WHAT A CHANGE!

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1722, 10 September 1862, Page 4

WHAT A CHANGE!

Yjks, “ what a change,” almost unconsciously escaped our lips as wo laid aside the Railway Statistics of Great Britain for the year 1861, which have recently been published. Without going back to Anglo-Saxon and AngloNorman times, when, like Chaucer’s Pilgrims, for mutual protection and company, people journeying travelled in troops,—some on horseback, and some on loot, —and when roads, rough as those of New Zealand, were but tracks, except at long intervals, where the soldiery of Ctcsar had left memorials of civilization ; without going back to Mediaeval England, or to the vaunted Elizabethan age, when Her Majesty’s self preferred riding to the city on a pillion behind her Lord Chancellor, to the jolting of the royal but wretched vehicle, wo can well remember—and time has neither silvered our locks nor chiselled furrows of age on our brows—when the most comfortable and most expeditious means of travelling at command were stage coaches, which could not, under the most favourable circumstances, exceed ten miles an hour, and in the winter, when roads were heavy and snow deep, not more than six ; while the “ road waggon,” a conveyance for heavy luggage, drawn by twenty powerful but sluggish horses, travelling less than three miles an hour, without including stoppages for baiting at every roadside inn, where the “jolly waggoner,” very leisurely enjoyed his bread and cheese, his pipe, and pot of “nut brown ale,” was the oidy mode of travelling accessible by the poorer classes, who had to stow themselves away, night and day, with bales and packages, until their protracted and miserable journey was completed. And as to the mechanic in search of work, when funds were low, and the prospect of obtaining employment dubious, with no better means of locomotion than his legs, throwing his tools and clothes accross his shoulder* with his trusty staff he nudged, heavy hearted, weary, and foot-sore, to “ Lunnon.” But all this has passed away, and over most of the main roads through the country an emerald carpet is already spread. The traveller of to-day, instead of wrapping himself in fur, like an Icelander, to encounter the contingencies of weather on the outside of a coach, steps into a comfortable room—for a railway carriage can bo compared to nothing else—tilled with entertaining companions. At the shrill whistle of the guard, the huge horse of iron, as if exulting in his strength, with a fearful scream and snort, dashes along its serpentine path, smoothly and easily, with thirty or forty carriages and 1500 passengers at its heels, at a velocity whidi makes the ground beneath seem a cloud, and the mile and telegraph posts thick as tombstones. A merchant, residing between 200 and 300 miles from the metropolis, can leave by the evening mail train, sleep comfortably on his journey, spend ten hours in London, and be home again by the next mail at midnight, being absent but one day from his counting house. And these are blessings conferred not on the affluent alone, but on all. The itinerant Italian boy, with his cage of white mice, barrel organ, and monkey, as well as the wealthy and noble, enjoys them; for a penny-a-mile trip costs him less than the wear of his boots on the road. The Railway Statistics already referred to are astonishing, and very much resemble astronomical numbers. During the year 18G1, 163,435,678 casual travellers, besides 47,894 season and periodical ticketholders, were conveyed by railway in the course of a single year. These figures arc almost sufficient to take away the breath, not only of an ancient, but of a modern; yet those that follow arc even more marvellous. The railway trains themselves travelled upwards of one hundred and two millions of miles; and, in addition to human beings, nearly three hundred thousand horses and four hundred thousand dogs made involuntary journeys. The goods traffic showed twelve millions of cattle, sheep, and pigs, taken to market, and nearly ninety million tons of minerals and other merchandize. There were upwards of ten thousand miles of railway opened in the United Kingdom at the close of the year; and the receipts from all sources closely approached twenty-eight millions sterling, of which thirteen millions came from passenger traffic and the mails. The expenditure was £13,187,368, or 47 per cent., leaving rather more than fourteen millions as net receipts; and the compensation for accidents and losses amounted to the comparatively modest sum of £181,170. Finally, we may add that there were over five thousand locomotives, fifteen thousand passenger carriages, and a hundred and eighty thousand waggons for goods traffic ; and that upwards of ten thousand trains ran every day throughout the year! Ten thousand trains a day! and we—not tiie Crusaders who repose in the cathedrals of Salisbury and Winchester, not our grandfathers, nor our fathers, but we, ourselves—used to bo satisfied, not forty years since, with two coaches a day to Liverpool and the same number to Dover!