Wherever railways have been made, new towns have sprung up, and old towns and cities been quickened into new life. When the first English lines were projected, great were the prophecies of disaster to the inhabitants of the districts through which they were proposed to be forced. Such fears have long since been dispelled in this country. The same prejudices existed in France. When the railway from Paris to Marseilles was laid out so as to pass through Lyons, a local prophet predicted that if the line were made the city would be ruined—“_Ville traversée_, _ville perdue_;” while a local priest denounced the locomotive and the electric telegraph as heralding _the reign of Antichrist_. But such nonsense is no longer uttered. Now it is the city without the railway that is regarded as the “city lost;” for it is in a measure shut out from the rest of the world, and left outside the pale of civilisation. Perhaps the most striking of all the illustrations that could be offered of the extent to which railways facilitate the locomotion, the industry, and the subsistence of the population of large towns and cities, is afforded by the working of the railway system in connection with the capital of Great Britain. The extension of railways to London has been of comparatively recent date; the whole of the lines connecting it with the provinces and terminating at its outskirts, having been opened during the last thirty years, while the lines inside London have for the most part been opened within the last sixteen years. The first London line was the Greenwich Railway, part of which was opened for traffic to Deptford in February 1836. The working of this railway was first exhibited as a show, and the usual attractions were employed to make it “draw.” A band of musicians in the garb of the Beef-eaters was stationed at the London end, and another band at Deptford. For cheapness’ sake the Deptford band was shortly superseded by a large barrel-organ, which played in the passengers; but, when the traffic became established, the barrel organ, as well as the beef-eater band at the London end, were both discontinued. The whole length of the line was lit up at night by a row of lamps on either side like a street, as if to enable the locomotives or the passengers to see their way in the dark; but these lamps also were eventually discontinued as unnecessary.