The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel. [Illustration: Proposed lines.... RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)] [Sidenote: _The Impudence of Steam_] On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part _Punch_ is concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway directors were to him anathema. In his first volume _Punch_ sturdily declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The "Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet of which is still often quoted:-- "Ease her, stop her!" "Any gentleman for Joppa?" "'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir." "Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!" "Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!" "Do you go on to Egypt, sir?" "Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?" "Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?" "Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!" "What gent or lady's for the Nile," "Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!" "Now, where's that party for Engedi?" Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights, Had ye e'er the least idea, Even in your wildest flights, Of a steam trip to Judea? What next marvel Time will show It is difficult to say, "'Bus," perchance, to Jericho, "Only sixpence all the way." Cabs in Solyma may fly; 'Tis a not unlikely tale: And from Dan the tourist hie Unto Beersheba by "rail." But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt. Third-class passengers were negligible and contemptible folk; neither punctuality nor civility was to be expected.