ened, they ran right through
the centre of Bianconi's long-established systems of communication.
They broke up his lines, and sent them to the right and left. But,
though they greatly disturbed him, they did not destroy him. In his
enterprising hands the railways merely changed the direction of the
cars. He had at first to take about a thousand horses off the road,
with thirty-seven vehicles, travelling 2446 miles daily. But he
remodelled his system so as to run his cars between the
railway-stations and the towns to the right and left of the main lines.

He also directed his attention to those parts of Ireland which had not
before had the benefit of his conveyances. And in thus still
continuing to accommodate the public, the number of his horses and
carriages again increased, until, in 1861, he was employing 900 horses,
travelling over 4000 miles daily; and in 1866, when he resigned his
business, he was running only 684 miles daily below the maximum run in
1845, before the railways had begun to interfere with his traffic.

His cars were then running to Dungarvan, Waterford, and Wexford in the
south-west of Ireland; to Bandon, Rosscarbery, Skibbereen, and
Cahirciveen, in the south; to Tralee, Galway, Clifden, Westport, and
Belmullet in the west; to Sligo, Enniskillen, Strabane, and Letterkenny
in the north; while, in the centre of Ireland, the towns of Thurles,
Kilkenny, Birr, and Ballinasloe were also daily served by the cars of
Bianconi.

At the meeting of the British Association, held in Dublin in 1857, Mr.
Bianconi mentioned a fact which, he thought, illustrated the increasing
prosperity of the country and the progress of the people. It was, that
although the population had so considerably decreased by emigration and
other causes, the proportion of travellers by his conveyances continued
to increase, demonstrating not only that the people had more money, but
that they appreciated the money value of time, and also the advantages
of the car system established for their accommodation.

Although railways must necessarily have done much to promote the
prosperity of Ireland, it is very doubtful whether the general
passenger public were not better served by the cars of Bianconi than by
the railways which superseded them. Bianconi's cars were on the whole
cheaper, and were always run en correspondence, so as to meet each
other; whereas many of the railway trains in the south of Ireland,
under the competitive syste