Station by express fish-train from Cornwall.

The Great Eastern and Great Northern Companies are also the principal carriers of turkeys, geese, fowls, and game; the quantity delivered in London by the former Company having been 5042 tons.  In Christmas week no fewer than 30,000 turkeys and geese were delivered at the Bishopsgate Station, besides about 300 tons of poultry, 10,000 barrels of beer, and immense quantities of fish, oysters, and other kinds of food.  As much as 1600 tons of poultry and game were brought last year by the South-Western Railway; 600 tons by the Great Northern Railway; and 130 tons of turkeys, geese, and fowls, by the London, Chatham and Dover line, principally from France.

Of miscellaneous articles, the Great Northern and the Midland each brought about 3000 tons of cheese, the South-Western 2600 tons, and the London and North-Western 10,034 cheeses in number; while the South-Western and Brighton lines brought a splendid contribution to the London breakfast-table in the shape of 11,259 tons of French eggs; these two Companies delivering between them an average of more than three millions of

eggs a week all the year round!  The same Companies delivered in London 14,819 tons of butter, for the most part the produce of the farms of Normandy,—the greater cleanness and neatness with which the Normandy butter is prepared for market rendering it a favourite both with dealers and consumers of late years compared with Irish butter.  The London, Chatham and Dover Company also brought from Calais 96 tons of eggs.

Next, as to the potatoes, vegetables, and fruit, brought by rail.  Forty years since, the inhabitants of London relied for their supply of vegetables on the garden-grounds in the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis, and the consequence was that they were both very dear and limited in quantity.  But railways, while they have extended the grazing-grounds of London as far as the Highlands, have at the same time extended the garden-grounds of London into all the adjoining counties—into East Kent, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, the vale of Gloucester, and even as far as Penzance in Cornwall.  The London, Chatham and Dover, one of the youngest of our main lines, brought up from East Kent in 1867 5279 tons of potatoes, 1046 tons of vegetables, and 5386 tons of fruit, besides 542 tons of vegetables from France.  The South-Eastern brought 25,163 tons of the same produce.  The Great Eastern brought from the eastern counties 21,315 tons of potatoes, and 3596 tons of vegetables and fruit; while the Great Northern brought no less than 78,505 tons of potatoes—a large part of them from the east of Scotland—and 3768 tons of vegetables and fruit.  About 6000 tons of early potatoes were brought from Cornwall, with about 5000 tons of broccoli, and the quantities are steadily

increasing.  “Truly London hath a large belly,” said old Fuller, two hundred years since.  But how much more capacious is it now!

One of the most striking illustrations of the utility of railways in contributing to the supply of wholesome articles of food to the population of large cities, is to be found in the rapid growth of the traffic in Milk.  Readers of newspapers may remember the descriptions published some years since of the horrid dens in which London cows were penned, and of the odious compound sold by the name of milk, of which the least deleterious ingredient in it was supplied by the “cow with the iron tail.”  That state of affairs is now completely changed.  What with the greatly improved state of the London dairies and the better quality of the milk supplied by them, together with the large quantities brought by railway from a range of a hundred miles and more all round London, even the poorest classes in the metropolis are now enabled to obtain as wholesome a supply of the article as the inhabitants of most country towns.

These great streams of food, which we have thus so summarily described, flow into London so continuously and uninterruptedly, that comparatively few persons are aware of the magnitude and importance of the process thus daily going forward.  Though gathered from an immense extent of country—embracing England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland—the influx is so unintermitted that it is relied upon with as much certainty as if it only came from the counties immediately adjoining London.  The express meat-train from Aberdeen arrives in town as punctually as the Clapham omnibus, and the express

milk-train from Aylesbury is as regular in its delivery as the penny post.  Indeed London now depends so much upon railways for its subsistence, that it may be said to be fed by them from day to day, having never more than a few days’ food in stock.  And the supply is so regular and continuous, that the possibility of its being interrupted never for a moment occurs to any one.  Yet in these days of strikes amongst workmen, such a contingency is quite within the limits of possibility.  Another contingency, which might arise during a state of war, is probably still more remote.  But were it possible for a war to occur between England and a combination of foreign powers possessed of stronger ironclads than ours, and that they were able to ram our ships back into port and land an enemy of overpowering force on the Essex coast, it would be sufficient for them to occupy or cut the railways leading from the north, to starve London into submission in less than a fortnight.

Besides supplying London with food, railways have also been instrumental in ensuring the more regular and economical supply of fuel,—a matter of almost as vital importance to the population in a climate such as that of England.  So long as the market was supplied with coal brought by sea in sailing ships, fuel in winter often rose to a famine price, especially during long-continued easterly winds.  But now that railways are in full work, the price is almost as steady in winter as in summer, and (but for strikes) the supply is more regular at all seasons.

But the carriage of food and fuel to London forms but a small part of the merchandise traffic carried by railway.  Above 600,000 tons of goods of various kinds yearly pass

through one station only, that of the London and North-Western Company, at Camden Town; and sometimes as many as 20,000 parcels daily.  Every other metropolitan station is similarly alive with traffic inwards and outwards, London having since the introduction of railways become more than ever a great distributive centre, to which merchandise of all kinds converges, and from which it is distributed to all parts of the country.  Mr. Bazley, M.P., stated at a late public meeting at Manchester, that it would probably require ten millions of horses to convey by road the merchandise traffic which is now annually carried by railway.

Railways have also proved of great value in connection with the Cheap Postage system.  By their means it has become possible to carry letters, newspapers, books and post parcels, in any quantity, expeditiously, and cheaply.  The Liverpool and Manchester line was no sooner opened in 1830, than the Post Office authorities recognised its utility, and used it for carrying the mails between the two towns.  When the London and Birmingham line was opened eight years later, mail trains were at once put on,—the directors undertaking to perform the distance of 113 miles within 5 hours by day and 5½ hours by night.  As additional lines were opened, the old four-horse mail coaches were gradually discontinued, until in 1858, the last of them, the “Derby Dilly,” which ran between Manchester and Derby, was taken off on the