It was up in the North, in the colliery districts by the Tyne, that the idea of tramways, along which trains of trucks, drawn by horses or mules, seem to have first come into use; and they can certainly be traced there as far back as the time of King Charles I (about the year 1630). The first railway which Parliament allowed to be laid in the South of England was the "Surrey Iron Railway". This connected Croydon with Wandsworth, and, later on, it was extended to Merstham. That was about the year 1801, and was intended to convey merchandise, not passengers. For a time it was of great service to mills and factories on the River Wandle. That was the first railway in that part of the country, and the trucks were drawn by donkeys! [Illustration: _George Stephenson's Locomotive "The Rocket", which at its trial trip in 1830 ran 29 miles an hour_] A writer of that time, who thought that he was a very wise, far-seeing man, gave it as his opinion "that it was not probable that railways would ever come into general use!" Well, it is never very wise to prophesy until you really know. Nearly every new invention has been scoffed at at first. Even in this present century, when the early experiments in the use of air-craft were being made, thousands of persons gravely shook their heads in disapproval, declaring that man was never intended to "fly". The Great War time has seen wonderful developments in air-craft, and so many "impossible" things have been achieved that we can realize, just a little bit, that air-craft has "a great future" before it, greater than we can as yet grasp. It would be impossible to give here even a bare outline of the story of the English Railways, but the making of these railways and their use and development brought about rapidly many marvellous changes which have affected the life of the nation. Seventy and eighty years ago, when railways were first being made, they excited a great deal more attention and interest than they do to-day. Railways were so new then, for one thing, and there were so many of them being made about the same time for another thing. There are hundreds of miles of railway going through quiet country districts, which were made many years ago, and there are thousands of people living in those districts who have been born since the railways were made. To them the railway is as much an everyday thing as the old parish church, the town pump, or the river. So far as _they_ are concerned, the line has been always there--they never saw the country-side before the railway came. But in the years--say between 1830 and 1860--the work was watched with much interest, and it excited much talk, both wise and foolish.