A writer in the _Quarterly Review_, in 1825, was quite prophetical as to
the dangers connected with railway travelling. He observes:—“It is
certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of
18 or 20 miles an hour by means of a high-pressure engine, to be told
that there is no danger of being sea-sick while on shore, that they are
not to be scalded to death, nor drowned, nor dashed to pieces by the
bursting of a boiler; and that they need not mind being struck by the
flying off or breaking of a wheel. What can be more palpably absurd or
ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling _twice as
fast_ as stage coaches! We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich
to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve’s Ricochet
Rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such
a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich Railway for
any sum. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction,
limit the speed to _eight or nine miles an hour_, which we entirely agree
with Mr. Sylvestor is as great as can be ventured on with safety.”