ill more probable that they will be of some quite
new substance altogether--whether hard or resilient is beyond my
foretelling. They will have to be very wide--they will be just as wide
as the courage of their promoters goes--and if the first made are too
narrow there will be no question of gauge to limit the later ones. Their
traffic in opposite directions will probably be strictly separated, and
it will no doubt habitually disregard complicated and fussy regulations
imposed under the initiative of the Railway Interest by such official
bodies as the Board of Trade. The promoters will doubtless take a hint
from suburban railway traffic and from the current difficulty of the
Metropolitan police, and where their ways branch the streams of traffic
will not cross at a level but by bridges. It is easily conceivable that
once these tracks are in existence, cyclists and motors other than those
of the constructing companies will be able to make use of them. And,
moreover, once they exist it will be possible to experiment with
vehicles of a size and power quite beyond the dimensions prescribed by
our ordinary roads--roads whose width has been entirely determined by
the size of a cart a horse can pull.[8]

Countless modifying influences will, of course, come into operation. For
example, it has been assumed, perhaps rashly, that the railway influence
will certainly remain jealous and hostile to these growths: that what
may be called the "Bicycle Ticket Policy" will be pursued throughout.
Assuredly there will be fights of a very complicated sort at first, but
once one of these specialized lines is in operation, it may be that some
at least of the railway companies will hasten to replace their flanged
rolling stock by carriages with rubber tyres, remove their rails,
broaden their cuttings and embankments, raise their bridges, and take to
the new ways of traffic. Or they may find it answer to cut fares, widen
their gauges, reduce their gradients, modify their points and curves,
and woo the passenger back with carriages beautifully hung and
sumptuously furnished, and all the convenience and luxury of a club. Few
people would mind being an hour or so longer going to Paris from London,
if the railway travelling was neither rackety, cramped, nor tedious. One
could be patient enough if one was neither being jarred, deafened, cut
into slices by draughts, and continually more densely caked in a filthy
dust of coal; if one could write smoothl