Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/251

 began to multiply and to run in connection one with another, it was necessary for a passenger who had to travel over two railways before his journey was completed, to change carriages on the termination of the first one and to take a fresh ticket; and similarly every consignment of merchandise had to be transhipped from one company's waggon to that of another at the point of junction, and to be re-invoiced. As the business increased, this was soon found to be a perfectly intolerable system, and a demand arose from the public that they should be enabled to travel between any points by paying the fare for the whole journey at the place of departure, and that in the same way merchandise and live stock should be forwarded throughout without sustaining the delay and possible damage involved in frequent transhipments. The difficulty to be overcome in giving effect to this demand was twofold; for not only would one company be receiving money part of which was due to another company, but each would be obtaining a service from the carriages and waggons of the other for which, clearly, some payment must be made. For a time the companies attempted to meet the case by a system of keeping accounts and exchanging returns of the receipts of each from through traffic; but this plan was open to many objections. Different companies had different modes of keeping their accounts, and no one had any authority to impose uniformity; so that there were mutual difficulties in agreeing the figures, and the consequent disputes engendered ill-feeling, recriminations, and charges of unfair practice. At length, in the year 1842, it occurred to Mr. Morison. who was at that time an audit clerk of the London and Birmingham Railway, that the true remedy for the