CAGO LIBRARY LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, VOLUME LXXXIV. DECEMBER, 1848-MARCH, 1849. AMERICAN EDITION. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY LEONARD SCOTT & CO., 1849. THE LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. CLXVII. FOR DECEMBER, 1848. ART. I.—1. The Bubble of the Age; or name of Science had told the assembled the Fallacies of Railway Investment, multitude, that before she became a skeleRailway Accounts, and Railway Divi- ton she and her husband would undertake dends. By Arthur Smith. 1848. 2. Herepath's Railway and Commercial—that is to say, that, for every mile "the Journal. 1848. 3. Rules and Regulations for the Conduct of the Traffic and for the Guidance of the Officers and Men in the Service of the London and North-Western Railway Company. London. 1847. A GOOD many years ago, one of the toughest and hardest riders that ever crossed Leicestershire undertook to perform a feat which, just for the moment, attracted the general attention not only of the country, but of the sporting world. His bet was, that if he might choose his own turf, and if he might select as many thorough-bred horses as he liked, he would undertake to ride 200 miles in ten hours!!! The newspapers of the day described exactly how the Squire" was dressed what he had been living on-how he looked-how, at the word "Away!" he started like an arrow from a bow-how gallantly Tranby, his favourite racer, stretched himself in his gallop-how on arriving at his second horse he vaulted from one saddle to another-how he then flew over the surface of the earth, if possible, faster than before --and how, to the astonishment and amidst the acclamations of thousands of spectators, he at last came in . . . a winner! instead of 200 miles in ten hours to go 500 Squire" had just ridden, she and her old man would go two miles and a half—that she would moreover knit all the way, and that he should take his medicine every hour and read to her just as if they were at home; lastly that they would undertake to perform their feat either in darkness or in daylight, in sunshine or in storm, " in thunder, lightning, or in rain ;"-who, we ask, would have listened to the poor maniac ?and yet how wonderfully would her prediction have been now fulfilled! Nay, waggons of coals and heavy luggage now-a-days fly across Leicestershire faster and farther than Mr. Osbaldestone could go, notwithstanding his condition and that of all his horses. When railways were first established, every living being gazed at a passing train with astonishment and fear; ; ploughmen held their breath; the loose horse galloped from it, and then, suddenly stopping, turned round, stared at it, and at last snorted aloud. But the nine days' wonder' soon came to an end. As the train now flies through our verdant fields, the cattle grazing on each side do not even raise their heads to look at it; the timid sheep fears it no more than the wind; indeed, the hen-partridge, running with her brood along the embankment of a deep cutting, does not now even crouch as it passes close by her. It is the same with mankind. On entering a railway station we merely mutter to a clerk in a box where we want to go-say How much ?'-see him horizontally poke a card into a little machine that pinches it-receive our ticket-take our place-read our news1 47573 Now, if at this moment of his victory, while with dust and perspiration on his brow-his exhausted arms dangling just above the panting flanks of his horse, which his friends at each side of the bridle were slowly leading in triumph-a decrepit old woman had hobbled forward, and in the TOY 1V ་. |