occupy the coach and wagons; but such was the
pressure and crowd that both loaded and empty carriages were instantly
filled with passengers. The signal being given, the engine started off
with this immense train of carriages. In some parts the speed was
frequently 12 miles per hour, and in one place, for a short distance,
near Darlington, 15 miles per hour, and at that time the number of
passengers was counted to 450, which, together with the coals,
merchandise, and carriages, would amount to nearly 90 tons. After some
little delay in arranging the procession, the engine, with her load,
arrived at Darlington a distance of eight miles and three-quarters, in 65
minutes, exclusive of stops, averaging about eight miles an hour. The
engine arrived at Stockton in three hours and seven minutes after leaving
Darlington, including stops, the distance being nearly 12 miles, which is
at the rate of four miles an hour, and upon the level part of the railway
the number of passengers in the wagons was counted about 550, and several
more clung to the carriages on each side, so that the whole number could
not be less than 600.

EARLY RAILWAY COMPETITION.

The first Stockton and Darlington Act gave permission to all parties to
use the line on payment of certain rates. Thus private individuals might
work their own horses and carriages upon the railway and be their own
carriers. Mr. Clepham, in the _Gateshead Observer_, gives an interesting
account of the competition induced by the system:--"There were two
separate coach companies in Stockton, and amusing collisions sometimes
occurred between the drivers--who found on the rail a novel element for
contention. Coaches cannot pass each other on the rail as on the road;
and at the more westward public-house in Stockton (the Bay Horse, kept by
Joe Buckton), the coach was always on the line betimes, reducing its
eastward rival to the necessity of waiting patiently (or impatiently) in
the rear. The line was single, with four sidings in the mile; and when
two coaches met, or two trains, or coach and train, the question arose
which of the drivers must go back? This was not always settled in
silence. As to trains, it came to be a sort of understanding that light
wagons should give way to loaded; as to trains and coaches, that the
passengers should have preference over coals; while coaches, when they
met, must quarrel it out. At length, midway between sidings a post was
erected,