, steam would
pay L.2; and a four-horse coach three shillings. And how did these sages
settle the rates of payment? The reader would never guess, so we will tell
him at once-they charged for each horse power as if the boiler contained a
whole stud, all trampling the road to atoms with iron shoes; whereas they
ought have let the broad-wheeled carriage go free, if, indeed, they were
not called on to pay it a certain sum each journey for the benefit it did
the highway.

Such was the evidence that led the committee to decide, in 1834, on the
practicability, the safety, and economy of running steam-carriages on
common roads. It will be sufficient to give a list of the witnesses
examined, to show that the highest authorities were consulted before the
report was framed. They were--

Mr Goldsworthy Gurney.
Walter Hancock.
John Farey, civil engineer.
Richard Trevethick.
Davies Gilbert, M.P., president of the Royal Society.
Nathanael Ogle.
Alexander Gordon, civil engineer.
Joseph Gibbs.
Thomas Telford, president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
William A. Summers.
James Stone.
James Macadam, road surveyor.
John Macneil, civil engineer, and
Colonel Torrens, M.P.

Since the date of the last Report railways have run their titanic course;
and whether from the opposition of wise road trustees, or a want of
enterprise in steam-carriage proprietors, or from some other cause, steam
locomotion on common roads has not made any progress. But, in spite of the
powerful evidence we have quoted, we cannot conceal from ourselves that
there was always an _if_ or a _but_ attached to the complete triumph of
the new system. The _if_ and the _but_, it will be seen, had reference to
the nature of the road. Mr Macneil and the other able and scientific
gentlemen examined, all concurred in calling for a vast improvement on the
highways to be travelled on--"a smooth and well-dressed pavement"--"a hard
pavement"--"a smooth pavement on a solid foundation"--they all agree in
thinking indispensable to the complete triumph of steam. "If on the road,"
says Mr Macneil, "from London to Birmingham, there were a portion laid off
on the side of the road for steam carriages, and if it be made in a solid
manner, with pitching and well-broken granite, it would fall very little
short of a railroad. It would be easy to fence it off from fifteen to
twenty feet without injury to