Brighton third-class carriages are bare, very long, and run so badly
that the shaking, the rattling of glass, and the draughts, keep
everybody (who can possibly afford it) out of them.

Naturally there have been numerous schemes for a second railway from
London to Brighton in the course of the last twenty-five years. The
present railway company has (they are not to blame for it) opposed
each scheme tooth and nail. They have shown that they themselves
satisfy the requirements of the public, and at the same time do not
make a very high dividend. If a new grocer required an Act of
Parliament to set up as a tea-retailer in Canterbury, could not all
the existing tea-retailers there prove most triumphantly that an
additional grocer was not wanted, and that their own profits were
reasonable? It is not too much to say that the greater part of the
evidence admitted by Parliamentary Committees against proposed new
railways is foolery: without wasting time on it, the Parliamentary
Committee might assume as proved that no monopolist trader wants a
competitor. But the only safety for the public is in competition. In
railway competition the public always profit: if the two companies
agree to run at the same fares, the public gain in number and speed
of trains, better carriages, and attentive consideration of their
comfort. Moreover, in the case of two railways between London and
Exeter, or between London and Brighton, the two lines only meet (not
then quite) at the two termini; and the public is accommodated at all
the new intermediate stations where there was no station at all
before.

The North-Western Railway was many years ago opposing a directly
competing scheme. They brought before the Parliamentary Committee the
late Mr. Horne, whom they justly credited with ability enough to