The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-30 00:00:00

Aug. 23

Arbroath and Forfar ••••• • • • • •

Bristol and Birmingham . • .........
Chester and Birkenhead ...........

Dublin and Drogheda....
Dublin and Kingstown ..............
Dundee and Arbroath . • .
Durham and Sunderland
Edinburgh and Giasgow . . • •
Eastern Counties and North Eastern..
Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr
Glasgow and Greenock ••.• • • • ..

770
1,006
1,124

467
3,098
5,189
2,470
1,630

765
1,173

Grand Junction ... .
Gravesend and Rochester....
Great North of England • ..... • • • • • •
Great Western .....
Hull and Selby ..
Liverpool and Manchester •• • .....
London and Birmingham . •
London and Blackwall•. • •
London and Brighton
London and Croydon . •
London and Greenwich
London and South We5tern.........
Manchester, Bolton, and Bury
Manchester and Birmingham........
Manchester, Leeds, and Hull Assoc..
Midland Counties.. . .

18,806

18,169
21,024
1,392
6,463
1,720

8,522

711
2,666
4,503
2,013
1,487
9,698

980
5,463
7,777
17,944
2,855
1,816

2,506
18,171
1,747
6,218
19,099
1,457
6,061

Newcastle and Darlington ..........
Newcastle and Carlisle.... •.........
Newcastle and North 5hie1d5........
North Union and Bolton and Preston
Paris, Corbeil, and Orleans •.........
Paris and Rotten ...................
Preston and Wyre•••• ..............

516
2,017
6,646
7,210
1,212
1,641
8,423
1,20 j

Sheffield and ➢ianchester...........
South Eastern . • • • • • • . ......
Taff Vale

Ulster .

Yarmouth and Norwich ........
York and North Midland... ....

1,330
6,558

877
7,666

939
3,529
7,t62
14,763
2,191
1,904
417
1,920
5,709
6,556

821
6,652
931

592
3,331

[ADVERTISEMENT.]
DIRECT INDEPENDENT LONDON
AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN .
SIR,-After taking ten days to consider of it, Mr.
Ashurst has at length ventured to publish a rejoinder to
my reply of the 18th instant. I can well conceive that
he has been writhing in painful indecision during this in-
terval, for in the first instance he favonred me with some
ten or twenty lines of this same rejoinder, and published
them in your paper, four or five days ago. His friends
no doubt told him that this paltry apology for an answer
would never do ; and now he favours me with an ex-
tended edition of it, occupying two-thirds of a column.
Yet, with all its length, it is somewhat difficult to ex-
tract from it a single sentence that can bo considered by
the most good-natured man at all relevant to the issue
between us. It is a common artifice with lawyers, when
their case is bad, to make a great splutter and pother
about points of no consequence, while they fight shy of
all that they cannot answer. And such is the policy of
Mr. Ashurst.
I accused Mr. Ashurst, broadly and publicly, and in
all the newspapers,
culpablestheo
solicitor
rnefoer wmhyilleinace
itninglB,4oor,
professing First ofmost
toact, as
1841, 1842, 1843, and 1844.
Secondly, I accused him of supercilious and con-
temptuous treatment of the Bedford Committee, in 1844,
a line of conduct which led to his dis harge.
Thirdly, I accused him, of fraudulently appropriating
to himself the patronage of the London and Manchester
houses, which had been given to my line, when my line
was the only direct line before the public, or in contem-
plation ; and,
Fourthly, I accused him distinctly, pointedly, and
clearly, of attempting to defraud me, not only of the
pati•onage which I had obtained, but also of my project
itself, after many fruitless attempts to discover some
competing line which might at least have the merit of
originality, even if it were found utterly destitute of the
higher merit of practicability.
Such were the charges I brought against him, and in
terms so strong and unequivocal, that without a perfect
conviction not only of their truth, but of my power to
prove their truth, I dared not have expressed myself as
I did. Mr. Ashurst has not had the courage, or I
should rather say the audacity, plagiarist, pirate, and
attorney as he is, to offer answer or explanation to any
of these charges, or even to grapple with them ; but has
prudently enveloped both himself and his readers in a
cloud of dust and confusion, which makes it impossible
to guess what the squabble is about. I suspect it is in
vain to hope for a reply, although I again reiterate my
accusation, and again challenge him to call a public
meeting either in Londom or Manchester, with reason-
able notice, and there meet me and my proofs face to
face. Mr. Ashurst is too sagacious to accept the chal-
lenge.

Yet even in this hubble-bubble letter, falsehood vies
with bad taste for the ascendancy. I quote his words—
Mr. Remington talks of meetings to support his line.
There was but one meeting—that was at Bedford, got
up by himself, to aid his project to go to York and
Manchester."

