  TWO CITIES THAT WANTED TO GET NEAR EACH OTHER—A NEW FRIEND. Manchester, thirty miles south-east of Liverpool, is the great centre of our cotton trade. Its cloths are found in every market in the world. Cotton coming to Liverpool is sent to the Manchester mills, and the goods which the mills turn Two water communications existed between them: one by the rivers Mersey and Irwell, the other by the famous Bridgewater Canal, which did an immense business at an enormous profit. But the Manchester mills were fast outgrowing these slow and cumbersome modes of travel. Liverpool warehouses were piled with bales of cotton waiting to go, and the mills at Manchester had often to stop because it did not come. Goods also found as much difficulty in getting back. Merchants and manufacturers both grumbled. Business was in straits. What was to be done? Carting was quite out of the question. Canal owners were besought to enlarge their water power. No, they would do nothing. They were satisfied with things as they were. Their dividends were sure. But want demands supply. Need creates resources. Something must be done to facilitate the transit of goods between the two cities. What? Build a tramroad, or a railroad. Nobody, however, but a very fast man would risk his good sense by seriously advising a railroad. Prudent men would certainly shun him. A tramroad was a better understood thing. The collieries had used small pieces of them for years. A tramroad then. Business men put their heads together, and began earnestly to talk of a tramroad. Edward James, a rich and enterprising man, entered heartily into the project, and undertook to make surveys for a suitable route. And not long after a party of surveyors were seen in the fields near Liverpool. Their instruments and movements excited attention. People eyed them with anxiety: suspicions were roused: the inhabitants became alarmed. Who were they, making The landowners, who might be supposed to have known better, told the farmers to drive them off; and the farmers, with their hands, were only too ready to obey. They stationed themselves at the field gates and bars with pitchforks, rakes, shovels, sticks, and dared the surveyors to come on. A poor chain-man, not quite as nimble as his pursuers, made his leap over a fence, quickened by a pitchfork from behind. Even women and children joined the hue and cry, pelting the strangers with stones and dirt whenever they had a chance. The colliers were not behind the farmers in their foolish hostility. A stray surveyor was caught and thrown into a pond. At a sight of the theodolite their fury knew no bounds. That unoffending instrument they You may well suppose that surveying under such circumstances was no light matter. What was the gist of the hostility? It is hard to tell. The canal owners might have had a hand in scattering these wild fears; fears of what, however, it is not so easy to find out. There was nothing in a simple horse railroad, or tramroad, as it is called, to provoke an opposition so bitter from the people. It was a new thing; and new Nor did the project generally secure the approval of those who would be most benefited by it. Mr. James and his friends held public meetings in all the towns and villages along the way, enterprising men in Liverpool and Manchester delivered speeches, and tried to create a public interest; but there was a holding back, which, while it checked all actual progress in the enterprise, did not cause it to be altogether given up. The time had not come. That was all. Mr. James had a secret leaning towards the use of steam on the new road. He would have immediately and unhesitatingly advocated a railroad run by locomotives. But that was out of the question. The public were far behind that point, and to have openly advocated it would have risked his judgment and good sense in the Stephenson was not at home. "Puffing Billy" was, and "Billy" puffed in a way that took Mr. James's heart at once. He seemed to see at a glance "Billy's" remarkable power, and was struck with admiration and delight. "Here is an engine," he exclaimed, "that is destined before long to work a complete revolution in society." The image of "Puffing Billy" followed him home. "Why," he wrote to Stephenson's partner in the patent, "it is the greatest wonder of the age, and the forerunner, I believe, of most important changes in the modes of travel in the kingdom." A few weeks later he made another visit to The boys were frightened at the sight of the snorting monster; but Stephenson encouraged them to mount with their father, and see how harmless and manageable the giant was. The second visit was even more gratifying than the first. "Mr. Stephenson," said James, "is the greatest practical genius of the age. His fame will rank with that of Watt." Mr. James lost all hesitation now about speaking his mind. "Puffing Billy" had driven the backwardness out of him, and he was willing, at all hazards, boldly to advocate railroads and the steam-horse. No more tramroads; steam or nothing. This was in 1821. Mr. James entered heart and soul into the new idea of the age. On his return to Liverpool it was everywhere his theme; and wherever he had Stephenson rejoiced in such a friend. It was just what he and "Billy" most needed—somebody to introduce them into the great world. And Stephenson and his partner offered him a share in the profits of whatever business he could secure to them. But what can one man, or a few men, do in an enterprise like this, depending upon the verdict of that important power—Public Opinion? And public opinion had not yet made up its mind to it. A thousand difficulties bristled in the way; there was both the indifference of friends and the opposition of enemies at home. In addition to this, a violent opposition was foreseen in Parliament, which it needed all the strength and courage of a united constituency to meet. Under these discouraging circumstances there were not enough men of courage to push the matter through. So everything about the new road was laid on the shelf, at least for the present, and Liverpool and Manchester trade jogged on as before. |
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