this uniformity will be proposed to
be attained, by the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway adopting the wide
gauge, or the Bristol and Gloucester adopting the narrow.

The question, therefore, upon which we have had to form an opinion is,
whether it is better for public interests that the wide gauge should come
up to Birmingham and Rugby, or that the narrow gauge should go down to
Bristol and Oxford?

It would be difficult to overrate the importance of this question in a
national and commercial point of view. If there is one point more fully
established than another in the practice of Railways, it is that the
inconvenience occasioned by a break upon a line of through-traffic,
occasioned by want of uniformity of gauge, is of such a serious
description as to detract most materially from the advantages of Railway
communication.

The following description of what has actually occurred at Gloucester
during the last few months, furnished to us by a gentleman who has been
practically engaged in the management of the traffic, will give some idea
of the working of the system:--

"We experience the greatest possible inconvenience from the change,
both as regards passengers and goods; coals we have not attempted to
tranship.

"In the first place as regards passengers and passenger trains:

"The passengers and their luggage have to be hurried across from one
train to the other, when there is a chance of the luggage being
misplaced. Gentlemen's carriages and horses have to be changed, a
process uniting time and risk. Valuable parcels have to be handed out
in the confusion, and handed in.

"The result is a delay, with the Mail-trains, for instance, of half an
hour sometimes, just sufficient if the coming-in train is after time,
to miss the Manchester or other train from Birmingham, or the Exeter
or Bath train from Bristol; annoyance to the passengers, who are
anxious about their parcels and luggage; risk, and expense, as a large
body of porters have to be maintained, who are not fully employed, in
order that no more time than is necessary should be lost in the change
of trains.

"With regard to goods, the inconvenience attending the change is far
more serious.

"Up to this day a great number of waggons laden with goods of all
descriptions have been lying at Gloucester, which we have been unable
to remove in spite of every exertion. We keep an establishmen