ts of a kingdom, as well as the minute
subdivision of labour in the making of each commodity, are similarly
determined. Or, turning to a somewhat different order of illustrations,
we might dwell on the multitudinous changes--material, intellectual,
moral--caused by printing; or the further extensive series of changes
wrought by gunpowder. But leaving the intermediate phases of social
development, let us take a few illustrations from its most recent and
its passing phases. To trace the effects of steam-power, in its manifold
applications to mining, navigation, and manufactures of all kinds, would
carry us into unmanageable detail. Let us confine ourselves to the
latest embodiment of steam-power--the locomotive engine.

This, as the proximate cause of our railway system, has changed the face
of the country, the course of trade, and the habits of the people.
Consider, first, the complicated sets of changes that precede the making
of every railway--the provisional arrangements, the meetings, the
registration, the trial section, the parliamentary survey, the
lithographed plans, the books of reference, the local deposits and
notices, the application to Parliament, the passing Standing-Orders
Committee, the first, second, and third readings: each of which brief
heads indicates a multiplicity of transactions, and the development of
sundry occupations--as those of engineers, surveyors, lithographers,
parliamentary agents, share-brokers; and the creation of sundry
others--as those of traffic-takers, reference-takers. Consider, next,
the yet more marked changes implied in railway construction--the
cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diversions of roads; the building of
bridges, and stations; the laying down of ballast, sleepers, and rails;
the making of engines, tenders, carriages, and waggons: which processes,
acting upon numerous trades, increase the importation of timber, the
quarrying of stone, the manufacture of iron, the mining of coal, the
burning of bricks: institute a variety of special manufactures weekly
advertised in the _Railway Times_; and, finally, open the way to sundry
new occupations, as those of drivers, stokers, cleaners, plate-layers,
etc., etc. And then consider the changes, more numerous and involved
still, which railways in action produce on the community at large. The
organisation of every business is more or less modified: ease of
communication makes it better to do directly what was before done by
proxy;