Durham, Newcastle, and Berwick, to Edinburgh; 2dly, direct to Manchester;
3rdly, to Warrington, Newton, Wigan, and the North, through the salt mining
country; and, 4thly, to Chester. At Chester we may either push on to Ireland
by way of the Holyhead Railway, crossing the famous Britannia Tubular Bridge,
or to Birkenhead, the future rival of Liverpool.

At Liverpool steamers for America warranted to reach New York in ten days are
at our command; or, leaving commerce, cotton, and wool, we may ride through
Proud Preston and Lancaster to Kendal and Windermere and the Lake district;
or, pressing forward through "Merry Carlisle," reach Gretna at a pace that
defies the competition of fathers and guardians, and enter Scotland on the
direct road to Glasgow, and, if necessary, ride on to Aberdeen and Perth.

A short line from Camden Station opens a communication with the East and West
India Docks and the coast of Essex, and another, three miles and a half in
length, from Willesden Station, will shortly form a connexion with the South
Western, and thereby with all the South and Western lines from Dover to
Southampton.

The railway system, of which the lines above enumerated form so large a part,
is barely twenty-five years old: in that space of time we have not only
supplied the home market but taught Europe and America to follow our example;
even Egypt and India will soon have their railways, and we now look with no
more surprise on the passage of a locomotive with a few hundred passengers or
tons of goods than on a wheelbarrow or Patent Hansom Cab. Grouse from
Aberdeen, fat cattle from Norfolk, piece goods from Manchester, hardwares
from Sheffield, race horses from Newmarket, coals from Leicestershire, and
schoolboys from Yorkshire, are despatched and received, for the distance of a
few hundred miles, with the most perfect regularity, as a matter of course.
We take a ticket to dine with a friend in Chester or Liverpool, or to meet