Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/150

 514 WORKMEN AND HEROES fuel, using compressed air and the artificial draught and in surface condensation, were the work of this period, during which he also invented the steam fire-engine, which excited great interest in London. The famous battle of the locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of twenty-six before the English public in a manner never to be forgotten. At that date Stephenson himself dared not sav very much about the speed of the locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of court. He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of running it ten miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment with consternation There was great prejudice then existing in England against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would bring noble and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung tenaciously to its earlier inconveniences, which had at lease the merit of being exclusive. But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive engine, the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool and Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses, offered a premium of ^500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing a gross weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The conditions required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed for building the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven weeks before the appointed time of trial, and at once determined to compete. He hastily built the " Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite, and when the exhibition came off his was practically the only locomotive which disputed for the supremacy with Stephenson's " Rocket." But a portion of the railroad had yet been finished ; thus the competing locomotives were compelled to cover their distance by making twenty trips back and forth over one and three-quarter miles of track. The excitement was intense. The London Times next morning said : " The ' Novelty ' was the lightest and most elegant carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved surprised and amazed every be- holder. It shot along the line at the amazing rate of thirty miles an hour ! It seemed, indeed, to fly ; presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and human daring the world ever beheld." Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's " Rocket ; " and although it had been constructed with such celerity that it broke down before the final point was reached, and he thereby lost the prize, yet the superiority of the principle involved in it was universally recognized. John Bourn said : " To most men the production of such an engine would have con- stituted an adequate claim to celebrity. In the case of Ericsson, it is only a sin- gle star of the brilliant galaxy with which his shield is spangled." " We may imagine," writes Mr. Church, " the excitement following the announcement in the Times concerning the performance of the ' Novelty,' for to this engine Eng- land's great daily devoted chief attention. Railroad shares leaped at once to a premium, and excited groups gathered on 'change to discuss the wonderful event. The pessimists were silenced, and the art of modern railway travel inau- gurated. A grand banquet was given in Liverpool to the directors and officers