intercourse for business or amusement; while it spreads it over the whole surface for purposes of healthful air and beautiful country scenery; and we know not yet its maximum rapidity; but our gardens, our farms, above all, our mines and manufactories, will be placed as near the great sea-ports and the sea as if Birmingham was only 30 or 40 miles from Liverpool or London. But the great point of all is the economy: and here, while we claim the right to assert a great economy, we may readily allow that there may not have been sufficient time to estimate all the expenses with which railways and engines of rapid motion may be attended. But would the low prices have been fixed between Liverpool and Manchester if the managers of this interesting establishment had not found they could with justice to the proprietors take those reduced prices? The repair of engines appears great: average this on the quantity of work performed, and you find the charge per passenger or per ton is a mere trifle,—a fraction of a farthing. We will however admit that more time is necessary to ascertain the exact expense. But we must not forget that no great improvement is ever perfected at once: whatever be the expense at first, may we not justly expect it will be reduced?—A curious paper has been published on the power, or what is called the duty, of the steam-engine in Cornwall. You know that instrument is there used most extensively to drain the deep and valuable mines. At the earliest record in the document to which I am referring, the quantity of water raised by a bushel of coals is denoted by the number 5. The attention of the greatest engineers was drawn to this county. The celebrated Smeaton made considerable improvements; the memorable discovery which placed our late illustrious neighbour Mr. Watt in the very first rank of benefactors to his country and mankind, raised the efficiency of a single bushel to 25; subsequently, I believe, still higher. But since his time, merely by a patient attention to every minute circumstance in the construction and the working of the engine, without any new discovery, the duty has been raised from 25 to 85 or 95. Here is a progress, during no very long period: and even were the expense of the locomotive engine ten or twenty times greater than it is, there would be no reason to despair of its economy. Am I not justified then in contending that this town is most deeply interested in the establishment of a railway to Liverpool and to London? It never was more deeply interested in any contrivance to diminish the expense of carriage than at this moment. What is the state of the iron trade of Staffordshire? What the prospect of that industrious population which depends upon it? A reduction of one half in the expense of carriage, which the railways appear justly to promise, would convert a bad trade into a good one; would give Staffordshire a superiority over all competitors. At this moment the remission of the