The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-10 00:00:00

JUNCTION Off' THE RAILWAY IN MANCHESTER

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

-After the conflict of interest and feeling which this
important question has excited, it appears that the director:,
of the Liverpool line have submitted to the Hunt's Bank
junction. It is indeed humiliating to the dignity and wealth
of a body representing the earliest and most renowned un-
dertaking of this nature, that they should have yielded to the
domination of the Leeds Directors, after publicly announcing
their conviction of the paramount advantages of a southern
over a northern junction of railways in the town of Manches-
ter. Mr. Hodgson, a member of the Liverpool Board, has,
however, nobly redeemed the minority from the imputation
of infirmity of purpose, exhibited by its other members, who
must have felt some keen anticipations of public censure
upon their incr *he overwliehr

...Jonsistency, in conjunction with t.
ing preponderance of shares held by Mt. Eiod

fill a r

It can scarcely be iina,:ined that so po
nority will quietly see a measure so inimical to ti
interests, and forced upon it by such discreditable
carried out to the expectation of the Leeds Directors. And
it is to be wished—for the sake of the public, who have a
right to require, in the formation of this junction—that it be
not made for mere selfish purposes, and have, at least, the
appearance of its being what is ostensibly declared for the
accommodation of the public. But how can travellers by
the Birmingham and Manchester and Sheffield and Man-
chester lines reach the Liverpool Railway by the proposed
communication? It is surely not intended to invite them to
dangle themselves in mephetic air and darkness down a pit
seventy feet deep, and emerge from the other tunnel shaft
like a knot of colliers issuing out of their pandemonium ?
The public need not entertain any apprehension that they
will be deprived of a proper communication ; for parliament
can never sanction so absurd a project as a tunnel while the
desiderata for an union of all the railways present themselves
in the line to the Store-street Station.

I take it for granted, that the Liverpool and Manchester
Company will sleep upon their oars until they see the fate of
the bill for the tunnel project, which must be defeated, and
will then gladly yield to the tide of public feeling for the
southern line, from which they have been so unwillingly
driven. Their late adhesion to the Hunts Bank junction
will, of course, prevent any open demonstrations from them
against that measure ; but the Sheffield and Manchester
Company, whose interests are seriously involved in the
question, have only to exhibit the two proposed lines to par-
liament—and say." look on this picture and on that"—" Hy-
perion to a Satyr"—to insure the defeat of the tunnel scheme,
which must instantly neutralise the plans of the Leeds
Directors and their party.
Since writing the preceding observations, which I had
intended to request the favour of being published in your
journal, some triend has sent me your publication of the 3d
instant, containing some stringent observations upon the
late—but I do not believe it will be the last—decision of the
Liverpool Board. The thanks •of the public are due to you
for your talented advocacy of the southern junction, which
alone can give that convergence of lines which they have a
right to demand; and as a shareholder in the Sheffield and
Manchester Company, whose interests are also involved in
this question, I thank you, in the name of its proprietary,
for your just and indignant reprehension, on several occa-
sions, of the unprovoked calumnies heaped upon it. Had
it been an undertaking from which the coalescing lines of
Birmingham and Leeds had nothing to fear, they, at least,
ld 'isturt it as the lave d- 't-

wou not have a, Jea .fiey .. _one in its progress
to the euthanasia into which they have fruitlessly striven to
drive it. But the cause of their enmity to it constitutes its
value ; and the prospect of its becoming a participant in the
eastern traffic of one, and the southern traffic of the other,
is destined, I conclude, to perpetuate their hostility.
Assuredly no green-grocer or chandler's shopkeeper ever
exhibited more degrading and silly animosity at the audacity
of a competitor opening a neighbouring shop than has been

done by one of these companies, while-the truth of the fact
is demonstrable that railways generate peculiar traffics of
their own which never materially interfere with those of
others.

Requesting the favour of your publishing these observa-
tions, I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

ATTICUS

Sheffield, 6th May, 1842

We have readily given insertion to the communication of
our correspondent " Atticus," not only because of the inte-
rest of the subject, upon which he writes, to our Liverpool

readers—

and in truth it is of far more interest than they
are at present aware of)—but because it is only just on the
one hand, that the claims of towns, seeking to be connected
by a railway communication with this port, should be heard ;
and, on the other, that those of our fellow townsmen whose
recent concession to dictation has, for the present, repu-
diated, in appearance at least, those claims, should be ena-
bled to judge of the opinions, held beyond the limits of their
own immediate locality, of the propriety and dignity of the
position into which they have submitted to be driven. With
respect to these we have already expressed ourselves freely ;
and in everything that we have advanced upon the subject
we are fully borne out by our intelligent correspondent.
To one passage of the letter of " Atticus" we would re-
spectfully entreat the serious consideration of the Liverpoo
board. Our' correspondent, whilst predicting the certain
failure of any attempt to carry out the projected tunnel from
Hunt's-bank to Store-street, as the junction of the Liverpool
line with the Sheffield and the Birmingham lines,—and how
such an absurd proposition can ever be attempted to be carried
out we are at a loss to conceive—suggests that the Liverpool
board should " sleep on their oars until they see the fate of the
bill for that project." Surely there is, at least, reason in the
adoption of such a course. If the Manchester and Leeds
Company have entrapped the Liverpool directors into the
adoption of their Hunt's Bank Junction, by the promise of
such an underground continuation to the foot of a shaft in
Store-street, from whence passengers and goods are to be
lifted in buckets or baskets, or projected by some " infernal
machine" to the level of the Sheffield line, surely it is but
prudent, before embarking in the formation of a portion of
the

