These "innocent" railroads--as they have been sometimes and most
appropriately named, seeing that they were guiltless alike of blood and
high speed--were drawn by horses, and confined at first to the
conveyance of coals. Modest though their pretensions were, however,
they were found to be an immense improvement on the ordinary roads,
insomuch that ten horses were found to be capable of working the traffic
on railroads, which it required 400 horses to perform on a common road.
These iron roads, therefore, began to multiply, and about the beginning
of the present century they were largely employed in the coal-fields and
mineral districts of the kingdom. About the same time thoughtful men,
seeing the immense advantage of such ways, began to suggest the
formation of railways, or tramways, to run along the side of our
turnpike-roads--a mode of conveyance, by the way, in regard to towns,
which thoughtful men are still, ever at the present day of supposed
enlightenment, endeavouring to urge upon an unbelieving public--a mode
of conveyance which we feel very confident will entirely supersede our
cumbrous and antiquated "'bus" in a very short time. What, we ask, in
the name of science and art and common-sense, is to prevent a tramway
being laid from Kensington to the Bank, "or elsewhere," which shall be
traversed by a succession of roomy carriages following each other every
five minutes; which tramway might be crossed and recrossed and run upon,
or, in other words, used by all the other vehicles of London except when
the rightful carriages were in the way? Nothing prevents, save that
same unbelief which has obstructed the development of every good thing
from the time that Noah built the ark! But we feel assured that the
thing shall be, and those who read this book may perhaps live to see it!