost of transport. But when the excess of length, as in Hudson's over the Direct Northern, comes to be twenty-five miles, the argument about performing the journey in equal time becomes ridiculous; so much would the cost of construction, &c., and of working increase the cost of transport. And if the shorter line have as good working gradients as need be well desired, a comparison between the two projects becomes preposterous.

Mr. Hudson, it is true, never alluded in the course of his philippic against the London and York to the Direct Northern. One would not have imagined from his discourse that there was any such project in the field. Why was this? Simply because his engineering argument in favour of his line would not have then been worth a rush! On the Direct Northern the whole amount of tunnelling is short of 4000 yards. There is only one viaduct. Sixty-nine miles are on a level, and there is no acclivity or declivity above 1 in 200,-a most excellent working gradient when properly distributed over the line. Now 1 in 200 is that clivity which forms the limit between those clivities in descending which there is, and

those in descending which there is not, a saving of power.

The objections, then, to the steep gradients of the London and York and the 4 miles of tunnelling would not apply, while the additional length of twenty-five miles presses against his own line with full force. In fact, though even as against the London and York, his only serious argument was its inefficient estimate. It cannot be the project is not supported with money, or Mr. Hudson would not wear the aspect of so determined a wooer. But if the Direct Northern and the London and York amalgamated, as they ought to do, this objection would be obviated by the amount of combined capital. The main line, then, should be the direct one, and satisfactory arrangements might be concluded about the numerous branches. If this were done the triumph of the

direct principle against the circuitous would in this, the first great contest of the session, be undoubted.

And now one short observation, and then I shall have done.

As to better provision for the safety of passengers, I see no means so certain as laying down a set of rails by the sides of the others for the use of goods and luggage only, which might be carried at a rate of fifteen miles an hour, at a farthing per ton per mile. Nine out of ten accidents occur through the presence of luggage-trains on the same rails with passenger-trains. A good deal of expense might be spared in construction by devoting certain lines of rail to the transport of passengers alone, as the steepness of gradients would not be so material. The cost for the additional route would be about 4000l. a mile.

THE evening shadows were stealing on, at the close of a cold, bright winter's day. Stretched on a bed of sickness, pale, wasted, silent, lay the lady of Elm-wood. The curtains of purple velvet, dark and gloomy in the fading light, hung heavily round her, and through an opening, at the foot of the bed, a gleam of red light from the blazing fire now and then fell on her face, but did not rouse her from the deep thought in which she seemed plunged. There was much beauty even yet in her large, dark eyes and delicately formed features; but her cheek was hollow, and the tightly closed lips looked as if no smile of joy had ever parted them.

A hired nurse, the only watcher by that sick-bed, was dozing in an arm-chair before the fire, rousing herself now and then to glance at the lady, who was totally regardless of her presence. The old woman began to feel chilly as the evening closed in, and she was rising to draw the curtains before the window, when the clear, gay laughter of a child rang on the frosty air, floating up from the garden below. A look of misery

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCIII.

passed across the lady's face, and she sighed heavily.

"Did you speak, my lady?" asked the nurse, moving to the bedside.

"No, nurse," answered a sweet, yet feeble voice; "I want nothing-nothing that you can give me," she murmured, as the old woman turned away. "Oh, for a loving voice to cheer me in this dark hour!"

Again she lay, silent and thoughtful as before; but, after a time, she called the nurse, and, as if by a strong effort, said, "Go to him-to my husband-and tell him I am very, very ill. Say that, for the love of Heaven, I entreat him to come to me!"

She half raised her head from the pillow to listen to the old woman's slow footsteps, till the sound died away in the long and distant corridors. The slamming of a door gave her notice when the nurse had reached her destination, and she clasped her thin hands in an agony of impatience, as it seemed, to know the result of her mission.

"Surely, surely he will come now," she said; "he does not love me; he has taught my child to scoff at me;

and yet, now, surely he will feel something for me!"

The door was heard again, the nurse tottered back, and stood once more beside her charge.

"My lord bids me say, he is engaged now, but will come by and by."

The lady's head fell back on the pillow, and the colour that had risen to her cheek for a moment faded away. The nurse had been used to look on scenes of suffering and sorrow, and perhaps age, too, had blunted her feelings, for she re-established herself in her comfortable chair, and sank into a doze. The lady's voice once more roused her.

"Go to him again, nurse! say, that I am dying-you see I am;-tell him, I entreat him to send for Mr. Paterson to pray for my departing soul. Beg him earnestly to grant me this, only this!”

Again the messenger departed, and again the lady listened anxiously for her return, yet with less hope in her sorrowful eyes than before. Her heart sank evidently when she heard the nurse returning immediately.

"My lord says," said the old woman, "it is only your fancy that is

sick."

"And did you tell him, nurse, that you knew I was dying?" interrupted her listener.

"Yes, my lady; but he said, of course I should swear to any thing you bid me say."

"And Mr. Paterson?" inquired the lady. "May I send for him?" "My lord said, 'No, he would have no canting priests here.'"

The old woman hobbled back to her seat, and the lady, covering her face, sobbed aloud.

"Cruel, even to the last!" she said at length. "This life, that some call so happy, how dreary has it been to me! long, miserable years, ending in a death like this!" And words of long-suppressed anguish, thoughts that had burdened the heart with a weight of misery for years, burst from her dying lips.

"Poor lady!" muttered the nurse, "her mind wanders. I've heard strange stories about her. To be sure, there was something wrong, or my lord would never have kept her newed up so close; and I dare say the thought of it troubles her now.'

"To be sure there was something wrong!" The words had been in many mouths, till it came to be believed that some dark secret, some hidden error, was the cause of the seclusion in which she was kept by her husband. The sadness of her countenance was held to be occasioned by remorse, and the tears that were sometimes seen to fall, as she knelt in prayer in the house of God, were looked upon as tears of penitence. The patience and meekness with which she bore the impertinence of some, who hinted, even in her presence, at the suspicions they entertained, only confirmed them in their belief that, in some way, she had erred grievously. "And then, my lord," they said," is so easy and good-humoured, any body might be happy with him!" So by degrees a belief had gained ground that all was not as it should be with the beautiful lady of Elm-wood, and some dared to speak scornfully of her, even those who were unworthy to wipe the dust from her feet.

For the suspicions that had gone abroad, the undefined mysterious whispers against her, were unjust as they were cruel. There was nothing of shame, though, God knows, there was enough of bitter sorrow in her blushes and her tears. Her spirit was too utterly broken by daily and hourly trials, of which the coarse world knew nothing, to resent insult or reply to impertinence None knew-how should they know ?— how a course of petty oppression, beginning in her earliest years, had conquered all cheerfulness and crushed all hope; and, during her married life, to none but to her God did she breathe a word of the troubles which subdued her, and to which she submitted without a struggle. The little world about Elm-wood had only seen her brought-in triumph, as it seemed as a bride to her husband's ancestral home. They had seen, at first, a gay succession of guests at the old hall, and the young bride presiding at brilliant entertainments. But the number of guests fell off by degrees, ladies ceased to be among the few remaining visitors, and, when an occasional party met at Elm-wood, the lady was no longer seen among them. Her husband thought it necessary, at first, to excuse her absence