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

394 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. xxxi.
very unscrupulous manner ; landowners, to promote branch lines
through their property ; speculators in shares, to trade upon the
exclusive information which they obtained ; whilst some direc-
tors were appointed through the influence mainly of solicitors,
contractors, or engineers, who used them as tools to serve their
own ends. In this way the unfortunate proprietors were, in
many cases, betrayed, and their property was shamefully squan-
dered, to the further discredit of the railway system.
Among the characters brought prominently into notice by the
mania, was the Railway navvy. The navvy was now a great
man. He had grown rich, was a landowner, a railway share-
holder, sometimes even a member of parliament ; but he was a
navvy still. He had imported the characteristics of his class
into his new social position. He was always strong, rough, and
ready ; but withal he was unscrupulous. If there was a stout
piece of work to be done, none could carry it out with greater
energy, or execute it in better style according to contract— pro-
vided he was watched. But the navvy contractor was greatly
given to " scamping." He was up to all sorts of disreputable
tricks of the trade. In building a tunnel, he would, if he could,
use half-baked clay instead of bricks, and put in two courses in-
stead of four. He would scamp the foundations of bridges, use
rubble instead of stone sets, and Canadian timber instead of
Memel for his viaducts ; but he was greatest of all, perhaps, in
the " scamping " of ballast. He had therefore—especially the
leviathan navvy—to be very closely watched ; and this was gen-
erally entrusted to railway inspectors at comparatively small
salaries. The consequences were such as might have been
anticipated. More bad and dishonest work was executed on
the railways constructed in any single year subsequent to the
mania, than was to be found on all the Stephenson lines during
the preceding twenty years.
The mode of executing railway works, first adopted by Mr.
Stephenson on the Stockton and Darhngton Railway, and after-
wards continued by himself and his son on the other lines with
which they were connected, was this : The railway was divided
into lengths of from ten to twenty miles, and an assistant engi-
neer, usually an experienced man, on whom reliance could be