Mr. Gray in his book exhibits a marvellous insight into the wants and requirements of the country. He remarks, “The plan might be commenced between the towns of Manchester and Liverpool, where a trial could soon be made, as the distance is not very great, and the commercial part of England would thereby be better able to appreciate its many excellent properties and prove its efficacy. All the great trading towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire would then eagerly embrace the opportunity to secure so commodious and easy a conveyance, and cause branch railways to be laid down in every possible direction. The convenience and economy in the carriage of the raw material to the numerous manufactories established in these counties, the expeditious and cheap delivery of piece goods bought by the merchants every week at the various markets, and the despatch in forwarding bales and packages to the outposts cannot fail to strike the merchant and manufacturer as points of the first importance. Nothing, for example, would be so likely to raise the ports of Hull, Liverpool, and Bristol to an unprecedented pitch of prosperity as the establishment of railways to those ports, thereby rendering the communication from the east to the west seas, and all intermediate places, rapid, cheap, and effectual. Anyone at all conversant with commerce must feel the vast importance of such an undertaking in forwarding the produce of America, Brazils, the East and West Indies, etc., from Liverpool and Bristol, _via_ Hull, to the opposite shores of Germany and Holland, and, _vice versa_, the produce of the Baltic, _via_ Hull, to Liverpool and Bristol. Again, by the establishment of morning and evening mail steam carriages, the commercial interest would derive considerable advantage; the inland mails might be forwarded with greater despatch and the letters delivered much earlier than by the extra post; the opportunity of correspondence between London and all mercantile places would be much improved, and the rate of postage might be generally diminished without injuring the receipts of the post office, because any deficiency occasioned by a reduction in the postage would be made good by the increased number of journeys which mail steam carriages might make. The London and Edinburgh mail steam carriages might take all the mails and parcels on the line of road between these two cities, which would exceedingly reduce the expense occasioned by mail coaches on the present footing. The ordinary stage coaches, caravans, or wagons, running any considerable distance along the main railway, might also be conducted on peculiarly favourable terms to the public; for instance, one steam engine of superior power would enable its proprietors to convey several coaches, caravans, or wagons, linked together until they arrive at their respective branches, when other engines might proceed on with them to their destination. By a due regulation of the departure and arrival of