The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-02 00:00:00

RAILROADS.

The rapidity with which this great iron revolution is
extending over space is wonderful and unparalleled, ex-
cept by the strangeness and speed of transit which has
itself been achieved by the iron-road (chenille de fer) and
the Vulcanian Pegasus, that most wonderful and most
perfect of all man's creations. Ten years ago a railway
was all but unknown ; a tram-road of iron, sufficient 'to
guide a few coal-waggons from the coal-hill to the pc.rt,
of delivery, and to enable them to follow the 'track of an
old horse at the rate of two or three miles an hour, was
what the small number of us, who knew anything at all
about a railway, understood to be meant by the phrase.
It was the joiut necessity and imposSibility of an addi-
tional canal from Liverpool to Manchester which first
compelled the merchants of that enterprising port to
entertain the project of a railway on a great
scale, and it is to their spirit and determination that
we owe much of the advantage now obtained. In 1826,
when they applied to Parliament, even their own engi-
neers seemed to entertain very little idea of their present
results. Mr. Stephenson, who has since become vo emi-
nent li-s,a_raily,,,pro_pagandist, held out thu expectation,
iblt on rarwa:y rdt.-,Mintivu tug hiea -earrymg thirty,
or forty tons might possibly be able to travel at the rate
of six miles an hour with safety and security. The
author of the " Railway Treatise" thought that
the rate of twelve miles an hour would be a dar
gerous and useless speed. Mr. Rastrick reported,
that by improvements on the engine, forty tons might be
carried along a railway at the rate of six or even twelve
miles an hour, but that the latter rate was decidedly un-
safe ! At this moment twenty-five miles is the regular
slow speed, beyond which the conductors of engines are
forbidden to travel, although the double of it is what has
been often attained ; while, instead of 30 or 40 tons, the
weight of a train is 100 to 200 tons.
'ten years' experience now does all this safely and
well, daily, hourly, and everywhere. Twenty-five hun-
dred miles of railways, almost all of them double lines of
road, traverse our little island, connecting all the princi-
pal towns and provinces with the great centre of money
and of mind. Now, indeed, we may boast of an " iron
bound" rock of ocean. A chain of iron links' firmly to

this great head, in close and intimate union, the great
members of our body politic, commercial and literary.
We all think, feel, and act more closely in union. Pro-
vincial disadvantages and distinctions rapidly wear away ;
local antipathies become forgotten, and the great
unit of British industry, commercial enterprise,
wealth and wisdom, is becoming more firm,
more energetic, more poWerful, and more pro-
mising of prolonged health and permanent stability.
Disssension, discord, division, dismemberment, must
become less and less possible in direct proportion to the
intimacy 'of connexion and facility of communication
among its component parts. More than fifty million:, of
capital are already devoted to the creation of new rail-
ways ; and in return for this investment, something like
five millions will every year be created and returned into
the treasury of our capitalists, for re-investment and the
extension of its powers and our privileges. Not only do
these railways facilitate trade and commerce, and give
increased activity to mercantile interests in general, but
if we consider that the expenditure of a railway consists
principally in the tear and wear of machinery the produce
of human labour, the great part •f which is dug from the
bowels of the earth and formed by human skill, we shall
see giat many new and important departments of com-
merce and trade are created and fed by this new
economic and social power. The new social element is
extending the range of action so fast and so far, that there
will soon cease to be any section of the community, or
any individual in society, sufficiently severed from its
interests, to be altogether beyond the sphere of its imme-
diate influence. Noblemen, men of property, m erch ants, and
traders, will almost all be soon embraced in the multitu-
dinous constituency of railway directors, or holders
of railway stock. While the saving of the wear and
tear of human life by the wholesale means of economical
transport, thus provided, has in many districts rendered
the most laborious and the poorest portion of the com-
munity not only the class on whom the greatest benefits
has been conferred, but that also which hay contributed
most abundantly to the success of such undertakings,
as thousands now travel by this most rapid conveyance
who were not before able to avail themselves of any.
The subject is, therefore, one which must, sooner or
later, come closely home to the interests of every member
of society.—Athencrum
SLAVERY

IN THE UNITED
STATES.

