'Puffing Billy' And The Prize 'Rocket' Part 2

Here he enjoyed a six months' course of study; and so well prepared was he for it by his wellformed habits of application and thinking, that he gained in six months as much as many a student did in three years. Certain it was his father felt amply repaid for the draft it made on his purse, when Robert reappeared at the cottage in the spring, with a prize for successful scholars.h.i.+p in mathematics. He was eighteen then.

CHAPTER IV.

TWO CITIES THAT WANTED TO GET NEAR EACH OTHER--A NEW FRIEND.

Manchester, thirty miles south-east of Liverpool, is the great centre of our cotton trade. Its cloths are found in every market in the world. Cotton coming to Liverpool is sent to the Manchester mills, and the goods which the mills turn out are returned to Liverpool to be s.h.i.+pped elsewhere. The two cities, therefore, are intimately connected by constant intercourse and mutual interest.

Two water communications existed between them: one by the rivers Mersey and Irwell, the other by the famous Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l, which did an immense business at an enormous profit. But the Manchester mills were fast outgrowing these slow and c.u.mbersome modes of travel.

Liverpool warehouses were piled with bales of cotton waiting to go, and the mills at Manchester had often to stop because it did not come.

Goods also found as much difficulty in getting back. Merchants and manufacturers both grumbled. Business was in straits. What was to be done? Carting was quite out of the question. Ca.n.a.l owners were besought to enlarge their water power. No, they would do nothing. They were satisfied with things as they were. Their dividends were sure.

But want demands supply. Need creates resources. Something _must_ be done to facilitate the transit of goods between the two cities. What?

Build a tramroad, or a _railroad_. n.o.body, however, but a very fast man would risk his good sense by seriously advising a railroad.

Prudent men would certainly shun him. A tramroad was a better understood thing. The collieries had used small pieces of them for years. A tramroad then. Business men put their heads together, and began earnestly to talk of a tramroad.

Edward James, a rich and enterprising man, entered heartily into the project, and undertook to make surveys for a suitable route. And not long after a party of surveyors were seen in the fields near Liverpool. Their instruments and movements excited attention. People eyed them with anxiety: suspicions were roused: the inhabitants became alarmed. Who were they, making such mysterious measurements and calculations on other people's land? A mob gradually gathered, whose angry tones and threatening gestures warned the surveyors of a storm brewing over their heads. Wisely considering that flight was better than fight, they took themselves off, and by-and-by turned up farther on.

The landowners, who might be supposed to have known better, told the farmers to drive them off; and the farmers, with their hands, were only too ready to obey. They stationed themselves at the field gates and bars with pitchforks, rakes, shovels, sticks, and dared the surveyors to come on. A poor chain-man, not quite as nimble as his pursuers, made his leap over a fence, quickened by a pitchfork from behind. Even women and children joined the hue and cry, pelting the strangers with stones and dirt whenever they had a chance. The colliers were not behind the farmers in their foolish hostility. A stray surveyor was caught and thrown into a pond.

At a sight of the theodolite their fury knew no bounds. That unoffending instrument they seemed to regard as the very stronghold of the enemy, to seize and destroy which was to win the day. The surveyors, therefore, hired a noted boxer to carry it, who could make good his threats on the enemy. A famous fighter among the colliers, determined not to be outdone, marched up to the theodolite to capture it. A fight took place; the collier was sorely beaten, but the rabble, taking his part against the poor instrument, pelted it with stones and smashed it to pieces.

You may well suppose that surveying under such circ.u.mstances was no light matter. What was the gist of the hostility? It is hard to tell.

The ca.n.a.l owners might have had a hand in scattering these wild fears; fears of what, however, it is not so easy to find out. There was nothing in a simple horse railroad, or tramroad, as it is called, to provoke an opposition so bitter from the people. It was a _new thing;_ and new things, great improvements as they may be on old ones, often call up a thousand doubts and fears among the ignorant and unthinking.

Nor did the project generally secure the approval of those who would be most benefited by it. Mr. James and his friends held public meetings in all the towns and villages along the way, enterprising men in Liverpool and Manchester delivered speeches, and tried to create a public interest; but there was a holding back, which, while it checked all actual progress in the enterprise, did not cause it to be altogether given up. The time had not come. That was all.

Mr. James had a secret leaning towards the use of steam on the new road. He would have immediately and unhesitatingly advocated a railroad run by locomotives. But that was out of the question. The public were far behind that point, and to have openly advocated it would have risked his judgment and good sense in the opinion of the best men. Therefore Mr. James held his tongue. But hearing of the Killingworth locomotives, and a collier who had astonished the natives by his genius, he determined to make a journey to Newcastle, and see the lions for himself.

Stephenson was not at home. "Puffing Billy" _was_, and "Billy" puffed in a way that took Mr. James's heart at once. He seemed to see at a glance "Billy's" remarkable power, and was struck with admiration and delight. "Here is an engine," he exclaimed, "that is destined before long to work a complete revolution in society."

The image of "Puffing Billy" followed him home.

"Why," he wrote to Stephenson's partner in the patent, "it is the greatest wonder of the age, and the forerunner, I believe, of most important changes in the modes of travel in the kingdom."

A few weeks later he made another visit to Killingworth, taking his two sons with him. "Puffing Billy" was at work as usual.

The boys were frightened at the sight of the snorting monster; but Stephenson encouraged them to mount with their father, and see how harmless and manageable the giant was.

The second visit was even more gratifying than the first.

"Mr. Stephenson," said James, "is the greatest practical genius of the age. His fame will rank with that of Watt."

