The Rocket: The Story of the Stephensons, Father and Son

by Helen C. Knight

  CHAPTER IV.

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

  Manchester, thirty miles north-east of Liverpool, is the great centre ofthe cotton trade in England. Its cloths are found in every market of theworld. Cotton coming to Liverpool is sent to the Manchester mills; andthe goods which the mills turn out are returned to Liverpool to beshipped. The two cities, therefore, are intimately connected by constantintercourse and mutual interest.

  Two water communications existed between them; one by the rivers Merseyand Irwell, the other by the famous Bridgewater Canal, which did animmense business at an enormous profit. But the Manchester mills werefast outgrowing these slow and cumbersome modes of travel. Liverpoolwarehouses were piled with bales of cotton waiting to go, and the millsat Manchester had often to stop because it did not come. Goods alsofound as much difficulty in getting back. Merchants and manufacturersboth grumbled. Business was in straits. What was to be done? Carting wasquite out of the question. Canal owners were besought to enlarge theirwater-power. No, they would do nothing. They were satisfied with thingsas they were. Their dividends were sure.

  But want demands supply; need creates resources. Something _must_ bedone to facilitate the transit of goods between the two cities. What?Build a tram-road, or _rail-road_. Nobody, however, but a very fast manwould risk his good sense by seriously advising a rail-road. Solid menwould certainly shun him. A tram-road was a better understood thing. Thecollieries had used small pieces of them for years. A tram-road then.Business men put their heads together and began earnestly to talk of atram-road.

  William James, a rich and enterprising man, entered heartily into theproject, and undertook to make surveys for a suitable route. And notlong after a party of surveyors was seen in the fields near Liverpool.Their instruments and movements excited attention. People eyed them withanxiety; suspicions were roused; the inhabitants became alarmed. Whowere they, making such mysterious measurements and calculations on otherpeople's land? A mob gradually gathered, whose angry tones andthreatening gestures warned the surveyors of a storm brewing over theirheads. Wisely considering that flight was better than fight, they tookthemselves off, and by-and-by turned up farther on.

  The landowners, who might be supposed to have known better, told thefarmers to drive them off; and the farmers, with their "hands," wereonly too ready to obey. They stationed themselves at the field gates andbars with pitch-forks, rakes, shovels, and sticks, and dared thesurveyors to come on. A poor chain-man, not quite so nimble as hispursuers, made his leap over a fence quickened by a pitch-fork frombehind! Even women and children joined the hue and cry, pelting thestrangers with stones and dirt whenever they had a chance. The collierswere not behind the farmers in their foolish hostility. A stray surveyorwas caught and thrown into a pit.

  At a sight of the theodolite their fury knew no bounds. That unoffendinginstrument they seemed to regard as the very Sebastopol of the enemy, toseize and destroy which was to win the day. Tho surveyors, therefore,were obliged to hire a noted boxer to carry it, who could make good histhreats on the enemy. A famous fighter among the colliers, determinednot to be outdone, marched up to the theodolite to capture it. Afist-and-fist fight took place; the collier was sorely beaten, but therabble, taking his part against the poor instrument, pelted it withstones and smashed it to pieces.

  You may well suppose that surveying under such circumstances was nolight matter. What was the gist of the hostility? It is hard to tell.The canal 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 nothingin a simple horse rail-road, or tram-road, as it is called, to provokean opposition so bitter from the people. It was a _new thing_; and newthings, great improvements though they may be on old ones, often stir upa thousand doubts and fears among the ignorant and unthinking.

  Nor did the project generally take among those who would be mostbenefited by it. Mr. James and his friends held public meetings in allthe towns and villages along the way; enterprising men in Liverpool andManchester talked it up, and tried to create a public interest; butthere was a holding back, which, while it checked all actual progress inthe enterprise, did not cause it to be altogether given up. The time hadnot 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 rail-road runby locomotives. But that was out of the question. The public were farbehind that point, and to have openly advocated it would have risked hisjudgment and good sense in the opinion of the best men. Therefore Mr.James wisely held his tongue. But hearing of the Killingworthlocomotives, and of a collier who had astonished the natives by hisgenius, 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 away 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 worka complete revolution in society."

  The image of "Puffing Billy" followed him home.

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

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

  The boys were frightened at the sight of the snorting monster; butStephenson encouraged them to mount, with their father, and see howharmless and manageable the monster was.

  The second visit was even more gratifying than the first.

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

  Mr. James lost all hesitation now about speaking his mind. "PuffingBilly" had driven the backwardness out of him, and he was willing, atall hazards, boldly to advocate rail-roads and the steam-horse. No moretram-roads; steam or nothing. This was in 1821.

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

  THE VISIT TO "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. AndStephenson and his partner offered him a share in the profits ofwhatever 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? AndPublic Opinion had not yet made up its mind to it.

  A thousand difficulties bristled in the way. There were both theindifference of friends and the opposition of enemies at home. Inaddition to this, a violent opposition was foreseen in Parliament, whichit needed all the strength and courage of a united constituency to meet.

  Under these discouraging circumstances, there were not enough men ofpluck to push the matter through.

  So everything about the new road went by the board. It was laid on theshelf, at least for the present, and Liverpool and Manchester tradejogged on as before.