In the old system of travelling it was safer to drive along a lonely road than through crowded streets; old horses as well as old drivers were deemed safer than young ones; in fact, the more the traveller was impeded, the less dangerous was his journey. But on our railways, when once a man has tied himself to the tail of a locomotive engine, it matters but little, especially in a fog, whether he flies at the pace of fifty miles an hour, or whether he crawls, as it is now termed, at the rate only of twenty; for, in either case, if there be anything faulty in the works, machinery, or management, accidents may occur to him which it is fearful to contemplate. Considering, therefore, that not only the ability necessary for the general management of a railway, but the intelligence and vigilance requisite at every station and on every portion of the line are found practically to increase according to the demand, and _vice versâ_, it is evident that nothing would prove more fatal to the public as well as ruinous to proprietors than to split an efficient remunerating great railway into two or more inefficient and unremunerating small ones. A little railway, like “a little war,” is murderous to those engaged in it,--ruinous to those who pay for it; and we are therefore of opinion that it is for the interest of the public not only that traffic should be concentrated as much as possible on large lines, rich enough to purchase management, engineering, servants, and materials of the very best description, but that these great lines by uniting together should voluntarily force themselves to exchange all paltry considerations, mean exactions, and petty projects for those great principles which alone should guide the administration of a _national system_ of railways. There can be no doubt that any description of monopoly is abstractedly an evil, but if it be equally true that every inch of railway throughout the country represents an integral portion of a vast legally constituted monopolizing system, the practical question to consider is, not whether monopoly is an evil, but whether, of two evils, it would be more or less convenient for Parliament and the public to deal with _one_ monopoly than with _many_;--whether, for instance, it would be more or less easy for Government, in recommending alterations of fares, &c., to correspond solely with the directors of the London and North-Western Railway than to communicate _seriatim_ with the boards of the several companies to whom the present line originally belonged, each of which might possibly, in opposition to each other, be pursuing a different course of policy.