FROM THE TOP OF KILSBY TUNNEL: ill10.jpg]

RUGBY AND ITS RAILWAYS.

Rugby, 83 miles from London, the centre of a vast network of railways, is our
next halting place.

That is to say, First, an arm of the Midland to Leicester, to Burton, to
Derby, to Nottingham, and through Melton Mowbray to Stamford and
Peterborough; thus intersecting a great agricultural and a great
manufacturing district.

Second, the Trent Valley Line, through Atherstone, Tamworth and Lichfield, to
Stafford, and by cutting off the Birmingham curve, forming part of the direct
line to Manchester.

Third, A line to Leamington, which may be reached from this point in three-
quarters of an hour; and fourth, a direct line to Stamford, by way of Market
Harborough; which, with the Leamington line, affords the most direct
conveyance from Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, through Peterborough to
Birmingham, Gloucester, and all that midland district.

The Oxford and Rugby Line, which was one of the subjects of the celebrated
Battles of the Gauges, has not been constructed; and it may be doubted
whether it ever will.

The town lies about a mile from the station on the banks of the Avon, and
owes all its importance to Laurence Sheriff, a London shopkeeper in the time
of Queen Elizabeth, who, in 1567, endowed a school in his native village with
eight acres of land, situated where Lamb's Conduit-street, in London, now
stands, whence at present upwards of 5000 pounds a year is derived.

Rugby was long considered the most snobbish of English public schools, a sad
character in a country where style and name go so far. Some twenty years
ago, when the Rugbaeans had the "presumption" to challenge the Wykehamists to
play at football, the latter proudly answered, that the Rugbaeans might put on
worsted stockings and clouted soles, and the Wykehamists in silk stockings
and pumps would meet them in any lane in England. But, since that time, the
Harrow gentlemen, the Eton fops, the Winchester scholars, and the Westminster
blackguards, have had reason to admit that Arnold, a Wykehamist, long
considered by the fellows of that venerable institution an unworthy son,
succeeded in making Rugby the great nursery of sound scholars and Christian
gentlemen, and in revolutionizing and reforming the educational system of all
our public schools.

The following, by one of Arnold's pupils, himself an eminent example of
cultivated intellect and varied information, combined with