“There is nothing,” said one, “but long sedgy grass to prevent the train from sinking into the shades of eternal night.” “They cannot go so fast as the canal,” said another. A third appealed to the pocket. “If this bill succeeds, by the time railroads are set going, the poor, gulled subscribers will have lost all their money; and, instead of locomotive engines, they must have recourse to horses or asses, not meaning to say which.” Those whose interests would be affected decided that “locomotives could not succeed”; and numberless were the sneers at the idea of engines galloping as fast as five miles an hour. One sapient gentleman thought the trains might go at four miles and a half in fine weather, but not more than two and a half in wet. “When we set out with the original prospectus,” was the remark of the counsel, “we were to gallop I know not at what rate. I believe it was twelve miles an hour, with the aid of a devil in the form of a locomotive sitting as postilion on the fore-horse, and an honorable member sitting behind him to stir up the fire, and keep it up at full speed. I will show they cannot go six. I may be able to show we shall keep up with him by the canal.” “Thus, Sir, I prove that locomotive engines cannot move at more than four miles and a quarter an hour; and I show the scheme is bottomed on deception and fallacy.” Turnpike trusts were to be ruined, and therefore railroads were not to be forwarded; and it was deemed unanswerable to say that the canal interests would be hurt by the rail. Though it was proved by others that more money had been offered for land if the line passed through than if it did not, it was of no importance in the eyes of those who, blinded by selfishness, refused to be convinced. The war-cry on one side was the venerable “vested rights”; on the other, “progress.” Men prosily and pathetically talked of tempting Providence by travelling at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The fine breed of English horses would be deteriorated, and our cavalry be worsted at the first onset. The prosperity of a great community was said to be involved in the contest; and the question whether a few miles of railway would peril the welfare of the kingdom, was openly discussed. Stable-boys joined in the contest, and urged the greatness of their claim; the porters proved how important a class would be sacrificed to so unimportant an end; and the clergy, alarmed lest the rustic should neglect the Sunday sermon to see the passing train, added to the number of petitions. A million horses were to be thrown out of service, and eight millions of oat-growing acres to be abandoned. Gentlemen with neither sense nor science wrote treatises to demonstrate the danger of travelling more than ten miles an hour, and, at the same time, left on record their want of sympathy with crack-brained speculators.