heme, to see w

her the remainder, bad though it be

is ever likely, or is even intended, to be proceeded with—
whether it is ever destined to be any other than a paper plan
—a mere fighting line—conceived in the fertile imagination
of an engineer, for the purpose of bolstering up an imposture
upon the Liverpool board and upon the public. We, at least,
are satisfied not only that it never will be made, but that it
was never intended to be made ! Let the Liverpool board
only examine facts and probabilities, and they will inevitably
arrive at the same conclusion.
We must return our thanks to " Atticus " for the flatter-
ing mention which he makes of our labours upon this junction
question. We have certainly "reprehended severely," and
with justice too, the unworthy course which the Leeds directors
have pursued and are still pursuing, against the undertak-
ing in which he is interested, (in common with the public,) and
against the board of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
The concession of the latter body to insult and insolence has
not convinced us that we are wrong ; and we see nothing as-
sure.lly in the present conduct of the Leeds and Manchester
gentlemen—we see nothing of that moderation in victory—
which is calculated to assure us that concession:has purchased
peace. But a fortnight ago, the same fire-eaters, who lately
threatened to eat up the Liverpool line by a northern project,
were about to swamp the Sheffield line (having succeeded in
depriving it of a junction with Liverpool) by a branch line of
their own to Ashton (:), and surely men who could put forth
such an absurdity—who could thus show the true nature of
their raving opposition to any junction, in the advantages of
which their Sheffield opponent could participate, will not be
particularly observant of any pledges which they may have
entered into to abandon that northern scheme, the fear of
which has driven so far from their propriety the directors of
the Liverpool line

BILLY, THE TERRIER OF THE TOWN-COUNCIL

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

SlR,—May I, through the medium of your columns, offer
a few hints to our worthy town-councillors, upon the impro-
priety of having admitted the canine species into the town-
council. But having done so, I would humb y advise them,
whenever they find a tiresome, cross-grained cur snapping at
their heels, to act as the brave bruen did with the mastiff.
Take him by the neck and give him a toss over, and let him
go yelping to his kennel. By-the-bye, it may be as well for
the friends of the animal in question to chain him up. Let
them remember, that, as the hot weather is coming on, our
worthy magistrates may issue orders that all mad dogs should
be shot. Perhaps you will be prepared to say, let things take
their course—but no ; every dog has his day, and we would
rather see this worrier die a natural death. The animal has
been so snappish lately at an honest policeman, that one has
a notion that he feels an instinctive horror at the truncheon,
and has already ringing in his ears the frightful cry of mad
dog. At all events the creature should be muzzled.

Your obedient servant,
PINCHER

On Friday a young woman jumped from the Greenwich
steamer into the Thames, and was rescued with the greatest
difficulty.

Lord Claude Hamilton, brother to the present Marquis of
Abercorn, is understood to be the successful suitor for the
hand of Miss Burdett Coutts.

" Trade is very bad," said Stultz, the fashionable tailor ;
"I do n't make near so many coats as formerly." " How
can you expect it," was the reply, " when there are so many
turned coats among ybur customers in the Lords and Com-
mons?"

GERA, APRIL 26.—His Royal Highness the Crown Prince
of Hanover is betrothed to the Princess Mary. eldest daugh-
ter of the Duke of Saxe Altenburg. His serene highness
himself announced the news to the members of the Assembly
of the Estates, who were mustered yesterday to keep the
25th anniversary of his highness's marriage.

COPENHAGEN, April 29.—8 y a royal precept to the Bishop
of Sealand, the Rev. Mr. Tryde is commissioned to confer
with Baptists (the brothers Minster) who have been arrested
and thrown into prison, and to ascertain the doctrines of this
sect, with a view to find whether it may be proper to grant
them the free exercise of their religious worship. It is to be
hoped that this measure will lead to the desired end.
Last Wednesday morning, between eight and nine. a fire,
attended with the destruction of near 20 houses, broke out
in High-street, Beaminster, Dorset.
A terrific storm of thunder broke over the villages of Ban-
well, Worle, Wrington, and places adjacent on Monday. A
man and two horses engaged in ploughing a short distance
from Banwell, were struck by the electric fluid and instan-
taneously killed.—Sherburne Journal.

From a return of the number of accidents of a public na-
ture on railways, it appears that they are considerably dimi-
nishing. In the last five months of the year 1840, 28 acci-
dents, 22 deaths. and 131 cases of injury took place, while the
twelve months of 1811 give only 29 accidents, 24 deaths, and
71 cases of injury. It is very satisfactory to observe that a
marked diminution has taken place in the class of accidents,
such as collisions, arising chiefly from mismanagement or
defective arrangements. A great proportion of accidents
which occurred in the end of 1840, and beginning of
1841, were of the same nature, no fewer than 17 acci-
dents having occurred in eight months from August,
1840, to April, 1841, from the single cause of collisions
by trains or engines overtaking others travelling on the
same line. During the nine months from April, 1841,
to January, 1842, only five collisions of this nature occur•
red, and those, with one 'exception, unattended with fatal
consequences. This diminution in the number of collisions
appears too great to be the result of accident, and may fairvaq
be attributed in a considerable degree to the mors
tger"_l
adoption of the precautions suggested by the Inspevcizor., 1*
the
neral, and recommended by this departmenet,op
erection of proper fixed signals at stations, trgnaids better description of tail-lamps and hande-
art of servants,
tion of a
forcement of more attention to signals on thfoP
r all trains, in-
and the adoption of proper time-tables
erring regularity
• eluding luggage trains, with a view to Pres
successive trains.
in the traffic, and proper intervals betweo