I answer that there were not less than eleven public
meetings held in support of my line at the following
eleven places :—namely, Barnet, St. Alban's, Luton,
Ampthill, Thrapston, Wellingborough, Higham
Ferrers, Kettering, Bedford, Northampton and Leek. I
have on my table before me printed copies of the reso-
tions passed and published at each of these meetings. I
may well say with Mr. Hume, " Let him take his change
out of that I" _ _ _

—Again, Mr. Ashurst says, " I have published no names
in support of the line to which I have been appointed
solicitor, but such as were given to me in, or subse-
quent to, June of this year." I answer that Mr. Ashurst
has published and prefixed to his prospectus more than
100 names, which were never giyen at all to any particu-
lar line, either of his or mine, but only in favour of "a
direct line," at a time when mine was the only direct
line before the public. I have before me a letter of Mr.
Shcpperson, one of his Committee, and of his active sup-
porters, addressed to Mr. Rogers, one of the present so-
licitors of my line, and dated the 16th of October, 1844.
inclosing the names of fifty-six houses, most of which
are now daily advertised by Mr. Ashurst, but which
names were then obtained to sanction my undertaking!
Will Mr. Ashurst dare to assert that he has obtained
these names to any project of his own since June, 1845?
If he hazards such an a,sertion, I will re-publish the list
with Mr. Shepperson's letter, and leave them all to fight
it out among themselves.

But Mr. Ashurt speaks of " the line to which I have
been appointed solicitor." What is this line to which he
is appointed solicitor ? Who has appointed him ? Why
does he leave it doubtful and indefinite ? It is so strange
as to be almost incredible, that to this hour, when Mr.
Ashurst has for months been advertising a railway com-
pany, and ostensibly patronised by high-sounding com-
mercial names, and has closed his share list, and, for
anything I know or care, received thousands by way of
deposit, with all the prestige of sharemarket quotations
and premiums, and London and York amalgamations, he
has no line at all—he has published no line at all—be has
projected no scheme, no enterprise or undertaking, except
that which goes by the name of " Remington's line," and
which, as my acknowledged line, I have confided to the
prote,;,.+_;ng care of a Committ.ce, who shun all contact
orst as they would with a walking pesti•
with Mr. As,. •
;. the line to which Mr. Ashurst is
fence ! Where, then,
the appointed solicitor? Ms
• •-n prospectus describes it,
Dunstable,
in July last, as a line by " Barnet, St.
l'" Altering,
Luton, Athptnill, Bedford, Wellingborotigh,

Market Ilarborough, Leicester,__Lon t4hboivough, Ashby-
tiezitt-%_Cottch, Berton-on-Trent, Uttoxeter, Cho Lefk,
Macclesfield, gtoeitron. end Manchester." Nortt this,
with one exception, is pre,cistly the line upon which I have
been at work for nine years past, varying it slightly by
the oniisn::•:: of Derby, to meet public opinion ; and this
is the line, with thetAW^ single exception, which I and
my patrons stand pledged to bring before Parliament—
the exception is the town of Loughborough, because that
town could not be included without making a detour of
many miles. Mr. Ashurst, however, is like the cad
of a Paddington omnibus, who, to entice passengers, will
promise to eet them down very near Hampstead-heath.
If anybody will be at the trouble of examining ene of the
Ordnance maps he will find that Loughborough is
many miles out of the direct route ; thus, through the
ingenuity of Mr. Ashurst, there is all the machinery of
Provisional Committees, acting Committees, share-
holders, share market, solicitor, and engineer, without
any ultimate object in view, except to make a line which
others have projected, fostered, matured, and subscribed
their money to co construct, long before he or his friends
dreamt of such an undertaking. This fact will be recorded
by historians hereafter as a proof of the gullibility of the
public in this age of railway speculation.
It is scarcely necessary to acquit myself a second time
of the spiteful insinuations of Mr. Ashurst, that I have
capriciously, or ignorantly varied my estimates ; his
sneers do not affect me, but they may possibly mislead the
public; I therefore repeat, that when I contemplated a line
to York as well as Manchester, I mentioned 7,000,0001.
for the capital; when the scheme was confined toLon-
don and Manchester, I limited the estimates to 4,000,000 L :
when it was proposed to add a branch through the Potte-
ries, I increased the estimate to 5,000,000/. ; the estimate
of 2,000,000/., which he quotes with malicious triumph,
appeared in a prospectus published in my absence from
London, and without my knowledge : it was a mistake,
as I readily admit, but one for which I am not account-
able, and which was corrected as soon as it was dis-
covered •, all this was explained in my former letter, nor
would Mr. Ashurst have revived the :subject if he had
not felt that his only chance of escaping detection was to
make the most of a mistake.

I have given Mr. Ashurst enough to do ; he has found
it difficult enough to invent a competing line ; he has
found found it yet more difficult to meet, without equivocation,
the charges I have here repeated ; but I must perplex
him yet a little more. Will he have the goodness to in-
form the public, who have been so kind as to buy his
shares and supply him with money, what he proposes
to do with their money beyond the payment erf his
own costs ? He has not surveyed any part of my line
at present ; and if this work is to be commenced
now, I can assure him, and so can Mr. Rastrick, that he
will not be ready by the 30th of November: I will do all
I can to assist him; and as my survey and sections are
nearly completed, he shall be welcome to them as soon
as the• solicitors have completed the book of reference.
This is very liberal, considering that he has appro-
priated my nine years' labour without asking leave; but
it will show him that I do not harbour resentment,
and am willing to return good for evil ; his shareholders,
however, will do well to inquire whether he can avail
himself of my liberal offer in time to comply with the
standing orders ? If not, I fear that their shares will
be at an alarming discount before the 30th of Novem-
ber.—l am, Sir, yours obediently,
August 28, 1845. GEORGE REMINGTON.