The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-03-05

the road. The people came by thousands
in Sunday attire fiom every direction to
witness the novel sight. And a novel sight
it must have been. The procession was
Ii AIDED by a man on horseback, carrying n
flag, behind him stood the low. uncouth
little engine, the smoke streaming lazly
from its stack, and George Stephenson, with
his hand on the lever, waiting for the sig
nal to start. A long train of coal cars was
attached, and into them few-the more
courageous of the spectators-ventured,
while hundreds upon foot and in vehicles
waited in suspense the result of the enter
prise. Soon the signal was given, the man
on horseback started, waved his flag, the
engine began to puff and the train to move,
and amid music from the bands and shouts
from the multitude that pressed eagerly
behind and followed for miles, the process
sion moved off at about six miles an hour,
and the railroad was voted a complete sue
cess. From that day George Stephenson's
name and fortune were made. A few years
passed and he was the proprietor of loco
motive works at Newcastle employing
nearly thousand men, and the engineer of
thirty different railways. Soon the golden
stream, whose current had been against
him, turned in his favor, and he became 4
millionaire. Railway companies voted him
medals and placed his bust in their
offices and public stations. He was con-
suited by statesmen and capitalists at home,
and became the honorcd guest of kings
abroad.
He found the locomotive a loose, dis
jonted machine, without symmetry, pow
er, or speed; he left it the grandest pro-
ductien Of human skill magnificent mon
ster, instinct with life, terrible as fiend.
docile as a lamb. a perfect model Of grace,
majesty and power. Forty years age, his
two little engines doing drudgery ut the
kllingworth Mines were the only lecomo-
tives in Europe. To-day more than eight
thousand are harnessed TO trains of people
and freight in Great Britain alone, drawing
people by the thousand, and freight by he
hundred tun at ten to sixty miles an hour.
Then the only use conjectured of railroads
was to carry coal and heavy merchandise
and no one but Stephenson believed that
passengers would trust themselves behind
an explosive machine going at twenty miles
an hour. Now mere than three hundred
and fourteen million passengers are annu-
ally carried on the railroads of Great
Britain, and find it not only convenient
and pleasant, but cheap and safe in the
highest degree. For, in England, to-day,
it is cheaper to ride in cars than to walk.
and tho victims of lightning and the gal
lows are far more numerous than those of
railroads. Then the Stockton and Darling
ton Railroad was the only line in Europe
upon which engines and cars could be seen
moving. To-day the citizens of London
can stand at one Of the many lines of rail
way that center in that vast metropolis and
count seven hundred trains each day bear
ing, with mathematical precision and safety,
their animate an inaRimate burdens. Thus
the railroad is no longer a bu.bear or Chin
era, but living, indispensable reality, and
projectors Of railroads are not hsoted at and
mobbcd, but rather welcomed as the real
promoters Of onr civilization