Page:Inland Transit - Cundy - 1834.djvu/35

 food be transported alive from the grower to the consumer, the distance of the market is limited by the power of the animal to travel, and the cost of its support on the road. It is only particular species of cattle which bear to be carried to market on common roads and by horse carriages. But the peculiar nature of a railway, the magnitude and weight of the loads which may be transported on it, and the prodigious speed which may be attained, render the transport of cattle, meat or fish of every species, to almost any distance, both easy and cheap. In process of time, when the railway system becomes extended, the metropolis and populous towns will therefore become markets, not, as at present, to districts within limited distances of them, but to the whole country within 200 miles of the metropolis.

The moral and political consequences of so great a change in the powers of transition of persons and intelligence from place to place, are not easily calculated. The concentration of mind and exertion which a great metropolis always exhibits, will be extended in a considerable degree to the whole realm. The same effect will be produced as if all distances were lessened in the proportion in which the speed and cheapness of transit are increased. Towns, at present removed some stages from the metropolis, will become its suburbs; others, now at a day's journey, will be removed to its immediate vicinity; business will be carried on with as much ease between them and the metropolis, as it is now between distant points of the metropolis itself. The ordinary habitations of various classes of citizens engaged in active business in the towns, will be at what now are regarded considerable distances from the places of their occupation. The salubrity of cities will thus be