speed was frequently 12 miles an hour." The number of passengers reached
450, and the goods and merchandise amounted to 90 tons--a great
accomplishment, and George Stephenson and Edward Pease were proud men
that day.

Seven years from this present time will witness the _Centenary_ of the
railway system. How shall we celebrate _it_? Will railway proprietor,
railway director and railway manager on that occasion be animated with
the gladness, the pride and the hope that brightened the Jubilee Banquet?
Who can tell? The future of railways is all uncertain.

A word or two regarding the railway system of Scotland may not be
inappropriate.

Scotland has eight _working_ railway companies, England and Wales 104,
and Ireland 28. These include light railways, but are exclusive of all
railways, light or ordinary, that are worked not by themselves but by
other companies. Scotland has exhibited her usual good sense, her canny,
thrifty way, by keeping the number of _operating_ railway companies
within such moderate bounds. Ireland does not show so well, and England
relatively is almost as bad as Ireland, yet England might well have shown
the path of prudence to her poorer sister by greater adventure herself in
the sensible domain of railway amalgamation. Much undeserved censure has
been heaped upon the Irish lines; sins have been assumed from which they
are free, and their virtues have ever been ignored. John Bright once
said that "Railways have rendered more service and received less
gratitude than any institution in the land." This is certainly true of
Ireland, for nothing has ever conferred such benefit upon that country as
its railways, and nothing, except perhaps the Government, has received so
much abuse. On this I shall have more to say when I reach the period of