Had the nineteenth century nothing else to show save the improvement in transportation, its fame would be secure. Within a dozen years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Great Britain was covered with railways or railway surveys, establishing all the trunk-lines which now exist. The thirty and a half miles of the original line grew by leaps and bounds to a system of nearly two thousand miles, the property of a single company, whose property is valued at five hundred million dollars. Twenty-five years after the day of the "Rocket's" victory eight thousand miles of railway were in operation in the United Kingdom. Another twenty-five years brought the total up to eighteen thousand miles, which had cost for construction nearly four billion dollars. At the same time (1883) the number of locomotives was 14,469, of cars, 490,661. Before Manchester and Liverpool were connected by railway thirty stage-coaches sufficed for the passenger traffic. The railway carried seven hundred thousand passengers between the two cities in its first year and one-half. Fifty years later the passengers on all the English lines numbered six hundred million, of whom eighty-five per cent traveled third-class. The freight traffic in the same year was two hundred and twenty-six million tons. Robert Stephenson lived to see one per cent of the entire population of the United Kingdom employed on the railways. In 1884 the number of such employees was 367,793. These few figures are sufficient to suggest the magnitude of the economic changes which took place in England, and indeed throughout the civilized world, as the direct result of the talent, industry, and perseverance of George Stephenson, the Northumbrian plowboy. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 1. Describe the early life of George Stephenson. 2. What attempts at locomotives had been made prior to his time? 3. What success of Stephenson's led to the Stockton-Darlington railway? 4. How did the " Quarterly" comment on the proposed Liverpool line? 5. What was the view of the Parliamentary committee? 6. Describe Stephenson's work on the Liverpool & Manchester line. 7. What competitors had the "Rocket"? 8. Describe the later work of the two Stephensons. 9. Contrast Stephenson's England with that of to-day. BIBLIOGRAPHY LIFE OF STEPHENSON. Samuel Smiles. ("Lives of the Engineers.") V RUSSELL AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM [JOHN RUSSELL, Earl Russell, born, London, August 18, 1792; died, Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park, May 28,1878; educated at Westminster School and Edinburgh University; Member of Parliament, 1813; favored Catholic emancipation; 1830-34, paymaster general; 1831, introduced the first Reform Bill; 1832, carried the third Reform Bill; 1835-39, Home Secretary; 1839-41, Colonial Secretary; 1846-52, Prime Minister; 1852-53, Foreign Secretary; 1854-55, President of the Council; 1855, Colonial Secretary; 1859-65, Foreign Secretary; 1865-66, Prime Minister.]