The daily press. (Cincinnati [Ohio) 1859-1859, 1859-04-30
Opposition to Improvement Street
Railways.

RdhWaySs
1t is probable that there never was an
improvement, or an important discovery
in the mechanic arts introduced among
mankind, that did not meet with opposi-
tion at the beginning From the simplest
implement to the most complex machine,
and from the most trifing change to the
most revolutionary innovation--it mat
tered not how apparently or demonstra-
bly, valuable-there has been enough OF
Ignorance and prejudice pervading soci-
ETY. to take the alarm, and hold it up to
condemnation, either as inimical to the
interests of class, or as dangerous to the
general welfare
Mr.. BAYARD TAYLOR, in u letter from
the island of Crete, mentions an instance
of resistance, on the part Of the people of
a certain district, to the attempts of the
government to construct carriage road
to places which they were accustomed t.
reach only by means of wooden ladders
up the precipices. He has not given us
the reasons which the excited peasantry
rendered for their opposition; but that
they included presages of all sorts Of
calamities, personal injury, collective in
convenience, general injustice, and the
opening of avenues to vast wrongs and
abuses, there is no reason to doubt. Per
haps dozen or two of individuals who
made their living by carrying other peo-
pies property up the ladders and through
the mountain-passes, would be thrown out
of an employment which they and their
ancestors had enjoyed from time imme-
mortal. Such an invasion of rights rem
dered sacred by antiquity, could not, of
course, be tolerated. Every carrier,
deeming himself a much prosecuted per-
son, becomes an agitator Mounted upon
a real or fgurative stump, he harangues
excited crowds of his friends and fellow
citizens. The infection spreads, and the
cause of complaint magnifes; and it is
not long before there is a deeply-iniured
people sworn to defend their rights and
execute vengeance upon their oppressors.
1t is not likely that many of our citi-
zens could be found desirous to return to
the old system of wells and pumps to
supply the city with water-to replace
the gas which now lights our streets by
the antiquated contrivances of oil or tai
low, which once served to render the
darkness visible-to substitute in the
place of the steam-ferries, which now
connect the shores of this with q neigh
boring State, the ancient horse-boat-or
to return to the once-admired keelboat
system for the transaction of commercial
affairs between this and the other cities
upon the Ohio and Mississippi. Yet all
these innovations had their enemies, as
street railways have now-men who pre-
dicted the most disastrous failures of all
attempts at the introduction of the novel
ty, or the greatest imaginable public and
private injury in case the attempts should
be successful. 1t can not be positively
denied that this sort of people have their
use in the plan of creation; but it must
be confessed, that if they were allowed the
absolute control, there would be little ac-
complished.
The history of the opposition to the in
PRODUCTION of railways would be one of
the most amusing and, at the same time,
instructive books that could be written.
The London Quarterly Review for March,
1926, said:
We are not advocates for visionary
projects that interfere with useful estab-
hshments; we scout the idea of general
railroad as altogether impracticable..
The gross exaggeration of the powers of
fhe locomotive engine, or to speak in plain
English, the steam-carPiage, may delude
for time, but must end IN the mortifica-
tion of those concerned. What can be
more palpably absurd and ridiculous than
the prospect held out of locomotives tray
cling .'wice as fast as stage coaches We
should as ~ ION expect the people of Wool
wich to suffer theicc,selves to be fred off in
one of Congreves ricochet rockets, as to
trust themselves to the mercy of such
machine going at such rate. We will
back old Father Thames against the
Woolwich Railway for any sum
The biography of Mr.. GEoRGE STE
PHENsoN is full of anecdotes of the oppo-
sition which railways met in England.
The nobility protested against them from
their seats in the House of Lords. Sir
ISAAC CoFFlN denounced the project for
a railway as "a most fragrant imposition" {"
Lords DERBY and SEAroN used force to
prevent surveys across their domains
Armed mobs in many places interrupted
the proceedings of surveyors. Ministers
preached from their pulpits against the