Another humbler mode of progress, again, was a familiar sight in our boyhood, when the farmer’s wife jogged contentedly to market, seated on a pillion, behind her husband, and carrying her butter, eggs, or chickens, in roomy market baskets by her side. Even the gig, to carry two, of the better bucolic class, has now become obsolete, as the train pours out, at the station, its living stream of market folk, male and female, within a few minutes of leaving their own doors several miles away. As to our country roads we are, it is true, well supplied with them, but a pageant view of the past, such as we have here conceived, would reveal to us our British forefathers, toiling, in wearied gangs, under Roman task-masters, at the forced labour of road making; by which the town’s markets and chartered fairs were to be accessible, from all directions, for generations yet unborn. In our present iron ways, we might well suppose that we have attained the highest evolutionary stage in expeditious traffic; but who, indeed, shall venture to gainsay, that as a sequel to our wireless telegraphy, we may one day eschew the mundane altogether, and become a race of aeronauts. The Great Northern loop line, connecting Boston and Lincoln with Peterborough and Grantham, and so with the further north and south, was opened in October, 1848. At that date, except the “Navigation” for heavy goods, such as corn, coal, &c., there were only coaches, once a day, for public conveyance to Boston, Lincoln, Market Rasen, and Louth. But through the enterprise of Mr. Samuel Sketchley, of Horncastle, Solicitor, of the old firm of Selwood and Conington, an Act of Parliament was, not without difficulty, obtained, July 10th, 1854, for the construction of a branch line, running from Kirkstead to Horncastle; the importance of this event being recognised by a joyous peal of the parish church bells being rung, and crowds parading the streets, at 10 o’clock at night, at which hour the news arrived. The next day the rejoicings were continued, the bells of St. Mary’s Church being again rung, while the tower of the church was adorned with a tricolour flag, bearing the inscription “God speed the railway,” and crowds again passed through the streets, headed by the town band and a large tricolour standard. The construction of the line was begun in April of the following year, 1855; the contractors being Messrs. Smith & Knight. The original capital of the company was £48,000, in £10 shares, but the ultimate cost was about £60,000. The G.N.R. Company undertook the working, paying half the receipts to the shareholders; and as, for the distance (about 7½ miles), the expenditure was, compared with that of many such undertakings, small, so, as an investment, the enterprise proved a profitable one, few lines yielding so good a return for the outlay; the £10 shares still (in 1907) sell at nearly half as much again (£14 17s. 3d., July, 1907).