These speculations show that the subject of railways was gradually becoming familiar to the public mind, and that thoughtful men were anticipating with confidence the adoption of steam-power for the purposes of railway traction. At the same time, a still more profitable class of labourers was at work—first, men like Stephenson, who were engaged in improving the locomotive and making it a practicable and economical working power; and next, those like Edward Pease of Darlington, and Joseph Sandars of Liverpool, who were organising the means of laying down the railways. Mr. William James, of West Bromwich, belonged to the active class of projectors. He was a man of considerable social influence, of an active temperament, and had from an early period taken a warm interest in the formation of tramroads. Acting as land-agent for gentlemen of property in the mining districts, he had laid down several tramroads in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, Gloucester, and Bristol; and he published many pamphlets urging their formation in other places. At one period of his life he was a large iron-manufacturer. The times, however, went against him. It was thought he was too bold, some considered him even reckless, in his speculations; and he lost almost his entire fortune. He continued to follow the business of a land-agent, and it was while engaged in making a survey for one of his clients in the neighbourhood of Liverpool early in 1821, that he first heard of the project of a railway between that town and Manchester. He at once called upon Mr. Sandars, and offered his services as surveyor of the proposed line, and his offer was accepted. [Picture: Map of Liverpool and Manchester Railway. (Western Part.)] [Picture: Map of Liverpool and Manchester Railway. (Eastern Part.)] A trial survey was then begun, but it was conducted with great difficulty, the inhabitants of the district entertaining the most violent prejudices against the scheme. In some places Mr. James and his surveying party even encountered personal violence. The farmers stationed men at the field-gates with pitchforks, and sometimes with guns, to drive them back. At St. Helen’s, one of the chainmen was laid hold of by a mob of colliers, and threatened to be hurled down a coal-pit. A number of men, women, and children, collected and ran after the surveyors wherever they made their appearance, bawling nicknames and throwing stones at them. As one of the chainmen was climbing over a gate one day, a labourer made at him with a pitchfork, and ran it through his clothes into his back; other watchers running up, the chainman, who was more stunned than hurt, took to his heels and fled. But that mysterious-looking instrument—-the theodolite-—most excited the fury of the natives, who concentrated on the man who carried it their fiercest execrations and most offensive nicknames.