sed
with. Questions concerning the legality of certain assemblies were
pugnaciously raised and as pugnaciously answered. Four hours' somewhat
heated discussion at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders at
Welshpool carried matters no further than the decision that the first
sod, when it was cut, should be of Montgomeryshire soil, "but whether,"
adds a critical commentator, "at Llanymynech, Welshpool or Newtown, no
one knows." Fresh controversy arose concerning the secretaryship, to
which office Mr. Princep had been appointed by Mr. Ormsby-Gore, after a
very fleeting appearance on the kaleidoscopic scene of a Mr. Farmer, and
the old rivalry of Great Western and North Western "interests"
re-appeared in fresh form. The "Oswestry Advertizer," pointing the
warning finger at the fate of another Welsh railway which, after 25,000
pounds out of a total capital of 400,000 pounds had been raised, found
everything "swallowed up in the gulph of Chancery" under the winding-up
Acts, proclaimed,--"We are almost afraid the Oswestry and Newtown is
doomed to the same end." It certainly looked as if a true prophet was
writing that dirge!

"It is hardly possible," says Mr. Howell, "to conceive a more deplorable
state than that to which the company was reduced during this period of
five years of Great-western _regime_. Every shilling that could be
realized of the proceeds of a very superior share list was expended, debt
was accumulated, every resource was exhausted; but comparatively little
was done in the execution of the works; the company was involved in four
chancery suits, of large proportions, and a law suit, and with other
suits in prospect. It was necessary to provide 45,000 pounds in cash,
towards relieving the chairman from a personal liability of 75,000
pounds, and to let free the action of the company from the chancery
suits; also further sums to discharge the claims of the contractors and
carry on the works." So moribund, indeed, did the whole affair seem,
that the North Western, treating it as practically extinct, began to
consider a scheme for converting the Shropshire Union Canal, already in
their hands, as a railway to Newtown!

And here were the promoters of this ill-starred project fighting amongst
themselves. One party was for keeping back the line from Oswestry till,
as a newspaper writer put it, "a rival to Shrewsbury is brought into
condition to do it damage." Another was for complicating it with other
ne