The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

294 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. xxv.
and her Trustees, Lord Essex and Sir Astley Cooper, supported
by the Granji Junction Canal Company. By their influence the
landowners throughout the counties of Hertford and Buckingham
were completely organized in opposition to the measure.
The time for preparing the plans to be deposited with the several
clerks of the peace, as required by the standing orders of Par-
liament, being very limited, the necessary documents were pre-
pared in great haste, and were deposited in such an imperfect
state as to give just grounds for presuming that they would not
pass the ordeal of the Standing Orders Committee. It was also
thought that alterations might be made in some parts of the
railway which would remove the objections of the principal land-
owners, and it was therefore determined to postpone the applica-
tion to Parliament until the following session.
In the mean time the opponents of the bill out of doors were
not idle. Public meetings were held in most of the districts
through which the line was projected to pass, under the pres-
idency of the nobility and gentry, when it was unanimously
determined that railways were wholly unnecessary. Numerous
pamphlets were published, calling on the public to "beware of
the bubbles," and holding up the promoters of railways to ridi-
cule. They were compared to Sir John Long, and similar
quacks, and pronounced fitter for Bedlam than to be left at
large. The canal proprietors, landowners, and road trustees,
made common cause in decrying and opposing the projected Une.
The failure of railways was still confidently predicted, notwith-
standing the success of the Liverpool Railway ; and it was in-
dustriously spread abroad that the locomotive engines, having
proved a failure there, were immediately to be abandoned!
a rumour which the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester
Company considered it necessary publicly to contradict.
The feeling of opposition excited in the districts through
which the line was intended to pass, was so great that it was
with difiiculty the surveys could be made. At one point the
vigilance of the landowners and their servants was such, that
the surveyors were effectually prevented making the surveys by
the light of day ; and it was only at length accomplished at night
by means of dark lanthorns. Mr. Lecount mentions another
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