the length
of French railway to be finished and opened in 1851 would be 516
kilometres (about 320 miles); and in 1852, about 330 kilometres (205
miles.)

Prussia loves centralisation little less than France in other matters;
but in railway enterprise she has allowed mercantile competition to
have freer scope. Private companies have constructed nearly all the
Prussian railways; but in cases where the traffic appeared likely to
be small, the government has rendered aid in one of three or four
modes. The government will not permit any parallel or competing lines;
and it holds the power of purchasing the railways after a lapse of
thirty years, on certain specified terms. On this principle have been
constructed the railways which radiate from Berlin in five different
directions--towards Hamburg, Hanover, Saxony, Silesia, and the Baltic;
together with minor branches springing out of them, and also the
railways which accommodate the rich Rhenish provinces belonging to
Prussia. The Prussian railways open and at work at the close of 1851
appear to have been about 1800 miles in length.

In the heterogeneous mass of states which constitute Germany, the
railways have for the most part been constructed by, and belong to,
the respective governments. Such is the case in Baden, Hanover,
Brunswick, Wuertemberg, Bavaria, and many of the petty states; and such
is also the case in the imperial dominions in Austria, Hungary,
Bohemia, Moravia, and Styria. There may be some among these lines of
railway which belong to companies, but, as a general rule, they
constitute government property. If we include Prussia and the Austrian
dominions in the general name of Germany, we find the railways very
unequally distributed. An oblong quadrangular district, measuring
about 400 miles from east to west, and 200 from north to south, and
lying eastward of the Netherlands, contains a net-work of railways
which contrast remarkably with those of east, south, and central
Germany; it includes Hamburg, Berlin, Leipsic, Dresden, Magdeburg,
Brunswick, Hanover, Bremen, and a busy knot of other important towns.
Although the various German railways twist about in more tortuous
forms than those of England--for the engineers have studied economy by
going round hills rather than through them--and although they are
broken up into many different proprietorships by passing through so
many petty states, yet there may be traced certain great lines of
communication which