gland would thereby be better able to appreciate its many excellent
properties and prove its efficacy. All the great trading towns of
Lancashire and Yorkshire would then eagerly embrace the opportunity to
secure so commodious and easy a conveyance, and cause branch railways to
be laid down in every possible direction. The convenience and economy in
the carriage of the raw material to the numerous manufactories
established in these counties, the expeditious and cheap delivery of
piece goods bought by the merchants every week at the various markets,
and the despatch in forwarding bales and packages to the outposts cannot
fail to strike the merchant and manufacturer as points of the first
importance. Nothing, for example, would be so likely to raise the ports
of Hull, Liverpool, and Bristol to an unprecedented pitch of prosperity
as the establishment of railways to those ports, thereby rendering the
communication from the east to the west seas, and all intermediate
places, rapid, cheap, and effectual. Anyone at all conversant with
commerce must feel the vast importance of such an undertaking in
forwarding the produce of America, Brazils, the East and West Indies,
etc., from Liverpool and Bristol, _via_ Hull, to the opposite shores of
Germany and Holland, and, _vice versa_, the produce of the Baltic, _via_
Hull, to Liverpool and Bristol. Again, by the establishment of morning
and evening mail steam carriages, the commercial interest would derive
considerable advantage; the inland mails might be forwarded with greater
despatch and the letters delivered much earlier than by the extra post;
the opportunity of correspondence between London and all mercantile
places would be much improved, and the rate of postage might be generally
diminished without injuring the receipts of the post office, because any
deficiency occasioned by a reduction in the postage would be made good by
the increased number of journeys which mail steam carriages might make.
The London and Edinburgh mail steam carriages might take all the mails
and parcels on the line of road between these two cities, which would
exceedingly reduce the expense occasioned by mail coaches on the present
footing. The ordinary stage coaches, caravans, or wagons, running any
considerable distance along the main railway, might also be conducted on
peculiarly favourable terms to the public; for instance, one steam engine
of superior power would enable its proprietors to convey