His lordship had very recently been appointed Prime Minister, and was on his way to Edinburgh to deliver a great public speech. The train, presumably, was late, or he, through stress of business probably, had left too little margin of time. However, by the instructions of Mr. Thompson, the general manager of the Caledonian Railway, the express was accelerated, and it rushed over 101 miles in 105 minutes, one of the quickest locomotive runs, we imagine, that have ever been recorded. The train arrived fifteen minutes before it was due, and Lord Rosebery was enabled to keep his engagement. This run was approximately at the rate of a mile a minute, and maintained for an hour and three-quarters. Only some two years or so previously a somewhat similar run was made. An officer of the Guards found that he had lost the south-going mail train at Stirling. He had been on leave in Scotland, and was bound to report himself in London next morning. What was he to do? Did he sit down and moan, or fly to the telegraph office and endeavour to excuse himself? Not he. He promptly engaged a special train, which flying over the metals, actually caught the mail at Carlisle, having covered 118 miles in 126 minutes; that is, again, approximately a mile a minute, and maintained for slightly over two hours. Now, in order to attain high average speed, some parts of the journey, say very easy inclines or levels, must be covered at a much higher rate. Thus, to obtain an average of fifty-two miles an hour—which is probably the regular average of our best English expresses—the pace will most likely be sometimes at the rate of seventy, or it may be seventy-six, miles per hour. The United States have claimed to run the fastest regular train. This is the “Empire State Express” of the New York Central, which bursts away from New York to Buffalo, a trip of 140 miles, at the average rate of 52-12/100 miles per hour, but running eighty miles at the rate of 56¾ miles an hour. It is also said that, in August, 1891, a train on the New York portion of the Reading road ran a mile in less than forty seconds, and covered a dozen miles at an average of barely 43½ seconds per mile. English expresses could certainly accomplish these average speeds, but the fact is very high speeds do not pay. They wear everything to pieces. Then there is the coal consumption. American railway engineers—according to the _Engineer_ newspaper—“seem to be unable to get on with less than 100 lbs. per square foot (of fire grate area) as a minimum;” while, from the same paper, we learn that the average rate of burning of Mr. Webb’s remarkable North-Western engine, the “Greater Britain,” was but “a little over seventy-three lbs. per square foot per hour,” or, altogether, 1500 lbs. per hour.