"coated mail guard, he was always too important to get very familiar with, the man felt that he "had a post office time piece in his pocket, and 66 was serving his king at the rate of ten miles, an ❝hour. Ten years ago, railroads as a means of "general transit for passengers and goods were "almost untried, now they are spreading over the

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country like a net work; about one hundred and "fifty railroads are already in use in Great Britain “and Ireland, and upwards of sixty millions of "money are invested in them; they are upsetting "all our former notions, and altering our social "condition-they are pouring the country into "London, and spreading London over the coun"try; Northward, we are carried as far as "Lancaster, a distance of two hundred and forty

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one miles from London, in eleven or twelve "hours by the London and Birmingham, the "Grand Junction, and the continuation to Pres"ton and Lancaster; where though for the pre"sent it stops, there will probably be a con"tinuation to Penrith, to Carlisle, and Glasgow ; "the same lines, the London and Birmingham, "and the Grand Junction, link with Liverpool "and Manchester, at Rugby, eighty-three miles " from London, on the London and Birmingham "railway. The Midland Counties Railway carries "us to Nottingham and Derby, and at Derby, we "can get by the North Midland and its Junctions, "to Chesterfield, Sheffield, Leeds and York, or

" instead of going on to York, we may double like "a hunted hare, turn off to Hull by Selby, or "from Selby to Leeds. At York, the Great "North of England Railway now in progress, will

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carry us on to Durham and Newcastle, and at "Newcastle we can cross the Island to Carlisle. "Returning to London, we find the Great "Western Railway opening to us the western "coast, and by it and its junctions, not only "enabling London citizens to spend a day com"fortably at Windsor, but joining Bristol and "Bath, Gloucester and Cheltenham, either now "or shortly. The south coast again is almost free "to us by the Southampton and the Brighton 66 railways, along with the Greenwich and its adjuncts, to Croydon and Dover, all either "made or making. Again, the north east coast is "accessible by the Eastern Counties railway, to

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Ipswich or Norwich, and all who wish to avoid "the intricacies of the London portion of the "Thames, called the pool, or who are in a hurry "to reach a dinner of white bait, can be whirled "from the city to Blackwall by the Blackwall ❝ railroad.

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"The locomotive steam engines are high pressure engines, no vacuum is produced in the Cylinder, and therefore the whole of the con

densing apparatus, the cold water cistern, con"denser, air pump, cold water pump, &c. are

"dispensed with, and nothing is retained except

"the boiler, cylinder, piston and valves; by this 66 means, the locomotive is rendered light and "portable, but at the same time there is required "the action of an intense heating power within a "small compass. The railroad from the City of "London to Blackwall, though a short one, is an "interesting one, from the admirable system "adopted, no locomotive engines are used, the "trains being pulled by ropes, moved by sta❝tionary engines, at each end of the line. Though "the line is a short one, there are several inter"mediate stations where passengers get out and "in, and when a train starts from London it pro"ceeds in the following order, each station having "its own carriage and each carriage its driver. "The carriage for Blackwall goes first, then the one "for Poplar, the one for the West India Docks, "Stepney, &c. the carriage for Stepney being the "nearest station to London goes last, and as the "train approaches the Stepney station, the driver "turns his carriage off, while the rest of the train

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goes on without stopping, thus carriage by car"riage is turned off, the rest proceeding unchecked, " and the intermediate stations being all passed, the "Blackwall carriage arrives alone, and with as "much rapidity as if it started singly, danger of "collision is thus rendered impossible, and a "whole train of carriages is not placed at the "discretion of a single man, as in the case with "trains drawn by locomotives. There is also an

"electric telegraph, by which constant and almost "instantaneous communication is maintained be"tween the termini, and a casual question being "asked in the London station house will have an 66 answer in a few seconds from Blackwall, the "length of the railroad being nearly four miles."

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It may not be amiss here to mention that upon the great railroads, the London and Lancaster for instance, there is a travelling post office in which the bags of letters are received from the several post towns and are sorted immediately by one or more clerks and the several bags of letters sealed up and delivered as they pass along the post office travelling upon the Birmingham railroad cost £600. it is fifteen feet, three inches long, seven feet, seven inches wide, and is six feet ten inches in height, the carriage is fitted internally with nests of pigeon holes to receive the letters as sorted, with drawers, desks and pegs and is divided in the middle by a partition, and the guard and mail bags that are to go through are in the hindermost part, the clerks keep on sorting and arranging the letters during the journey, and the guards tie up and exchange the mail bags. A Mr. J. Ramsay contrived the following ingenious process, by which the bags of letters are received and given out, without stopping the train or slackening the speed, for this purpose attached to the near side of the office is an iron frame with a piece of net, which is expanded as they approach

a post office station to receive a bag from the arm of a standard at the side of the road, at the same moment that a bag is delivered into the net, another is let down from the office by the machine; and thus an exchange of bags is instantly effected. The speed of the mail trains on the Birmingham railway, is as follows, from London to Birmingham five hours, a stoppage of eight minutes is allowed at Tring, ten minutes at Wolverton, three minutes at Weedon and nine minutes at Coventry; making a total of twenty-five minutes occupied by the stoppages, and only four hours and thirty-five minutes in performing the journey of one hundred and twelve miles and a quarter; according to the Parliamentary report the price for conveying the mails on the London and Birmingham railway, is settled by arbitration, namely from the first of May, 1839, at £24. 4s. and 4d. per day, or £10,340. per year, for a day mail up and down, and a night mail up and down, for this the contractors provide the post office carriages and convey each trip a guard and two clerks; the contract is for three years and the weight carried nearly ten tons.

We have written a long article upon railroads and we have only got as far as Slough in our way down to Egham. We walked with our friend Captain Hopkins to his residence at Maidenhead, is was a neat small cottage, and which we should call a Bungalow, with the