Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/379

Rh passengers were packed into open cattle trucks with movable seats placed across, and no provision for bad weather. For this they were charged 1½d. a mile. The company's servants were strictly ordered to do no work for these unhappy persons, and only one slow train a day was run for their convenience at twelve miles an hour. Indeed, some of the companies refused to carry them at all. But to the astonishment of all, it was found that over thirteen million third-class passengers used the railway in the year 1845, while by 1860 the number swelled to ninety-three million, and they were legislated for accordingly. Not only by land, but by sea too, was this improvement in rapid transit telling on social progress. The substitution of steam for sail caused a huge advance to the mercantile navy of England and the colonial expansion of the Empire. The first steamer had made its way across the Atlantic in 1819, but little important progress had been made till 1838, when the Great Western with sixty-five passengers and twenty thousand letters crossed from Bristol to New York in fifteen days. Although even this was regarded as something of a freak, and men solemnly declared that one might as well attempt a voyage to the moon as to run regularly between