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

CHAP. XXXI.] THE STOCK EXCHANGE. 383
have never yet seen a Railway Living advertised for sale ; nor
have railway situations of an important character been obtainable
through " interest." From the first, directors chose the best men
they could find for their purpose ; and, on the whole, the system,
considering the extent of its operations, worked satisfactorily,
though admitted to be capable of considerable improvement.
The first boards of directors were composed of men of the
highest character and integrity that could be found ; and they al-
most invariably held a large stake in their respective undertak-
ings, sufiicient to give them a lively personal interest in their
successful management. They were also men who had not taken
up the business of railway direction as a trade, but who entered
upon railway enterprise for its own sake, looking to its eventual
success for an adequate return on their large investments.
The first shareholders were principally confined to the manu-
facturing districts,—the capitalists of the metropolis as yet hold-
ing aloof, and prophesying disaster to all concerned in railway
projects.* The stock exchange looked askance upon them, and
it was with difficulty that respectable brokers could be found to
do business in the shares. But when the lugubrious anticipa-
tions of the city men were found to be so completely falsified by
the results, when, after the lapse of years, it was ascertained that
railway traffic rapidly increased and dividends steadily improved,
a change came over the spirit of the London capitalists : they
then invested largely in railways, and the shares became a lead-
ing branch of business on the stock exchange. Speculation
fairly set in ; brokers prominently called the attention of inves-
tors to railway stock ; anfl the prices of shares in the principal
lines rose to nearly double their original value.
The national wealth soon poured into this new channel. A
stimulus was given to the projection of further lines, the shares
in the most favourite of which came out at a premium, and be-
came the subject of immediate traffic on 'change. The premiums
constituted their sole worth in the estimation of the speculators.
* The leading " city men " looked with great suspicion on the first railway-
projects, having no faith in their- success. In 1835, the solioitorship of the
Brighton Railway (then projected) was offered to a city firm of high standing,
and refused,—one of the partners assigning as a reason that " the coaches would
"
drive the railway trains off the road in a month !