The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-11 00:00:00

How then the bubble makers at Bristol, even sleeping with one
eye open, as they are said to do, could think of overloading the esti-
mate so prodigiously beyond the just limits, is only to be reconciled
by the fact of their supposing the bubble payers were never awake
even with both eyes open, consequently would never detect the
same over-reaching principle in the coach department.
But let us look at the revenue of the waggon department of the
minor Great Western, and the sweets will be found still less like
honey to the Shareholders. For, assuming that the whole quantity
of goods will be one-third, with more than half of the whole dis-
tance cut off in the middle of the line, making the total quantity of
conveyance 9,621 tons, and the gross income about 38,9001., from
which deduct expenses in the ratio of 733 per cent. of the income,
say 28,5431., and the total gross profit will be 10.3571., which, on a
capital of 1,500,0001., the least sum requisite for such line, is about
five-eighths per cent !
In the coach department it is notorious, that there is at least one-
third less travelling between London and Bristol, than between
London and Birmingham ; yet the Bristol Committee assert, that
they shall carry 110,403 passengers in one year more than the Bir-
mingham Line, and 208,072 more than the Manchester Line has
carried on an average for the last three years, under the authority
of areturn said to be from the Stamp Office, only taking care not to
produce it as the Birmingham Committee have done. In fact the
blowers of the Great Western Bubble stand charged with having
designedly over-credited the annual income with no less a sum than
110,403/., on the asserted authority of a return from the Stamp
Office, which never has and never will be obtained.
But, granting the fact to have been proved, are Steam Car-
riages and Canals not to carry any portion of the traffic, merely be-
cause they will both condescend to do it many times cheaper, long
before the Railway opens ? Is the Bristol Line, like the Birming-
ham Line, to monopolize all the traffic, even against &saving of 50
per cent. to three-fourths of the community, to whom money is
more valuable than time ? Yet that saving must be sacrificed alto-
gether, before the Bristol Railway can expect to realize more than
six times the income from passengers alone, than has been made by
the mostfavourable line in the kingdom.
Assuming, therefore, the total income to be 493,8331. for passen-
gers alone, and not 604,2361., and deducting the expense in the
ratio of 44 per cent. of the income, say 214,200/., it leaves a gross
profit of 279,633/. ; taking therefore one-half only of this sum as a
more reasonable share of the road earnings, it brings the income to
138,8161. (without allowing for any additional tax to be in a par
with common road stage coaches), being on a capital of 3,000,0001.
about 4A per cent. ; or, supposing the capital to be 4,000,0001., 3i
per cent. ; making, in the latter case, the total profit in both de-
partments about 4 per cent., or less than one per cent. net profit
for the whole line, supposing the bubble blowers for the Great
Western Railway to carry 203,072 passengers more in one year than
the Manchester and Liverpool Line, the best in the world ! whilst
the petitioners themselves against the Birmingham Railway con-
fess, that " without indulging in any extravagant expectations, there
is now every reason to hope that, within no long time, these Steam
Carriages, by means of successive improvements, will be brought to
such a state of perfection, as to admit of their being advantageously
used upon turnpike roads, without the expensive accompaniment of
a Railway."
Besides, it should be borne in mind, that the Projectors have
founded their estimate on the result of the Manchester and Liver-
pool Line, which was tax-free for 214 months ; but after the facts
disclosed in par. 93. every one must see, that no other Railway will
be permitted to pocket profits at the expense of both the nation and
the common road coach masters. _ _

Nor does the minor luminary from Reading to London, and
Bisistol to Bath, hold out any stronger inducement in the coach de-
partment, to throw away income, for five or six years, merely to
put a fortune into the pockets of a set of crafty Projectors, who are
bound hand and foot, by their own interests, to reveal nothing to
open the eyes of those:whose purses are scarcely ever free from the
fingers of one or other of the party.
For, if the gross profit of 138,8161. in the coach department for
the whole line be nearly correct, the proposition for the minor bub-
ble line, in the ratio of one-third, will be 46,2721., which, after de-
ducting the expenses, 44i- per cent., as before, leaves a gross profit
of 25,739/., being, on a capital of 1,500,0001., about 1 per cent.
