TWO CITIES THAT WANTED TO GET NEAR EACH OTHER--A NEW FRIEND.
Manchester, thirty miles south-east of Liverpool, is the great centre
of our cotton trade. Its cloths are found in every market in the
world. Cotton coming to Liverpool is sent to the Manchester mills, and
the goods which the mills turn out are returned to Liverpool to be
shipped elsewhere. The two cities, therefore, are intimately connected
by constant intercourse and mutual interest.
Two water communications existed between them: one by the rivers
Mersey and Irwell, the other by the famous Bridgewater Canal, which
did an immense business at an enormous profit. But the Manchester
mills were fast outgrowing these slow and cumbersome modes of travel.
Liverpool warehouses were piled with bales of cotton waiting to go,
and the mills at Manchester had often to stop because it did not come.
Goods also found as much difficulty in getting back. Merchants and
manufacturers both grumbled. Business was in straits. What was to be
done? Carting was quite out of the question. Canal owners were
besought to enlarge their water power. No, they would do nothing. They
were satisfied with things as they were. Their dividends were sure.
But want demands supply. Need creates resources. Something _must_ be
done to facilitate the transit of goods between the two cities. What?
Build a tramroad, or a _railroad_. Nobody, however, but a very fast
man would risk his good sense by seriously advising a railroad.
Prudent men would certainly shun him. A tramroad was a better
understood thing. The collieries had used small pieces of them for
years. A tramroad then. Business men put their heads together, and
began earnestly to talk of a tramroad.
Edward James, a rich and enterprising man, entered heartily into the
project, and undertook to make surveys for a suitable route. And not
long after a party of surveyors were seen in the fields near
Liverpool. Their instruments and movements excited attention. People
eyed them with anxiety: suspicions were roused: the inhabitants became
alarmed. Who were they, making such mysterious measurements and
calculations on other people's land? A mob gradually gathered, whose
angry tones and threatening gestures warned the surveyors of a storm
brewing over their heads. Wisely considering that flight was better
than fight, they took themselves off, and by-and-by turned up farther
on.
The landowners, who might be supposed to have known better, told the
farmers to drive them off; and the farmers, with their hands, were
only too ready to obey. They stationed themselves at the field gates
and bars with pitchforks, rakes, shovels, sticks, and dared the
surveyors to come on. A poor chain-man, not quite as nimble as his
pursuers, made his leap over a fence, quickened by a pitchfork from
behind. Even women and children joined the hue and cry, pelting the
strangers with stones and dirt whenever they had a chance. The
colliers were not behind the farmers in their foolish hostility. A
stray surveyor was caught and thrown into a pond.
At a sight of the theodolite their fury knew no bounds. That
unoffending instrument they seemed to regard as the very stronghold
of the enemy, to seize and destroy which was to win the day. The
surveyors, therefore, hired a noted boxer to carry it, who could make
good his threats on the enemy. A famous fighter among the colliers,
determined not to be outdone, marched up to the theodolite to capture
it. A fight took place; the collier was sorely beaten, but the rabble,
taking his part against the poor instrument, pelted it with stones and
smashed it to pieces.
You may well suppose that surveying under such circumstances was no
light matter. What was the gist of the hostility? It is hard to tell.
The canal owners might have had a hand in scattering these wild fears;
fears of what, however, it is not so easy to find out. There was
nothing in a simple horse railroad, or tramroad, as it is called, to
provoke an opposition so bitter from the people. It was a _new thing;_
and new things, great improvements as they may be on old ones, often
call up a thousand doubts and fears among the ignorant and unthinking.
Nor did the project generally secure the approval of those who would
be most benefited by it. Mr. James and his friends held public
meetings in all the towns and villages along the way, enterprising men
in Liverpool and Manchester delivered speeches, and tried to create a
public interest; but there was a holding back, which, while it checked
all actual progress in the enterprise, did not cause it to be
altogether given up. The time had not come. That was all.
Mr. James had a secret leaning towards the use of steam on the new
road. He would have immediately and unhesitatingly advocated a
railroad run by locomotives. But that was out of the question. The
public were far behind that point, and to have openly advocated it
would have risked his judgment and good sense in the opinion of the
best men. Therefore Mr. James held his tongue. But hearing of the
Killingworth locomotives, and a collier who had astonished the natives
by his genius, he determined to make a journey to Newcastle, and see
the lions for himself.
Stephenson was not at home. "Puffing Billy" _was_, and "Billy" puffed
in a way that took Mr. James's heart at once. He seemed to see at a
glance "Billy's" remarkable power, and was struck with admiration and
delight. "Here is an engine," he exclaimed, "that is destined before
long to work a complete revolution in society."
The image of "Puffing Billy" followed him home.
"Why," he wrote to Stephenson's partner in the patent, "it is the
greatest wonder of the age, and the forerunner, I believe, of most
important changes in the modes of travel in the kingdom."
A few weeks later he made another visit to Killingworth, taking his
two sons with him. "Puffing Billy" was at work as usual.
The boys were frightened at the sight of the snorting monster; but
Stephenson encouraged them to mount with their father, and see how
harmless and manageable the giant was.
The second visit was even more gratifying than the first.
"Mr. Stephenson," said James, "is the greatest practical genius of the
age. His fame will rank with that of Watt."
Mr. James lost all hesitation now about speaking his mind. "Puffing
Billy" had driven the backwardness out of him, and he was willing, at
all hazards, boldly to advocate railroads and the steam-horse. No more
tramroads; steam or nothing. This was in 1821.
Mr. James entered heart and soul into the new idea of the age. On his
return to Liverpool it was everywhere his theme; and wherever he had
influence he tried to stir up men's minds to the benefits and
blessings puffing out in "Puffing Billy."
Stephenson rejoiced in such a friend. It was just what he and "Billy"
most needed--somebody to introduce them into the great world. And
Stephenson and his partner offered him a share in the profits of
whatever business he could secure to them.
But what can one man, or a few men, do in an enterprise like this,
depending upon the verdict of that important power--Public Opinion?
And public opinion had not yet made up its mind to it.
A thousand difficulties bristled in the way; there was both the
indifference of friends and the opposition of enemies at home. In
addition to this, a violent opposition was foreseen in Parliament,
which it needed all the strength and courage of a united constituency
to meet.
Under these discouraging circumstances there were not enough men of
courage to push the matter through.
So everything about the new road was laid on the shelf, at least for
the present, and Liverpool and Manchester trade jogged on as before.