of the road. In the meantime he had opened, in
connection with Edward Pease, an establishment for the manufacture of
locomotives, at Newcastle-on-Tyne.

In 1825 he was appointed principal engineer of the Liverpool &
Manchester railroad, which employed him during the next four years.
Canals connected the two towns, Liverpool and Manchester, but it was
believed that the carrying trade would support this new railway if it
could be made to work. The people were told by the newspapers that
locomotives would prevent cows from grazing and hens from laying. The
poisoned air from the locomotives would kill birds as they passed over
them, and render the preservation of pheasants and foxes no longer
possible. Householders adjoining the line were told that their houses
would be burned up by fire thrown from the engine chimneys, while the
air around would be polluted by the clouds of smoke. There would be no
longer any use for horses, and if the railways extended the species
would become extinct, and therefore oats and hay would become unsalable.
Traveling by road would be rendered exceedingly dangerous, and country
inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst and blow the passengers to
pieces.

Of course, the inculcation of such theories rendered it extremely
difficult for Stephenson and his party to survey for the proposed line.
The land-owners along the line made all sorts of trouble for them. Their
instruments were smashed and they were mobbed, yet, on they went,--at
meal times they worked, before the residents awoke in the morning, and
nights, in some instances were employed. At last the survey was
accomplished, the plans drawn, and the estimates furnished the company,
were approved.

In Parliament even more opposition was experienced. Public sentiment
can be inferred from an article which appeared in the Quarterly Review
for March, 1825. Among other things it said: "What can be more palpably
absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives
travelling twice as fast as horses. We should as soon expect the people
of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's
richochet rockets as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine,
going at such a rate. We trust that Parliament will, in all the railways
it may grant, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which we
entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured on."

But despite all such seemingly insurmountabilit