The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-25 00:00:00

LOCOMOTION AT HOME.

THE people of Liverpool have no reason to com-
plain of the means of locomotion which have been
provided to take them in all directions, om home ;
but they certainly have no cause to be over and
above satisfied with such means for their con-
venience at home., Now, an age of progress is of
necessity an age of locomotion. The world is
everywhere on the move,—the world of commerce,
of industry, and of enterprise, is especially so.
And on the move, not only from one part of the
country to another—aud even from one country
to another and distant one—but also, and more
particularly, from one part of a town and neigh-
bourhood to another. Slow coaches are quite out
of character with such an age,—they belong to
past times, and past ways, and have no congruity
with the present, whether it be the vehicle itself
which is so called, or the man who, by the tardi-
ness of his movements, has acquired that not inapt
designation. Time has come to be estimated as
one of the most precious, of commodities in this
world; and not a moment of it is to be wasted,
even by any dilatoriness in our manner of moving
to and fro. The poet has commended it as wise
in man to give time a tongue, and said . •

" It is the signal that demands despatch."
But there are many more such signals, now,-a--
days, than that which " strikes one." The course
of active life abounds with them on every hand.
In SHAKSPEARE'S day and generation, it could
doubtless be truly said—" Time travels in divers
paces with divers persons ;" and it were then
quite easy to tell " who time ambles withal, who
time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and
who he stands still withal." But these distinctions
have now become almost obsolete. Remember
that it is, as we have said, an age of
progress. In such an age, men look forward,
instead of backward; and not only look forward,
but push forward also. It could not be the age
it is, were it otherwise. For progress is advance-
ment•--motion forward. It were utterly in vain,
at this time of day, to merely moralise about' it.
Men might, in other days, have the leisure to
listen to the admonition which bade them reflect,
that, " when they strained to their utmost speed,
there was still the wonted distance between them
and their aims—all their eager pursuits bringing
them no acquests." All this, we say, is now too
much regarded as belonging to the past ; the
present is not allowed to afford the opportunity
of waiting to think of it. The common object of
every day is pursued with haste ; and every
moment must be regulated accordingly. In a
word, it is the age of railways—they are at once
the great practical exponents, exhibitors, and
exciters of progress ; and, to be consistent, one
naturally expects to travel about everywhere—at
home, as well as abroad—at something like a
railway rate.

Now this has yet to be done—here in .England-
at least. Our American cousins, being, to all
intents and purposes, a much more go-a-head.
sort of people than we are, have already accom-
plished. it. In almost all their populous towns
they can travel by railway, from one distant part
of it to another, and from the centre of the town
to beyond its out-spreading suburbs. And why
should it not be so ? If progress, if despatch, is
to be the order of the day, why not in town, as
well as in the country—why not from one part of
the town to another, as well as from town to
town ? If time is so precious—if it is incon-
venient and unprofitable to lose, that is to waste
time in travel at all, it must be equally so
at home, in men's daily avocations—where
they are such as to require moving about
—as when called from home, and required
to transact their business in distant places.
What an anomaly, and which is worse,
what a disadvantage,—in such times as these,
that a man who lives two or three miles out of
town, or even in a suburb of the town, from which
his place of business is as distant must spend as
much time in passing to and fro as would enable
him, by the now ordinary public conveyances
from one town to another, to perform a journey
of five times the distance.

Here, in Liverpool, it is true; there is now some
slight prospect,—Would that it were only more dis-
tinct and certain than we fear it is,—of our having
so great a want supplied, as this of a better means