n some of the
obscurer passages in Welsh railway annals.

Early prospectuses, full of glowing promises of rich dividends the hopes
of which have long since become as faded as the now yellow leaves on
which they were inscribed. Great tomes of carefully-written-out verbatim
notes of Parliamentary Committee evidence. Equally voluminous records of
judgments delivered in Chancery by illustrious law-givers long since
dead. "Minutes of Orders on Petition," declaring this, that and the
other about the safeguarding of certain interests, and the payment of
certain dividends--if any funds could be found for the purpose!--and
enquiring all sorts of things about "gross receipts" and "monies actually
paid into Court, or which shall hereafter be paid into court." Oh,
eternal optimism of those early pioneers! Letters from engineers and
contractors. Minutes of Board Meetings. Books of accounts of
"preliminary expenses," in which "visits to London" seem to bulk so
largely and to exhaust so considerable a proportion of the capital
subscribed by eager shareholders who believed that some fine day they
were to wake to find themselves part owners of a wonderful trunk route
yielding illimitable toll upon the wealth of Lancashire and mercantile
fleets of the far-reaching seas. They are all there in quaint and often
incongruous companionship, and as one turns over their dusty pages and
reverently replaces them in their grave of tattered brown paper, one is
prompted to reflect, not without a wistful sigh, upon the vanity of human
hopes and expectations.

And yet, if the Cambrian never became the great and glorious institution
which those pioneers and projectors of its initial component parts
intended, and sincerely believed it would, can it be either truly or
generously said that their labours were in vain? By their courage and
determination and resolute struggle against enormous adversity, they did,
at least, bring into being a public service which has opened up remote
valleys, formed a link between the great centres of England and of South
Wales, and the coast of Cardigan Bay, and kindled a new life for and
offered the opportunity of increased prosperity to many a small country
town in Shropshire, Montgomeryshire, and Merioneth. They have created
means of employment for thousands of workers, and afforded facilities for
recreation for millions more who have thus been enabled and encouraged to
spend their holidays amidst the health-giv