be advantageously worked. Besides the additional wear and tear, more strength is required to work the vessel, and it takes treble the time to convey 15 tons at low water as it does four times that weight at other times. To improvements that affect only a portion of the river, and that the lower portion, the Shropshire traders very naturally took objection. They saw that for any benefit to be derived from navigating the lower portion of the Severn they would be taxed, without being able themselves to participate in it, and at a meeting of iron and coal masters, Severn carriers, and others, held at the Tontine Inn, Ironbridge, on the 2nd of December, 1836, for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety of opposing the project of the Worcester Severn Navigation Company, for the introduction of locks and weirs upon the river, Richard Darby, Esq., in the chair, it was resolved, “That having attentively considered the plan proposed by the Worcester Severn Navigation Company, for effecting alterations in the channel of that river, it is of opinion that, whilst the execution of that plan affords no stable prospect of extensive advantage to the public at large, its effects upon a variety, of important local interests, and particularly upon the trading community of this neighbourhood, will be in the highest degree injurious. That the introduction of these works, even if Shropshire vessels were permitted to pass them free of any impost, would be injurious to the traders of this county, but that the exaction from that body of a toll or tonage for such passage would inflict on them a burden of the most unjust and oppressive character. That a petition or petitions in opposition be accordingly at the proper stage presented, and supported by evidence, according to the course of Parliamentary proceeding, and that every exertion be used to obtain the support of members of both houses to the prayer of such petitions.”