just been weighed, tapped, gauged, and sampled; also several trucks full of household furniture; the family warming-pan being tacked round the body of the eight-day clock, &c. This extraordinary whirl of business, set to music by the various noises proceeding from the working of the steam-cranes, steam-doller, steam-capstan, common cranes, and other machinery above the platform--from the arrival, turning, backing, and departure of spring-waggons beneath it--from the rumbling of porters’ trucks crossing the platform, as also of the railway vans as, laden with goods, they are successively rolled away--forms altogether, we repeat, a scene which, though rarely visited, is astounding to witness, and which, we are sensible, we have but very faintly described. But, besides the amount of business above mentioned daily transacted in each of the agents’ great “receiving-sheds,” there are nine other sheds, in which, throughout the day, and especially at night, the same process on a smaller scale is going on. Close to these stores there is also a water-dock for iron and heavy goods to be shipped for the Thames. The carting establishments of Messrs. Pickford and Chaplin for the collection and delivery of their share only of the goods-traffic--for the Company have establishments of their own for loading and unloading at every station except London--would appear to any foreigner unacquainted with the modest and unassuming powers with which the mercantile business of England is quietly transacted, to be incomprehensible and almost incredible. For instance-- Messrs. Pickford’s establishment, on account of the London and North-Western Railway, is as follows:-- Clerks. Porters. Horses. Vans. Waggons. Drays. 234 538 396 82 57 25 The weights carted by Messrs. Pickford, on account of the Company, for the year ending the 30th of June last, amounted to-- Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs. Collected 133,437 18 0 15 Delivered 139,898 19 0 5 ----------------------------- Making a gross total of 273,336 17 0 20 ----------------------------- Or rather more than 841 tons per day. And yet the Company’s merchandise operations at Liverpool exceed those at London in the proportion of 9 to 6½!