The first prospectus, issued in October, 1824, set forth in clear and vigorous language the objects of the company, the urgent need of additional means of communication between Liverpool and Manchester, and the advantages offered by the railway over all other proposed expedients. It was shown that the water-carriers not only exacted the most arbitrary terms from the public, but were positively unable to carry the traffic requiring accommodation. Against the indefinite continuance or recurrence of those evils, said the prospectus, the public have but one security: "It is competition that is wanted; and the proof of this assertion may be adduced from the fact that shares in the Old Quay Navigation, of which the original cost was £70, have been sold as high as £1250 each!" The advantages of the railway over the canals for the carriage of coals was also urged, and it was stated that the charge for transit would be very materially reduced. "In the present state of trade and of commercial enterprise (the prospectus proceeded), dispatch is no less essential than economy. Merchandise is frequently brought across the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool in twenty-one days, while, owing to the various causes of delay above enumerated, goods have in some instances been longer on their passage from Liverpool to Manchester. But this reproach must not be perpetual. The advancement in mechanical science renders it unnecessary--the good sense of the community makes it impossible. Let it not, however, be imagined that, were England to be tardy, other countries would pause in the march of improvement. Application has been made, on behalf of the Emperor of Russia, for models of the locomotive engine; and other of the Continental governments have been duly apprised of the important schemes for the facilitating of inland traffic, now under discussion by the British public. In the United States of America, also, they are fully alive to the important results to be anticipated from the introduction of railroads; a gentleman from the United States having recently arrived in Liverpool, with whom it is a principal object to collect the necessary information in order to the establishment of a railway to connect the great rivers Potomac and Ohio."