he purpose of embellishing towns with
classic buildings. Its function is to carry people from one place to
another on reasonable terms, with a due regard to the welfare of those
who undertake the transaction. How carriages may be run well and
cheaply, yet profitably, is the sole question for determination; and
everything else is either subordinate or positively useless. A
suitable degree of knowledge on these points would, we think, tend
materially to restore confidence in railway property. Could there be
anything more cheering than the well-ascertained fact, that _no
railway has ever failed for want of traffic_? In every instance, the
traffic would have yielded an ample remuneration to the shareholders,
had there been no extravagant expenditure. Had the outlays been
confined to paying for the land required, the making of the line, the
laying down of rails, the buying locomotives and carriages, and
working the same, all would have gone on splendidly; and eight, ten,
twenty, and even a higher per cent., would in many instances have been
realised. At the present moment, the lines that are paying best are
not those on which there is the greatest amount of traffic, but those
on which there was the most prudent expenditure. In order to judge
whether any proposed railway will pay, it is only necessary to inquire
at what cost per mile, all expenses included, it is to be produced. If
the charge be anything under L.5000 per mile, there is a certainty of
its doing well, even if the line be carried through a poorly-populated
district; and up to L.20,000 per mile is allowable in great
trunk-thoroughfares; but when the outlay reaches L.50,000 or L.100,000
per mile, as it has done in some instances, scarcely any amount of
traffic will be remunerative. In a variety of cases, the expenditure
per mile has been so enormous, that remunerative traffic becomes a
physical impossibility. In plain terms, if the whole of these lines,
from end to end, were covered with loaded carriages from morning to
night, and night to morning, without intermission of a single moment,
they would still be carried on at a loss! Gold may be bought too
dearly, and so may railways.

As there seems to be an appearance of a revival in railway
undertakings, it will be of the greatest importance to keep these
principles in view; and we are glad to observe that, taking lessons
from the past, the promoters of railway schemes are confining their
attention mainly to plans