George Stephenson's idea was at that time regarded as but the dream of a chimerical projector. It stood before the public friendless, struggling hard to gain a footing, scarcely daring to lift itself into notice for fear of ridicule. The civil engineers generally rejected the notion of a Locomotive Railway; and when no leading man of the day could be found to stand forward in support of the Killingworth mechanic, its chances of success must indeed have been pronounced but small. When such was the hostility of the civil engineers, no wonder the Reviewers were puzzled. The "Quarterly," in an able article in support of the projected Liverpool and Manchester Railway, while admitting its _absolute necessity_, and insisting that there was no choice left but a railroad, on which the journey between Liverpool and Manchester, whether performed by horses or engines, would always be accomplished "within the day," nevertheless scouted the idea of traveling at a greater speed than eight or nine miles an hour. Adverting to a project for forming a railway to Woolwich, by which passengers were to be drawn by locomotive engines moving with twice the velocity of ordinary coaches, the reviewer observed: "What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling _twice as fast_ as stage-coaches! We would as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich Railway for any sum. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to _eight or nine miles an hour_, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured on with safety." [Illustration: SURVEYING ON CHAT MOSS.] FOOTNOTES: [58] "Many years ago I met in a public library with a bulky volume, consisting of the prospectuses of various projects bound up together, and labeled, 'Some of the Bubbles of 1825.' Among the projects thus described was one that has since been productive of the greatest and most rapid advance in the social condition of mankind effected since the first dawn of civilization: it was the plan of the company for constructing a railway between Liverpool and Manchester."--W. B. Hodge, in "Journal of the Institute of Actuaries," No. 40, July, 1860. [59] "Wood on Railroads," ed. 1825, p. 290. CHAPTER X. PARLIAMENTARY CONTEST ON THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER BILL.