several distinguished engineers. The company
had expected to earn about L10,000 a year from passenger traffic, and
the very first year the receipts from that source were L101,829. The
gross annual receipts from freight had been estimated at L50,000, but
were L80,000 in 1833. From the first the stockholders obtained a
dividend of eight per cent., which soon rose to nine and to ten per
cent. It has since been demonstrated that the revenues of new roads
almost always exceed expectations.

The success of this railway stimulated railway enterprise throughout
Europe and America. But while railroad projects created much enthusiasm
on one side, they also met with bitter opposition on the other. The
prejudice of the short-sighted and the avarice of those whose interests
were threatened by a change in the mode of transportation used every
weapon in their power against the proposed innovation. The arguments
used were often most absurd. It was said that the smoke of the engine
was injurious to both man and beast, and that the sparks escaping from
it would set fire to the buildings along the line of road, the cows
would be scared and would cease to give their milk, that horses would
depreciate in value, and that their race would finally become extinct.
Nor did many of the European governments favor the new system of
transportation. Some openly opposed it as revolutionary and productive
of infinitely more evil than good. The Austrian court and statesmen
especially looked upon the new contrivance with undisguised distrust;
and from their point of view this distrust was perhaps well founded. The
rapid movement of the iron horse seemed to savor of dangerous
radicalism, not to say revolution. When the Emperor finally, in 1836,
concluded to sign a railroad charter, he based his action upon the
dubious ground that "the thing cannot maintain itself, anyhow." It may
be said that the history of the railroad is a conspicuous illustration
of human short-sightedness. The Prussian Postmaster-General Von Nagler
opposed the construction of a railroad between Berlin and Potsdam upon
the ground that the passenger business between those two cities was not
sufficient to keep even the stage-coach always full. It never occurred
to the Postmaster-General, as it does not occur to many railroad men of
to-day, that new and cheaper means of transportation increase the
traffic. Even so wise a statesman as Thiers said when railroad
construction was first agitat