raised to twelve miles an hour and then to fifteen. [Sidenote: Stephenson's practical demonstration] The runners on foot, the gentlemen on horseback and the horseman with the flag were left far behind. So, with the cross-beams and side-rods trembling from the violent motion, the red-hot chimney ejecting clouds of black smoke, amid the cheers of the delighted spectators and to the astonishment of the passengers--the immortal George Stephenson brought his train safely into Darlington. As the "Newcastle Courant" (October 1, 1825) put it, "certainly the performance excited the astonishment of all present, and exceeded the most sanguine expectations of every one conversant with the subject. The engine arrived at Stockton in three hours and seven minutes after leaving Darlington, including stops, the distance being nearly twelve miles, which is at the rate of four miles an hour; and upon the level part of the railway, the number of passengers was counted about four hundred and fifty, and several more clung to the carriages on each side. At one time the passengers by the engine had the pleasure of accompanying and cheering their brother passengers by the stage coach, which passed alongside, and of observing the striking contrast exhibited by the power of the engine and of horses; the engine with her six hundred passengers and load, and the coach with four horses and only sixteen passengers." [Sidenote: Immediate railroad development] So successful was the Stockton and Darlington railway that a bill was brought in Parliament for the construction of a railroad between Liverpool and Manchester after Stephenson's plan. The scheme was violently opposed. Its detractors, among whom were Lords Lefton and Derby, declared that Stephenson's locomotive would poison the air, kill the birds as they flew over them, destroy the preservation of pheasants, burn up the farms and homesteads near the lines; that oats and hay would become unsalable because horses would become extinct; travelling on the highways would become impossible; country inns would be ruined; boilers would burst and kill hundreds of passengers. Indeed, there was no peril imaginable that was not predicted to attend the working of a railroad by steam. When Stephenson was examined by a Parliamentary committee, one of the members put this question: "Suppose, now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad at a rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line, and get in the way of the engine, would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance?" "Yaw," replied Stephenson, in his broad Northumbrian dialect, "ay, awkward--for the _coo_." On account of his speech Stephenson was denounced as a "foreigner," and the bill was thrown out by the committee, by a vote of 37 against 36. After a second Parliamentary battle, the bill was passed through both Houses by a majority of forty-seven votes. The passage of the act cost L27,000.