In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute--a "universal epidemic." George Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and _Punch_ expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring. Burlesques of various railway projects--centrifugal and atmospheric--abound. _Punch_ ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England." The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and _Punch_ asserts that the largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes. The protests of fox-hunters, noted by _Punch_, recall the verses of the Cheshire poet:-- Let the steam pot Hiss till it's hot, But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot. [Illustration: THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845] The mania was not confined to men: _Punch_ satirizes the ladies who were "stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel Court," a parody which begins:-- All the world are stags! Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers-- and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:-- Last scene of all, That ends this sad but common history, Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking: Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything. Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull--on whom "the sweet simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall--with humbugging promoters is hit off in the stanza:-- Said John, "Your plan my mind contents, I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.; And don't get enough by my paltry rents"-- So he got hooked in by the railway "gents." [Illustration: KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE] [Sidenote: _Rules for Railways_]