The agitation startled the Government. An inquiry was held upon the suicide, and the unanimous verdict was that the line was unsafe. It was condemned forthwith. The Government even went farther under public pressure. It purchased the railway, lock, stock and barrel, at cost price, and turned it over to the enraged populace to do with it according to their inclinations. The frenzied fanatics tore the track up piecemeal, threw the rolling stock out of the country, and, to propitiate the gods, erected a temple to the Queen of Heaven upon the site selected as the terminus in Shanghai. The promoters of the ill-starred enterprise retrieved as much of the discarded remains of the line as possible, and transported them to the island of Formosa for another undertaking. Such was the inglorious end that befell the first attempt to introduce Stephenson’s invention into the land of the Celestial. Curiously enough, among those most prominent in the opposition to this movement was Li-Hung-Chang, subsequently China’s foremost and most enlightened statesman. He had spared no effort to prevent the construction of the first railway, and when it was completed he left no stone unturned to bring about its demolition. Shortly afterwards, however, he became converted to the new method of locomotion. Among those few enterprising and enlightened Chinese gentlemen who realised the widespread advantages accruing from the adoption of railways in other parts of the world, and who foresaw its possibilities in his native land, was General Tong-King-Sing. He had followed the Shanghai-Woosung experiment with deep interest. Undeterred by the fate which had overwhelmed the effort of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Company, he decided to build another line, but he took care first to win the most powerful opponent to such a movement to his side. The General was identified with a steamship company which required cheap coal. Li-Hung-Chang, then Viceroy of Chichli, was interested in some collieries at Tongshan, some 30 miles inland from the nearest port at Pehtang. The General approached the Viceroy, and the two, with the aid of some other influential friends, decided to exploit the deposits. But the question arose as to how the coal could be carried cheaply to the coast. General Tong-King-Sing maintained that there was no means of transportation which could compete with the railway, and he skilfully won the Viceroy round to his side. In this manner the Viceroy was converted from an implacable enemy to a strenuous advocate of railways. They approached the Government for the requisite permission, and the latter, impressed possibly by the great men associated with the enterprise, sanctioned the project. The preliminary arrangements were hurried forward, an Englishman, Mr. C. W. Kinder, who might be described as the Father of the Railway in China, being enlisted as engineer-in-chief.