Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1874-11-19
From the Scientific American.
An Early History of Wheeled We
hicles and Railways.
NUMBER /.

.aIen Of genius have a hard time, I perceive;
and must expect contradictions next to unendu-
rabIeLthe plurality of blockheads being SO ex-
tremeH'-CARLYLE.
Nothing, perhaps in the history Of
human achievement is more interest
ing and instructing than the opposi
ton offered by cupidity and prejudice
of those great mechanical improve
ments and inventions which are the
Just pride and boast of the nineteenth
century. We boast that our age is
distinguished from all other ages, and
endowed with a special wonder and
glory by its material triumphs; that
we have compressed the hughe globe
into neighborhood and brought all
its interests within the system of
daily newspaper; that we have caught
and harnessed the wild forces of Ma
ture that tear the arteries of the earth
and beave volcanoes that even mag
nifcent Nature herself has been hum
bled te toll all day at our looms and
in Our factories, without food, without
sweat, and without weariness; and
made to run on our meanest messages.
Yet all this was accomplished in the
face of violent opposition.
1t may at first sight seem unreason-
able and ungrateful that men, while
constantly striving to better their con-
dition, should be constantly opposing
| those who are contributing most to
their success. But in truth, it is an
hostility which has its origin in the di-
versities of temper, or understanding,
and of interest which are found in all
societies, and which will be found as
| long as the human mind continues to
be drawn in opposite directions by the
charm Of novelty and the charm of
habit. It has been the fate of every
man who has ever attempted to en-
| large the knowledge, or lessen the suf-
! ferings, or increase the comforts of
his race, to be withstood by the most
unreasonable opposition and well nigh
overcome by the most bitter ridicule :;
and it always must be so. No man,
not utterly destitute of all candor and
Judgment, will deny but that, in some
age anterior to the dawn of history,
there were fools who opposed the in
PRODUCTION of the alphabet and the
pillow with as loud complaints and as
bitter inVectives as our ancestors did
that of the state coach and the penny
post; as we in our time have opposed
railroads and telegraphs, and as fools,
in some age vet far in the future, will
resist some new invention or some
new innovation Of which the world
has not now the faintest conception
The workings of this strange spe-
oioc of b11ynan f.hSfiOooU nhSfin0pV
which the accumulated experience Of
nineteen centuries of progress has not
been able to cure, is surely deserving Of
the greatest consideration, as the pro
per result of cause lying deep in the
innermost recesses of human nature,
and which, while tending to degener-
ate us into bigoted dotards, has saved
us from becoming shallow and recE
less empires. It will be our endeavor
therefore, to relate the history of thai
cruel opposition, meted out so unspar
ingly to- those wonderful inventions
now never mentioned without respect
and gratitude in any part of the globe
Of all inventions, the alphabet anc
the printing press alone excepted
those inventions which abridge dis
t tance have undoubtedly done the mos
for the civilization of our species; ant
with these we propose to begin. TX
improve the means of locomotion af
forded to man by Nature has been tn
intricate problem which all nation
from the earliest down have attempt
ed to solve; but in truth, it is onl,
: within the lifetime ofthe past six gen
e eratisns that anything approaching t.
n a solution has been arrived at. Twt
n hundred years ago there did not exis
+. in all England a single navigable ca
n nal, not an inch of railway (as We nm
derstand the term), not public con
veyance that would bear comparison
with the most lumberiRg farm wago
e that can now be found on the prairie
# beyond the Mississippi. and not mil
5, of road of which the traveller of to
}, day would not consider as impossible
t The accounts that have come down t.
n US of the state of travel in Englan
J under the reign Of cold Rowley, tn
- King" are indeed surprising in the ez
le treme 1t was by the highways tn;
g both travellers and goods passed fror
place to place, and those highways az
'e pear to have been far worse than til
most ruinous roads that can now |
re found outside of the sheepwalks {
ar Australia or the jungles of South Afr
). ca. Thorsby has left us accounts
;s journeys made with a guide alon
- roads that lead "over most prodigior
e high hills ''steeper than the roofs
TO many houses" cfrides 'along the eds
of precipices that grew to that higI
t. and steepness, and Withall so exceet
st, ing narrow, that we had not an inc
as of ground to set foot upon to aligI
from our horses; , and of tramps ov,
g highways sfull of ice and snow, rougI
:. er than plOughed field, yet hard {
- IRON Hagbush lane, the princip
bride path from London to the nor
~ of England, was worn so deep that IL
~ riders head was beneath the level
en- the ground on either side, and so Ma
'r- row as to barely afford passage for
.s; single horseman. Indeed, in mar
IL parts, being once in it, to turn baC
m became utterly impossible, such W
no its extreme narrowness! Nor do
- this seem to be the exception rath
than the rule. John Marriott has le
us humorous ballad on the ''Davo
lg shire Lane" which certainly iustif
I'D the belief that that "bit of the roat
ID, was in condition quite as ruinous..
ill Even on the roads which the Englis
lat men of that day were accustomed
ds regard rs the best, the ruts were dee
the decents precipitous, and the m,
to often lay so thick that all commune
tion was cut off for months at tin
between towns separated scarcely
~ score of miles.
to- Over such roads as these, as m
IT'S well be supposed, the only practical
ms method of travelling was on foot or
ro- horse. The rich rode; the poor wa
his ed. What the latter lost in comft