note: Stephenson's practical demonstration]

The runners on foot, the gentlemen on horseback and the horseman with the
flag were left far behind. So, with the cross-beams and side-rods trembling
from the violent motion, the red-hot chimney ejecting clouds of black
smoke, amid the cheers of the delighted spectators and to the astonishment
of the passengers--the immortal George Stephenson brought his train safely
into Darlington.

As the "Newcastle Courant" (October 1, 1825) put it, "certainly the
performance excited the astonishment of all present, and exceeded the most
sanguine expectations of every one conversant with the subject. The engine
arrived at Stockton in three hours and seven minutes after leaving
Darlington, including stops, the distance being nearly twelve miles, which
is at the rate of four miles an hour; and upon the level part of the
railway, the number of passengers was counted about four hundred and fifty,
and several more clung to the carriages on each side. At one time the
passengers by the engine had the pleasure of accompanying and cheering
their brother passengers by the stage coach, which passed alongside, and of
observing the striking contrast exhibited by the power of the engine and of
horses; the engine with her six hundred passengers and load, and the coach
with four horses and only sixteen passengers."

[Sidenote: Immediate railroad development]

So successful was the Stockton and Darlington railway that a bill was
brought in Parliament for the construction of a railroad between Liverpool
and Manchester after Stephenson's plan. The scheme was violently opposed.
Its detractors, among whom were Lords Lefton and Derby, declared that
Stephenson's locomotive would poison the air, kill the birds as they flew
over them, destroy the preservation of pheasants, burn up the farms and
homesteads near the lines; that oats and hay would become unsalable because
horses would become extinct; travelling on the highways would become
impossible; country inns would be ruined; boilers would burst and kill
hundreds of passengers. Indeed, there was no peril imaginable that was not
predicted to attend the working of a railroad by steam.

When Stephenson was examined by a Parliamentary committee, one of the
members put this question: "Suppose, now, one of these engines to be going
along a railroad at a rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow
were to stray upon the line, and get in the way of the engine,