s, offered, if his advice
and methods were adopted, to guarantee double the then dividend. His
offer was accepted and he was made chairman, and from that position
became chairman, and for a time dictator, of the amalgamated Midland
system. Clearly his business abilities were great; his reforms were bold
and drastic, and success attended his efforts. He soon became the
greatest railway authority in England. For a time the entire railway
system in the north was under his control, and the confidence reposed in
him was unbounded. He was the lion of the day: princes, peers and
prelates, capitalists and fine ladies sought his society, paid homage to
his power, besought his advice and lavished upon him unstinted adulation.

In 1845 the railway mania was at its height. It is said that during two
or three months of that year as much as 100,000 pounds per week were
expended in advertisements in connection with railway promotions, railway
meetings and railway matters generally. Scarcely credible this, but so
it is seriously stated. Huge sums were wasted in the promotion and
construction of British railways in early days, from which, in their
excessive capital cost, they suffer now. In the _mania_ period railways
sprang into existence so quickly that, to use the words of Robert
Stephenson, they "appeared like the realisation of fabled powers or the
magician's wand." The _Illustrated London News_ of the day said:
"Railway speculation has become the sole object of the world--cupidity is
aroused and roguery shields itself under its name, as a more safe and
rapid way of gaining its ends. Abroad, as well as at home, has it proved
the rallying point of all rascality--the honest man is carried away by
the current and becomes absorbed in the vortex; the timid, the quiet, the
moral are, after some hesitation, caught in the whirlpool and follow
those whom they have watched with pity and derision."

Powers were granted by Parliament in the year 1845 to construct no less
than 2,883 miles of new railway at an expenditure of about 44,000,000
pounds; and in the next year (1846) applications were made to Parliament
for authority to raise 389,000,000 pounds for the construction of further
lines. These powers were granted to the extent of 4,790 miles at a cost
of about 120,000,000 pounds.

Soon there came a change; disaster followed success; securities fell;
dividends diminished or disappeared altogether or, as was in some cases
discov