is only one salmon in the London market, it will sell, as it has done before now, at the rate of a-guinea per pound, and it would be obviously unfair to charge the fishmonger with being actuated by "a low tone of moral feeling." He coerces no customer: he simply states his price, and if no one chooses to buy, no one has a right to complain. Our friend Francis seems to labour under the hallucination that everything required for a railway ought to be furnished at prime cost. That the promoters expect fifteen percent is nothing. Nay, even the free-trading rule of selling in the dearest and buying in the cheapest market is to be suspended for their behoof. The seller is to have no option: he must be cheap to them, else he is a moral monster. If, however, the judicious panegyrist of Mr Carr Glyn does not carry his principles quite so far, he lays himself open to the charge of most monstrous inconsistency. During the prevalence of the railway mania, all commodities requisite for their construction rose greatly in value. From iron to railway sleepers--in wood, metal, and everything connected with the making of the lines--there was an enormous enhancement of price. And why? On account of the demand. Was the soil on which that iron and wood was to be laid--the absolute foundation of the railway itself--to be paid for at a meaner rate? Mr Francis seems to think so; and we cannot help honouring him for the candid expression of his opinions, even while we regret the conglomeration of ideas which gave them birth. We are afraid that he has been talked over by some of his acute acquaintances. It is the fashion at railway meetings to attribute all disasters to some other cause than the mismanagement of the directors; and we daresay that Mr Francis has been fully indoctrinated with such opinions. It is not agreeable to meet shareholders with a confession of dwindled dividend. But when imperious circumstances render such a course inevitable, it is convenient to be prepared with some "fallacy" which may help to account for the fact, and to stifle too curious investigation. The readiest scapegoat is the landowner. All accounting with him is past and gone, yet he still can be made to bear the blame for a vast amount of reckless prodigality. He is not there to speak for himself--he has no connection with the company. Therefore, whenever failure must be acknowledged, the onus is cast upon him. Railway orators and railway writers alike conceal the real cause of the disaster, and combine to cast discredit and aspersion upon the gentry of England.