ing working-plant, was within L.17,000 per average mile. While
these railways were progressing, private companies were formed for the
construction of other lines, to the extent of about 200 additional
miles, most of which are now open--the Namur and Liege being opened in
1851. These various railways are said to have yielded, on an average,
about 3-1/2 per cent. on the outlay.

It was of course impossible for France to see its little neighbour,
Belgium, advancing in its railway course, without setting a similar
movement on foot; but various circumstances have given a lingering
character to French railway enterprise. It was in 1837 that the short
railway from Paris through Versailles to St Germain--the first
passenger line in France--was opened. In the next following year, two
companies, aided by the government in certain ways, undertook the
construction of the railways from Paris to Rouen, and from Paris to
Orleans. The French government, having a strong taste for
centralisation in national matters, formed in 1842 that plan which has
since, with some modifications, been carried into execution. The plan
consisted in causing the great lines of communication to be surveyed
and marked out by government engineers, and then to be ceded to
joint-stock companies, to be constructed on certain conditions. There
were to be seven such lines radiating from Paris: to the Belgian
frontier; to one or more ports on the Channel; to the Atlantic ports;
to Bordeaux; to the Spanish frontier; to Marseille; and to Rhenish
Prussia. The government has had to concede more favourable conditions
to some of these companies than were at first intended, to get the
lines constructed at all. The first and second of the above lines of
communication are now almost fully opened; the third is finished to
Chartres; the fourth, to Nantes and Poitiers; the fifth, to
Chateauroux; the sixth, to Chalons, with another portion from Avignon
to Marseille; while the seventh, or Paris and Strasbourg Railway, is
that of which the final opening has been recently celebrated with so
much firing of guns, drinking of healths, blessing of locomotives, and
speechifyings of presidents. At the close of 1851, the length of
French railway opened was about 1800 miles; while the portion since
opened, or now in progress or projected, amounts to about as much
more. In the president's speech to the National Assembly in 1851 (of
course, _before_ the _coup d'etat_), it was announced that