necessarily much heavier, the
number of letters and packets having, as we have seen, increased more
than ten-fold since 1839. But it is not the ordinary so much as the
extraordinary mails that are of considerable weight,--more particularly
the American, the Continental, and the Australian mails. It is no
unusual thing, we are informed, for the last-mentioned mail to weigh as
much as 40 tons. How many of the old mail coaches it would take to carry
such a mail the 79 miles journey to Southampton, with a relay of four
horses every five or seven miles, is a problem for the arithmetician to
solve. But even supposing each coach to be loaded to the maximum weight
of 15 cwt. per coach, it would require about sixty vehicles and about
1700 horses to carry the 40 tons, besides the coachman and guards.

Whatever may be said of the financial management of railways, there can
be no doubt as to the great benefits conferred by them on the public
wherever made. Even those railways which have exhibited the most
"frightful examples" of financing and jobbing, have been found to prove
of unquestionable public convenience and utility. And notwithstanding
all the faults and imperfections that have been alleged against railways,
we think that they must, nevertheless, be recognised as by far the most
valuable means of communication between men and nations that has yet been
given to the world.

The author's object in publishing this book in its original form, was to
describe, in connection with the 'Life of George Stephenson,' the origin
and progress of the railway system,--to show by what moral and material
agencies its founders were enabled to carry their ideas into effect, and
work out results which even then were of a remarkable character, though
they have since, as above described, become so much more extraordinary.
The favour with which successive editions of the book have been received,
has justified the author in his anticipation that such a narrative would
prove of general, if not of permanent interest.

The book was written with the concurrence and assistance of Robert
Stephenson, who also supplied the necessary particulars relating to
himself. Such portions of these were accordingly embodied in the
narrative as could with propriety be published during his lifetime, and
the remaining portions have since been added, with the object of
rendering more complete the record of the son's life as well as of the
early history of the R