pleasure, would go by the coach-road also, because of the cheerful company
and comfortable dinner.

"Not one of the nobility, the gentry, or those who travel in their own
carriages, would really like to be drawn at the tail of a train of waggons,
in which some hundreds of bars of iron were jingling with a noise that would
drown all the bells of the district, and in momentary apprehension of having
his vehicle broken to pieces, and himself killed or crippled by the collision
of those thirty-two ton masses. Even if a man had no carriage of his own,
what inducement could he have to take so ungainly a conveyance. Three hours
is more than the maximum difference by which the ordinary speed of coaches
could be exceeded; and it is not one traveller in a thousand to whom an
arrival in London and Birmingham three hours sooner would be of the slightest
consequence.

"Then as to goods. The only goods that require velocity in coming to London,
are ribands from Coventry. Half the luggage room of a coach, on a Saturday
night, is quite adequate to the conveyance of them. The manufacturers of
Coventry will never be such fools as to send their property on an errand by
which it must travel further and fare worse. For heavy goods, the saving by
canal would be as twelve to one, beside the perfect safety. In the canal
boat there is no danger of fracture, even to the most delicate goods;
whereas, if fine China goods were to be brought by the rapid waggons, the
breakage would probably be twenty-five per cent.

"As to the profits of the undertaking let us be extravagantly liberal.
Suppose that the Railway was to get one-third of the goods, as well as one-
third of the passengers, see what they would make of it:--

One-third of the Goods . . . 96,540 pounds