rch of work,
or sauntered listlessly at the alehouse door in despair of finding it.
The great radii of peaceful communication have been executed by willing
hands, and a fair day's wages has been the recompense of a fair day's
work. We do not undervalue the skill and energy of the engineers of
antiquity. Yet by their fruits we know and judge of the works of the
Curatores Viarum, and of our Brunels and Stephensons. "Peace has its
victories no less than war." And the modern road does not more surpass
the ancient in the science of its constructors, than in the objects for
which it has been planned and executed.

But before these results were attained, the air was tried, and the water
was tried, as likely to afford a more rapid medium of transit and
communication than the solid earth. Of balloons and canals however our
limits do not permit us to speak, although either of them might well
furnish a little volume like the one now presented to the reader. We are
now concerned, however, with the social and civilizing effects of
Railways.

"For a succession of ages," says Dr. Lardner, "the little intercourse
that was maintained between the various parts of Great Britain was
effected almost exclusively by rude footpaths, traversed by pedestrians,
or at best by horses. Hills were surmounted, valleys crossed, and rivers
forded by these rude agents of transport, in the same manner as the
savage and settler of the backwoods of America or the slopes of the Rocky
Mountains communicate with each other."

The effects of high civilization may perhaps be best estimated by its
contrast--the rude and infant stages of society. Let us imagine for a
moment the destruction of Railways, the neglect of Turnpike and Highway
Roads, and the consequent interruption of our present modes of rapid and
regular locomotion.

Gentle Reader, in the first place, your breakfast is rendered thoroughly
uncomfortable, or, like Viola's history--a blank. Your copy of the
'Times' or 'Morning Chronicle' has not arrived; your letters are lying
six miles off, and you have to send a special messenger--who may, and
will most probably, get drunk on his road--to fetch them. If you should
chance to be in business, you will hear of a profitable investment for
capital just two hours after some one else has closed the bargain; if you
are a physician, you will most probably miss a lucrative patient; if a
lawyer, a most seductive fee. All calculations will be disturb