opening of the Midland line to Rowsley.

The increased accommodation provided by railways was found of essential importance, more particularly after the adoption of the Cheap Postage system; and that such

accommodation was needed will be obvious from the extraordinary increase which has taken place in the number of letters and packets sent by post.  Thus, in 1839, the number of chargeable letters carried was only 76 millions, and of newspapers 44½ millions; whereas, in 1865, the numbers of letters had increased to 720 millions, and in 1867 to 775 millions, or more than ten-fold, while the number of newspapers, books, samples and patterns (a new branch of postal business began in 1864) had increased, in 1865, to 98½ millions.

To accommodate this largely-increasing traffic, the bulk of which is carried by railway, the mileage run by mail trains in the United Kingdom has increased from 25,000 miles a day in 1854 (the first year of which we have any return of the mileage run) to 60,000 miles a day in 1867, or an increase of 240 per cent.  The Post Office expenditure on railway service has also increased, but not in like proportion, having been £364,000 in the former year, and £559,575 in the latter, or an increase of 154 per cent.  The revenue, gross and net, has increased still more rapidly.  In 1841, the first complete year of the Cheap Postage system, the gross revenue was £1,359,466 and the net revenue £500,789; in 1854, the gross revenue was £2,574,407, and the net revenue £1,173,723; and in 1867, the gross revenue was £4,548,129, and the net revenue £2,127,125, being an increase of 420 per cent. compared with 1841, and of 180 per cent. compared with 1854.  How much of this net increase might fairly be credited to the Railway Postal service we shall not pretend to say; but assuredly the proportion must be very considerable.

One of the great advantages of railways in connection

with the postal service is the greatly increased frequency of communication which they provide between all the large towns.  Thus Liverpool has now six deliveries of Manchester letters daily; while every large town in the kingdom has two or more deliveries of London letters daily.  In 1863, 393 towns had two mails daily from London; 50 had three mails daily; 7 had four mails a day from London, and 15 had four mails a day to London; while 3 towns had five mails a day from London, and 6 had five mails a day to London.

Another feature of the railway mail train, as of the passenger train, is its capacity to carry any quantity of letters and post parcels that may require to be carried.  In 1838, the aggregate weight of all the evening mails despatched from London by twenty-eight mail coaches was 4 tons 6 cwt., or an average of about 3¼ cwt. each, though the maximum contract weight was 15 cwt.  The mails now are necessarily much heavier, the number of letters and packets having, as we have seen, increased more than ten-fold since 1839.  But it is not the ordinary so much as the extraordinary mails that are of considerable weight,—more particularly the American, the Continental, and the Australian mails.  It is no unusual thing, we are informed, for the last-mentioned mail to weigh as much as 40 tons.  How many of the old mail coaches it would take to carry such a mail the 79 miles journey to Southampton, with a relay of four horses every five or seven miles, is a problem for the arithmetician to solve.  But even supposing each coach to be loaded to the maximum weight of 15 cwt. per coach, it would require about sixty vehicles and about 1700 horses to carry the 40 tons, besides the coachman and guards.

Whatever may be said of the financial management of railways, there can be no doubt as to the great benefits conferred by them on the public wherever made.  Even those railways which have exhibited the most “frightful examples” of financing and jobbing, have been found to prove of unquestionable public convenience and utility.  And notwithstanding all the faults and imperfections that have been alleged against railways, we think that they must, nevertheless, be recognised as by far the most valuable means of communication between men and nations that has yet been given to the world.

The author’s object in publishing this book in its original form, was to describe, in connection with the ‘Life of George Stephenson,’ the origin and progress of the railway system,—to show by what moral and material agencies its founders were enabled to carry their ideas into effect, and work out results which even then were of a remarkable character, though they have since, as above described, become so much more extraordinary.  The favour with which successive editions of the book have been received, has justified the author in his anticipation that such a narrative would prove of general, if not of permanent interest.

The book was written with the concurrence and assistance of Robert Stephenson, who also supplied the necessary particulars relating to himself.  Such portions of these were accordingly embodied in the narrative as could with propriety be published during his lifetime, and the remaining portions have since been added, with the object of rendering more complete the record of the son’s life as well as of the early history of the Railway system.

CONTENTS