A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS.
The following are extracts from some observations, under the above head, the last number of Blackwood:
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What has been the effect of all these improvements, and to what do they all tend?
If the whole prosperity of a nation depended on rapidity of conveyance, there could be but one answer to the enquiry—but even in that case the prosperity must depend on rapidity of conveyance between the particular places which the railway unites —Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham and London, and generally the great towns at the termini, and some throughout all of the intermediate stations, have cause to rejoice in the improvement. And land and houses in the neighbourhood have increased in value, their correspondence is conducted in half the time, and money is of course distributed in fertilizing rills by the crowds of travellers who pass through them on their way to join the train. But these advantages are local, and an opinion is now gaining ground that they are obtained at the expense of other places. What possible benefit can accrue to a town near which the railway passes, but where there is no station?— Can it encourage the trade of such a town as Dangley or Standon to know, that the five or six thousand beings who are whirled past them, with almost invisible rapidity, every day, arrive in Liverpool in ten hours after leaving London? On the contrary, is it not found to be directly injurious to them by the encouragement it gives to towns and villages more favourably situated; while their inns become deserted, their tradespeople are drifted out of the great stream of business, their turnpikes are ruined, and grass grows in their streets?
Twelve years ago, upwards of a hundred coaches passed through Oxford in the four-and-twenty hours. We will be bound to say, not half a dozen pass through it now; and whatever the University may think upon the subject, it is certain that the alteration is of great detriment to the town, and makes little less difference to the Corn-market and High Street, than the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping. Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair? And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns along the line? Will the prosperity of Steventon bring back the gaieties of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield, and the numerous villages within an easy distance of the road? We repeat it—the towns which formerly enjoyed the natural advantages of their geographical position, are now deprived of them; they become subordinates instead of principals, and will sink more and more, as new competitors arise in the towns which will infallibly gather round a railway station.
In every county there are numbers of towns whose fate is sealed, unless some great effort is made to preserve their existence: Marlborough, Devizes, Hindon, Guildford, Farnham, Petersfield, the whole counties of Rutland and Dorset, and the greater part of Lincoln, besides hundreds, or probably thousands, of other places of inferior note.
But what is the effort that should be made, and how are the parties interested to bring their powers to bear in staving off the destruction that threatens them? It is to these points we are now about to address ourselves; and we trust, in spite of the lightness of some parts of this paper, the real weight of the subject will command the notice of all who feel anxious to benefit any neighbourhood in the position of some of those we have mentioned. And the attention of the trustees of high-roads throughout the kingdom is solicited to the following suggestions.
It is conceded on all hands, that where speed is required in draught, the horse cannot compete with mechanical power. At three miles an hour, the horse is the most perfect locomotive machine; but if his velocity be increased to ten, most of his power is consumed in moving himself. The average exertion in each horse in a four-horse heavy coach, is calculated by the author of the excellent Treatise on Draught, appended to the work published on the Horse by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, not to be equal to a strain of more than 62½ lbs.; and at twelve miles an hour to be barely 40 lbs. It is therefore useless to rely on horse-power to enable a neighbourhood to retain its advantages in competition with a railway. To meet this difficulty many ingenious men turned their attention to the possibility of inventing a steam-engine applicable to common roads; and although, in several instances, their experiments succeeded, and many of the difficulties were overcome, still it is not to be denied that, on the whole, macadamized roads are not adapted to locomotive machines. Even when the road is in the best possible condition, the concussion is found so great as materially to interfere with the action of the machinery; and if the road be slightly muddy, or sandy, or newly gravelled, the draught will be double, or even treble what it is on the same road when free from dirt or dust. The author of the Treatise on Draught, accordingly, concludes against the use of steam-carriages on common roads, chiefly on account of their want of uniform hardness and smoothness, and the consequent wear and tear of the coach. "Perfection in a road," he says, "would be a plain, level, hard surface;" and in another passage —"Hardness, therefore, and consequently the absence of dust and dirt, which is easily crushed or displaced, is the grand desideratum in roads."
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An iron branch was at one time proposed between Steventon and Oxford. The same sum which would have been required for this purpose, according to the estimates, would have laid down an excellent road in wood from Steventon through Oxford to Rugby; thus connecting the three great arteries of the country—the Great Western, the Birmingham, and the Midland Counties Railways. It will be found that the great lines of railway have been forced, at au unavoidable and foreseen loss, to spread out minor or tributary lines, which, if the system of wood-paving had been in existence, might have been laid down at less than a third of the expense, and producing a proportionate profit. This view of the case has not been altogether neglected, for it has been dwelt at some length in able pamphlet on " the Use of Mechanical Power in Draught on Turnpike Roads, with reference to the new system Paving." It is evidently the work of a practical man, who has deeply studied the subject. "No part of the community," he says, "are likely to benefit so largely by the introduction of the new system as the holders of railway shares. For though, in all probability, the railroads would not have been constructed to their present extent had the virtues of wood paving been earlier known, yet it would be absurd to contend that the wooden road will ever be able to compete with the existing iron lines. The new principle, however, may be most usefully adopted by the railway companies themselves, in the formation of branches or tributary roads, the completion of which has hitherto entailed on them enormous expense unattended by corresponding benefits. The proposed system at all events, is worth a trial by many other towns besides the one chosen for illustration by the author of the pamphlet.— He fixes on Shrewsbury, a place already on the decline, and not likely to recover its former prosperity, unless it can establish steam communication with the great lines of railway at Wolverhampton. "But capitalists," he adds, "who see the small amount of dividend paid to their shareholders by the minor railways, can no longer be induced to embark their money in similar undertakings. Let portion, however, of the noble, but now half-deserted, Holyhead road be paved with wood, and for a comparatively trifling cost of less than £50,000, in six months from the present time, steamers could be enabled to run along the entire line with safety, infinitely greater than, and speed almost equal to, that on the Birmingham Railway."
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We feel sure that these considerations need only to be stated to have their due weight, and we shall be greatly surprised if an effort is not soon made to avoid the ruin impending over so many towns. Among others, the beautiful town of Salisbury should take interest in this matter; for what can be more evident that she will fall rapidly to decay, if she cannot establish a steam communication with Southampton on one side, and Bath and Bristol on the other. Salisbury, above all other places, ought to know the value of a good road; for she has the fate of her elder sister Sarum before her eyes. Decay—disfranchisement—contempt will assuredly be her lot, if she allows herself to be treated in the same way as the venerable Sarum was in the days of her youth—for do not the antiquaries tell us what was the cause of Sarum's fall? It has, in fact, become so notorious, that it has even got into Topographical Dictionaries. "About this time," the reign of Edward the First, "Bishop Bridport built a bridge at Harnham, and thus changing the direction of the Great Western Road, which formerly passed through Old Sarum, that place was completely deserted, and Salisbury became one of the most flourishing cities of the kingdom."
The same will be recorded of her by future chroniclers, if she do not seize this opportunity of retrieving her possession of "the Great Western Road." "In the reign of Queen Victoria, a railroad being established at some distance from Salisbury, and the traffic being thus diverted from it, which once formed the great source of its prosperity, it became completely deserted; Shaftesbury, Sturminster, and Sherborne, shared in her ruin; and Swindon became one of the most flourishing places in the kingdom." We cannot think so meanly of our countrymen, as to suppose that they will yield like white-livered cravens, and die without a struggle ; and in thus raising the voice of Maga to warn of their danger, and instruct them how to avoid it, we consider that we are doing the state some service, and pointing out new means of profitable employment for the capital of the rich, and the labour of the poor.