n of which has hitherto entailed on them enormous expense
unattended by corresponding benefits. The proposed system, at all events,
is worth a trial by many other towns besides the one chosen for
illustration by the author of the pamphlet. He fixes on Shrewsbury, a
place already on the decline, and not likely to recover its former
prosperity, unless it can establish steam communication with the great
lines of railway at Wolverhampton. "But capitalists," he adds, "who see
the small amount of dividend paid to their shareholders by the minor
railways, can no longer be induced to embark their money in similar
undertakings. Let a portion, however, of the noble, but now
half-deserted, Holyhead road be paved with wood, and for a comparatively
trifling cost of less than L.50,000, in six months from the present time
steamers could be enabled to run along the entire line with safety,
infinitely greater than, and speed almost equal to, that on the
Birmingham Railway."

We feel sure that these considerations need only to be stated to have
their due weight, and we shall be greatly surprised if an effort is not
soon made to avoid the ruin impending over so many towns. Among others,
the beautiful town of Salisbury should take an interest in this matter;
for what can be more evident that she will fall rapidly to decay, if she
cannot establish a steam communication with Southampton on one side, and
Bath and Bristol on the other. Salisbury, above all other places, ought to
know the value of a good road; for she has the fate of her elder sister
Sarum before her eyes. Decay--disfranchisement--contempt will assuredly be
her lot, if she allows herself to be treated in the same way as the
venerable Sarum was in the days of her youth--for do not the antiquaries
tell us what was the cause of Sarum's fall? It has, in fact, become so
notorious, that it has even got into Topographical Dictionaries. "About
this time," the reign of Edward the First, "Bishop Bridport built a bridge
at Harnham, and thus changing the direction of the Great Western Road,
which formerly passed through Old Sarum, that place was completely
deserted, and Salisbury became one of the most flourishing cities of the
kingdom."

The same will be recorded of her by future chroniclers, if she do not
seize this opportunity of retrieving her possession of "the Great Western
Road." "In the reign of Queen Victoria, a railroad being established at
some distance from Salisbury, and the