Thus lax as is the ethical code of engineers, and greatly as they are interested in railway enterprise, it is to be expected that they should be active and not very scrupulous promoters of it. To illustrate the vigour and skill with which they further new undertakings, a few facts may be cited. Not far from London, and lying between two lines of railway, is an estate lately purchased by one of our engineers. He has since obtained Acts for branches to both of the adjacent lines. One of these branches he has leased to the company whose line it joins; and he has tried to do the like with the other, but as yet without success. Even as it is, however, he is considered to have doubled the value of his property. Again, an engineer of celebrity once nearly succeeded in smuggling through Parliament, in the bill for a proposed railway, a clause extending the limits of deviation, to several miles on each side of the line, {72} throughout a certain district—the usual limits being but five chains on each side; and the attempt is accounted for by the fact, that this engineer possessed mines in this district. To press forward extensions by the companies with which they are connected, they occasionally go to great lengths. Not long since, at a half-yearly meeting, certain projects which the proprietary had already once rejected, were again brought forward by two engineers who attended in their capacity of shareholders. Though known to be personally interested, one of them moved and the other seconded, that some new proposals from the promoters of these schemes be considered without delay by the directors. The motion was carried; the directors approved the proposals; and again, the proprietors negatived them. A third time a like effort was made; a third time a conflict arose; and within a few days of the special meeting at which the division was to take place, one of these engineers circulated among the shareholders a pamphlet denying the allegations of the dissentient party and making counter-statements which it was then too late to meet. Nay, he did more: he employed agents to canvass the shareholders for proxies in support of the new undertaking; and was obliged to confess as much when charged with it at the meeting.