r of that year, at an expense of
L.1,200,000; and in the thirteen years since that period, line after line
has been laid down and opened for traffic, till the completed railways
amount to many hundred miles in length, and the expenditure of capital has
been many millions of money.

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

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

If the whole prosperity of a nation depended on rapidity of conveyance,
there could be but one answer to the enquiry--but even in that case the
prosperity must depend on rapidity of conveyance between the particular
places which the railway unites--Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham and
London, and generally the great towns at the _termini_, and some
throughout all of the intermediate stations, have cause to rejoice in the
improvement. And land and houses in the neighbourhood have increased in
value, their correspondence is conducted in half the time, and money is of
course distributed in fertilizing rills by the crowds of travellers who
pass through them on their way to join the train. But these advantages are
local, and an opinion is now gaining ground that they are obtained at the
expense