Mr. James lost all hesitation now about speaking his mind. "Puffing Billy" had driven the backwardness out of him, and he was willing, at all hazards, boldly to advocate railroads and the steam-horse. No more tramroads; steam or nothing. This was in 1821.

Mr. James entered heart and soul into the new idea of the age. On his return to Liverpool it was everywhere his theme; and wherever he had influence he tried to stir up men's minds to the benefits and blessings puffing out in "Puffing Billy."

Stephenson rejoiced in such a friend. It was just what he and "Billy"

most needed--somebody to introduce them into the great world. And Stephenson and his partner offered him a share in the profits of whatever business he could secure to them.

But what can one man, or a few men, do in an enterprise like this, depending upon the verdict of that important power--Public Opinion?

And public opinion had not yet made up its mind to it.

A thousand difficulties bristled in the way; there was both the indifference of friends and the opposition of enemies at home. In addition to this, a violent opposition was foreseen in Parliament, which it needed all the strength and courage of a united const.i.tuency to meet.

Under these discouraging circ.u.mstances there were not enough men of courage to push the matter through.

So everything about the new road was laid on the shelf, at least for the present, and Liverpool and Manchester trade jogged on as before.

CHAPTER V.

HUNTING UP HIS OWN WORK--AN ENTERPRISING QUAKER--WHAT WAS THE RESULT?

It appears strange to us that so simple a thing as the laying of a rail or the making of a tunnel seems to be, should have taken years of thought and experiment to do it. Nothing looks easier to have done than the straight smooth track of a railway, such as we now see in use; and yet it was only arrived at by slow steps through two hundred years.

In pondering upon the powers of "Puffing Billy," George Stephenson saw that the efficiency of locomotives must, in a great measure, depend upon what kind of roads they had to run upon. Many were sanguine that steam-carriages would some day come into use on common roads. After a long series of experiments George Stephenson said, "No, the thing wouldn't pay." For a rough surface seriously impairs the power of a locomotive; sand scattered upon the rails is sufficient to slacken and even stop an engine. The least possible friction is desirable, and this is found on the smooth rail.

Could they ever be laid up hill, or on "ascending gradients," as the scientific term is? No; as nearly level as possible, Stephenson's experiments showed, was the best economy of power. Then how to get rid of the jolts and jars and breakages of the rails as they were then laid? He studied and experimented upon both chairs and sleepers, and finally embodied all his improvements in the colliery railway.

"Puffing Billy" was in every respect a most remarkable piece of machinery, and its constructor one of the most sagacious and persistent of men; but how was the public, ever slow in discovering true merit, or accepting real benefits, to discover and appreciate them? Neither influence, education, nor patronage had Stephenson to command mind and means, or to drive his engine through prejudice, indifference, and opposition to profit and success.

But what he could not do other men could do and did do. Yes, there were already men of property and standing ready to listen to a new idea. While he worked they talked. As yet unknown to each other, but each by himself clearing the track for a grand junction.

One of these wide-awake men was Mr. Edward Pease, a rich "Friend," of Darlington, who, his friends said, "could look a hundred miles ahead."

He needed a quicker and easier transit for his coal from the collieries north of Darlington to Stockton, where they were s.h.i.+pped; and Mr. Pease began to agitate, in his mind, for a railroad. A company for this purpose was formed chiefly of his own friends, whom he fairly talked into it. Scarcely twenty shares were taken by the merchants and s.h.i.+powners of Stockton, whose eyes were not yet open to the advantage it would by-and-by be to them. A survey of the proposed road was made, when to the indifference of the many was added the opposition of the few. A duke was afraid for his foxes. Shareholders in the turnpikes declared it would ruin their stock. Timid men said it was a new thing, and it was best to let new things alone. The world would never improve much under _such_ counsel. Mr. Pease was hampered on all sides.

n.o.body convinced him that his first plan was not the right one; but what can a man do in any public enterprise without supporters? So he reluctantly was obliged to give up his railroad, and ask parliament for liberty to build a tramroad--horse-power instead of steam-power; he seemingly could do no better, and even this was obtained only after long delay and at considerable cost.

Among the thousands who carelessly read in the newspapers the pa.s.sage through parliament of the Stockton and Darlington Act, there was one humble man whose eye kindled as he read it. In his bosom it awakened a profound interest. He went to bed and got up brooding over it. He was hungry to have a hand in it; until at last, yearning with an irrepressible desire to do his own work in the world, he felt he must go forth to seek it.

One night a couple of strangers knocked at the door of Mr. Edward Pease's house in Darlington, and introduced themselves as two Killingworth colliers. One of them handed the master of the mansion a letter of introduction from a gentleman of Newcastle, recommending him as a man who might prove useful in carrying out his contemplated road.

To support the application a friend accompanied him.

The man was George Stephenson, and his friend was Nicholas Wood. It did not take long for Edward Pease to see that Stephenson was precisely the man he wanted.

"A railway, and not a tramroad," said Stephenson, when the subject was fairly and fully opened.

"A horse railway?" asked Mr. Pease.

"A locomotive engine is worth fifty horses," exclaimed Stephenson; and once on the track, he launched out boldly in its behalf.

"Come over to Killingworth, and see my 'Puffing Billy,'" said George; "seeing is believing." And Mr. Pease, as you may suppose, was quite anxious to see a machine that would outride the fleetest horse. Yet he did not need "Puffing Billy" to convince him that its constructor knew what he was advocating, and could make good his pledges. The good Quaker's courage rapidly rose. He took a new start, and the consequence was that all other plans and men were thrown aside, and Stephenson was engaged to put the road through much in his own way.