But what is the inference to be drawn from this last shift to the
Maximum Bubble Line? The projectors must hare felt convinced,
that the one-eye sleepers at Bristol, who knew best how to appre-
ciate the minimum, never would risk a shilling on the major cheat
—seeing that it must in the end be far more ruinous than any one
of the 7,000 bubbles of 1825, that helped to fill half the mad houses
in London ; and consequently the blowers were well aware that they
must all go out of commission, even without half-pay, if they did
not beat up for recruits in other quarters ; whilst, by setting fire to
the candle at both ends, they speculate to lighten the darkness of
their opponents so effectually, as to place nearly 70 miles of inter-
mediate space, at present struck out of the way-bill, in so clear a
light, that the ultimate junction may be insured in self defence. For
neither engineers, lawyers, nor agents will work long in good hu-
mour, without slipping their fingers into the pockets of the com-
munity ; nor is there any good reason why they should waste brains
of such elastic capability, oratory, law, and engineering, for an old
song.
Accordingly, a pic-nic party of Bubble Missionaries visit Reading,
stick the Mayor in a chair, make him believe the moon is made of
cream-cheese, or, what may be considered scarcely less absurd, that
a Radioed, carried on for forty miles through a country entirely
agricultural, and therefore not densely populated, would pay as
much as the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, the object of
which was to connect the largest manufacturing district in the
world, with a port through which they obtained all the raw mate-
rial, and from which is exported full one-third of their manufac-
tured goods. For the Mayor of Reading, probably net over fond
of reading statistical works, or not having Mr. Marshall's digest of
600 volumes of parliamentary papers to refer to, was not exactly
familiar with the merits of the whole case, or he would not have
swallowed the bait quite so greedily, though doubtless a lunatic
cream cheese was a tit bit that could not be well resisted. But
his eyes will now open, when he learns that a circle described from
the centre of Manchester, with a radius of 30 miles, would include
a population much larger than that of London and its environs ;
four times more numerous than the whole population of Bucking-
hamshire, Berkshire, and Somersetshire put together, and where
the inhabitants feel, more than in any other district in the empire,
the necessity of cheap conveyance to a port like Liverpool.
For in Manchester alone, in 1824, there were not less than 200
steam engines at work, and 30,000 power looms ; and in 1829, nearly
12,000 vessels paid dock duties at Liverpool. Whereas the whole
burthen calculated for the first Great Western Railway, throughout
the line, from Bristol to London in waggon and van goods, is only
about 28,864 tons, being 1,219,136 tons less than the annual bur-
then estimated for conveyance on the Manchester Line ; yet, with
all this enormous additional traffic, even the latter has not made one
per cent. nett profit. What then can be thought of the maximum
bubble, the minor Great Western, that cannot even speculate upon
carrying more than 10,000 tons at most from vans and waggons.
Yet his Worship, the good easy Mayor of Reading, doubtless must
have thought the cream cheese most delicious, or he never would
have recommended to his townsmen the utility of a conveyance that
would bring the Welsh cheeses, already converted into Welsh rab-
bits, as a fit companion for the Kennet ale, to be carried over the
heads of blocks and sleepers, without paying toll lower down, or
having anything to do with canal water.
Neither was his Worship duly apprized before his taste was con-
sulted, that the hilly country for 20 miles to the east of Bath is
from 700 to 1,000 feet high above the level of Bath, and therefore
forms almost an insurmountable barrier to a Rail-road at the end of
the minor Great Western Line. What chance then his Worship
of Reading can have for customers, to get rid of the moonshine rab-
bits, time alone can tell.
For Mr. Brunel, according to Mr. Cundy, the civil engineer,
proposes to tunnel though these hills, and one plan is to dig a huge
gutter for delicate ladies and gentlemen, of infirm mind as well as
body, to be poked through all the way under the good city of Bath :
for the excavation must be long and deep for miles ; and the want
of air, combined with the combustion of gas, smoke, steam, and sul-
phur, will render the tunnel almost fatal to human ex'stence.
Besides his Worship may not see that the condensed or com-
pressed air in tunnels for one mile long, much less others for several
miles, will give formidable resistance to the speed of the propelling
engine, and train of carriages, that would require more than double
the power to propel them, compared with the power on the same
level in the open air; for though air shafts may be made, and other
means provided, at a great expense, yet if two carriages enter at each
end at the same time, the rapidity of motion would so compress the
air before each of them, as to operate like wedges one against the
other.
Lastly, in driving the tunnels at the Bath end of the line, if only
a few hundred feet below the surface of that country, it would be
considerably below the level of several great springs that form the
head of the rivers Isis, Kennet, and Avon ; and, cutting across the
country by such tunnels, would no doubt tap these powerful
springs ; drain all the high country, and convert the old road into
something like a ship canal between Bath and Bristol ! so that the
Granite Line Company must apply to the Humane Society to keep
proper people in attendance, to taste the passengers home occasion-
ally in warm blankets, should the Great Western only get an act to
make a Railway or Floating-road from Bath to Bristol, or the for-
mer Company will have no chance of saving a single passenger from
a watery grave.