=341. Commercial importance of the subjects of the chapter.=—“Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing-press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species.” Macaulay’s celebrated sentence applies to civilization in general. With regard to the material civilization depending upon commerce, certainly no factor has been of greater importance than improvement in the means of transportation and communication. An improvement in these means has been effected during the past century, without a parallel in the world’s history; and a description of the changes deserves the most careful attention of the student in the short space which can be allowed the subject. =342. Statistical survey of development.=—For a convenient means of reference I introduce, in this place, a statistical table (on opposite page) showing the development of the most important modern instruments of transportation and communication. =343. Improvement in the condition of roads.=—Aside from the stretches of canal which had been brought into operation, the universal means of inland transportation about 1800 was the road. Some reference has been made in an earlier chapter to the condition of English highways in the eighteenth century, and to the improvements which marked that period. Conditions on the Continent were worse than those in England. French roads were mere tracks in the first part of the eighteenth century, and for the most part were still hopelessly bad at its close, when the system of maintaining the roads by forced labor was abolished. From near the close of the eighteenth century, however, we may date the beginning of a period of rapid improvement in the roads of western Europe. The turnpike system, which allowed tolls to be charged for the use of improved highways, encouraged the investment of capital in these undertakings. The teachings of Telford and Macadam, two great road-engineers who emphasized the necessity of using good materials and securing proper drainage, were generally applied. In the period from 1800 to 1850 the roads of Europe were reformed to meet the demands which commerce made upon them, before the introduction of the railroad, and were put in the excellent condition which attracts the attention of American travelers to-day. The cost of freight transportation was reduced to half or less of what it had been, and the speed of passenger service increased correspondingly. An Englishman, Porter, notes that in 1798 he occupied nineteen hours in traveling eighty miles by what was considered a “fast coach”; when he wrote, in 1838, the trip was made in eight hours.