The first result of Gray’s great scheme was with the capital of those men who had previously derided him. The men of Manchester found they were paying too much for the cost of conveyance, and availed themselves of the idea they formerly denounced. A railway was projected between Liverpool and Manchester, and then commenced that ignorant opposition, of which one of the blue books contains such pregnant proof. By this it appears clearly that the transit between Liverpool and Manchester had long been insufficient. It was stated in evidence, that places were bespoke for goods, like places at a theatre. “It is not your turn yet,” was a common reply, if extraordinary energy were required; and it was clearly proved that the monopolizers would only send as much cotton as they chose, arbitrarily fixing the quantity at thirty bags a week. The fifty-five miles by canal occupied as long as the distance to New York. The boats were too few to convey the goods; and on one canal the proprietors received for their yearly dividend the amount of their original investment. In vain were the agents importuned to render conveyance more rapid and less expensive. The monopoly remained with the owner of the canal, who, blinded by a long course of success, could not see that, with the increase of business, an increased communication must be opened; and it is singular that, when the railroad was first contemplated, and its promoters applied to the agent to take some shares, an answer worthy of an autocratic government rather than a commercial age was given, of “all or none.” The shrewd merchants of the North chose the latter alternative. The difficulties, therefore, with which the new invention had to contend, were legion; and the Parliamentary inquiry, already alluded to, produced one of the most remarkable blue books ever published. A few extracts from the folio will evince the extraordinary ideas entertained on the subject, the extraordinary ignorance evinced by men regarded as scientific, and the yet more extraordinary prejudice which marked the progress of opinion on railway transit. It is, however, right to say, that the friends and foes of the proposed scheme were equally unscrupulous in their endeavours to forward their interests, as levels were taken without permission, strawberry-beds destroyed, cornfields trodden down, and surveys taken by night, at the risk of life and limb. On the other hand, guns were discharged at the intruders; the land was watched incessantly; and the enthusiasm of the great engineer of the line narrowly escaped being cooled in a horsepond.