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 whole I think it rather vulgarises the scene too much, and I am glad that it is found not to answer, and is to be dropped next year." Well-known, indeed, is the opposition that had to be overcome with regard to acceleration of speed. Men contended that even if a speed of fifteen miles an hour were attained, the dangers of bursting boilers and broken wheels would be so great that "people would suffer themselves to be fired off upon a rocket, sooner than trust themselves to the mercy of a machine going at such a prodigious rate." While "as to those persons who speculate on making railways general throughout the kingdom, and superseding all the wagons, mail, stage coaches, and post chaises—we deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice."

But nothing could daunt the brave spirit of this son of the people. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened in 1829, and Stephenson triumphantly drove his engine at the hitherto undreamt-of rate of thirty-six miles an hour, a speed which was exactly doubled in 1885. There is no need to dwell on the success of the early railways—