Joseph Sturge, an abolition agent to this country,
and who, we believe, eitherais or was a Member of the
British Parliament, has published a letter, of which
he is the bearer, to the President of the United
States, on the subject of the enormous iniquities of
our slave system. In other words, a memorial to
our Chief Magistrate to rescind the Constitution of
the United States ; for, if the letter is not utterly
senseless, that is the only sense in which it can be
interpreted. It was written originally, we are gravely
informed, to General Harrison, but will be presented to
Mr. Tyler. We.presume Mr. Tyler will treat the mis-
sion and its bearer with the contempt they merit. The
letter itself purports to have been written by the " vene-
rable Thomas Clarkson," but by whomsoever written or
by whomsoever borne, it is a piece of impertinent impu-
dence that ought to consign everybody connected with it
to the care of the door keeper—whenever they enter the
Presidential mansion. It is a gross and direct insult to
the country, and should be so treated.
It is a pretty time of day, sure enough, if these
English gentry suppose they can be permitted to inter;
fere in this way with the internal concerns of the country
and make the very Executive Hall the theatre of its
athomless insolence. We recollect a good deal of the
history of this Sturge. At some assemblage of Aboli-.
tionism in England,. not long since, or in a letter to
some body of the sort, he indulged himself in abuse
and invectives upon the people of the United States, only
equalled by the burly blackguard O'Connell. A very
proper person this, to carry letters to our President,
nd deliver them in person at Washington while Con-
ress is in session.
In time of war it was deemed necessary to send Bri-
tish subjects "forty miles from tide water." When in
a time of profound peace, an emissary comes among us
intent on mischief infinitely more dangerous, it would
be about as well to escort him " forty miles towards tide
water," and tell him to go home and mind his own
business. We do not recommend a supplimental kick
' or two, by way of reminding him of his manners here-
after, but it would be no inappropriate mode of !each-
' ing John Bull that he had better take care of his own
slaves before he meddles with ours.—New Y irk Inquirer

THE CHURCH-RATE VICTIM.
(From the York Herald.)
Mr. "William Baines, after suffering an imprisonment
of more than seven months in Leicester Gaol, for con-
scientiously refusing to pay a Church-rate, and the addi-
tional expenses which civil and ecclesiastical law saddled
upon him in consequence thereof, was set at liberty on
"Wednesday last. Mr. Baines has not paid the rate, nei-
ther have any of his friends ; there is, therefore, some
little mystery attached to the source whence he has re-
ceived his liberty.
One thing, however, we may be sure of, it is not
through any Tory influence. An Act was brought into
Parliament by the present Ministry for the express pur-
pose of opening theprison doors to those who were suf-
fering on account of this harsh and conscience-oppress-
ing impost ; but the Tory Lords and Lord Bishops did
with it as they had done with many other excellent mea-
sures for the extension of civil freedom and religions li-
berty, mutilated it of those clauses which constituted its
life and spirit, and sent it down to the House of Com-
mons a mere useless excrescence among the multiplicity
of Acts which swell our statute laws.
It is thus that the House of " hereditary wisdom "
will continue to deal with the Liberal measures that may
be passed in the People's House, unless the people them-
selves assume an attitude which shall convince the aris-
tocracy that they will not be trifled with. The oppor-
tunity for doing this is now placed in their hands ; and
if an overwhelming majority of sterling Reformers—no
half-measure men—no conciliators—be returned to the
new Parliament, the obstructors of Reform in the Upper
House will be constrained to surrender to discretion,
what sound argument could never gain from them.
Their opposition to Liberal measures, recently, be-
came so annoying and so obnoxious to the people, that '
a reformation in the House of Lords was a subject of
serious argument with the country; and not a few peti-
tions were presented and motions made in Parliament,
for the exclusion of the Bishops for mixing themselves
up with political debates. With such a Parliament as
the people ought now to return, in answer to the strop..
appeal of our patriotic Queen, a check would be placed
upon the proceedings of the Lords which they dare not
disregard, and a prudent concern for the privileges of
" their order." would deter them from interfering with
the privileges of the_ people.
4111111111MMI

Two men were condemned, a few days ago, to a
}}car's imprisonment each, by the Correctional Tribunal of St.
hrieue, for raisin, money under pretence of being in possession
of the 'remain,' of two female saints, who became martyrs dur-
ing the revolution, and who having, they said, been found in
a field, had a chapel erected to their memory, at which mass
as performed for all who chose to pay for it, at the rate of
one franc for a whole mass, half a franc for half a mass, and
live sous for a you inter. They also pretended to be raising
money to purchase a crown of gold and another of silver for
their saints,