There remains only one question--_Cui bono?_ What useful purpose can be served by being able to get from Liverpool to Manchester in twenty minutes instead of over an hour? On an emergency, such as a sudden necessity for the services of a medical specialist, a matter of life or death perhaps, or on the occasion of any crisis in domestic or mercantile life when the instant presence of some one distant individual is imperative, it might be of immense service. But in the usual course of business, do not existing railways bring merchant and broker, importer and manufacturer, face to face quickly enough, and are not telephones and telegraphs and the post sufficient to carry through big transactions between the centre of the cotton trade and the great city on the banks of the Mersey? Public opinion, which demands increasing speed in every phase of life, especially in travelling, declares they are not sufficient; for we live in an impatient age when every hour of detention on a transatlantic passage is begrudged. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that in 1900-1, after the most exhaustive inquiries and criticisms, the royal assent was given August 17th, 1901, to the Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway, which was duly authorised by Act of Parliament. It must be premised that the line, like our London Tube, does not provide for goods traffic; that the time occupied by the journey being so short, neither luggage-van, lavatory, or refreshment buffet is required, and that all trains consist of a single car, couplings being a source of danger at so great a rate of speed. But as the trains run every ten minutes, and carry about forty persons each time, a large passenger traffic is provided for. Well--a broker has been telephoned for by his client, a wealthy cotton-spinner in Manchester, anxious to consult with him personally; so he at once leaves the flags of the Exchange, and after an eight minutes’ walk arrives at the Express Railway Station, near the entrance gate of the Blue Coat Hospital in School Lane. He considers that in getting into and out of the lift he has lost two minutes, but he just catches his car and starts for a run of 34½ miles to Manchester, and since it is his first experience of lightning travelling, he notices everything connected with the new line. There are many curves, he finds, all necessary in order to avoid conflict with the vested interests of other railway companies; the gradients, he observes, at points about three-quarters of a mile from the Liverpool and Manchester stations, are steep--1 in 25, and 1 in 30--but of service in accelerating and breaking the trains.