traveller in a thousand to whom an
arrival in London and Birmingham three hours sooner would be of the slightest
consequence.

"Then as to goods. The only goods that require velocity in coming to London,
are ribands from Coventry. Half the luggage room of a coach, on a Saturday
night, is quite adequate to the conveyance of them. The manufacturers of
Coventry will never be such fools as to send their property on an errand by
which it must travel further and fare worse. For heavy goods, the saving by
canal would be as twelve to one, beside the perfect safety. In the canal
boat there is no danger of fracture, even to the most delicate goods;
whereas, if fine China goods were to be brought by the rapid waggons, the
breakage would probably be twenty-five per cent.

"As to the profits of the undertaking let us be extravagantly liberal.
Suppose that the Railway was to get one-third of the goods, as well as one-
third of the passengers, see what they would make of it:--

One-third of the Goods . . . 96,540 pounds
One-third of the Passengers . 30,240
--------
126,780 pounds
--------
Annual expenses . . . . . 385,000 pounds
Returns. . . . . . . . 126,780
--------
Annual deficiency . . . . 258,220 pounds
--------
To meet an outlay of 7,500,000 pounds.

"But the probability is that canals would reduce their rates one-half; and
thus, competing wholesomely, extinguish the railway. The coach-masters would
do the same thing--run for twelve months at half the present fares, and then
not one man in his senses would risk his bones on the railway. The
innkeepers would follow a course precisely similar, and give nice smoking
dinners, foaming tankards and bottles of beeswing at so cheap a rate, and
meet their customers with so good humoured faces, and do so many of those
kind offices that legions would flock to the hospitable road. And while all
this was going on, and the thousands of men which the authors of this
ridiculous scheme had expected to send upon the parish were thriving, the
solitary stranger who had nobody to tell him better would go swinging at the
tail of the engine, bump