horsed under the old system of coaches and
waggons, that the animal should consume the
yearly value in food of one hundred and
seventy thousand pounds? Yet that is the
value of the coke yearly devoured upon a
single railway line. The company's coachmen,
grooms, and stablemen, cost the annual
sum of one hundred and eight thousand
pounds; their infirmary, one hundred and
fifty thousand; their carriages and waggons
one hundred and forty thousand.

But, however large we may think these
establishments to be, the depôts at Liverpool
are yet more extensive, while the constant
complaint in them is, that they want
room. While looking through one of the
five great establishments which the North-
Western Company maintains in Liverpool, it
edified me to compare the modern depôt and
its suite of noble offices with the old single
station, that for some years sufficed for the
first wants of the line constructed between
Liverpool and Manchester. That wry-faced
little pile of buildings is yet standing, or
rather leaning against more substantial
works—a miserable little place that still
shelters a clerk or two. The smallest
hermitage of a railway-station, down in the
remotest part of Cornwall, would consider
itself now the superior of so trumpery an
office. Twenty years make a great change in
England. May the present New Year's Day
be held to justify that new and most acute
remark!

The Company's operations in Liverpool are
now on a very large scale. There is a new
passengers' station in Lime Street, with a
great arched roof of glass and iron; an
extensive and bustling coal depôt; a cattle
station; lastly, there are two depôts
connected with the carrying trade—namely, the
Napping and Great Howard Street goods
stations. Through them is passed one-third
of the entire traffic of the port. There twenty
lines of rail diverge from great piles of
capacious storehouses; cranes are at work;
engines come and go, tugging at long trains
of heavy waggons and trucks covered up in
black. Whence they all come, and whither
they will go, and how it can be possible to
have them all in order for a fair start by
six P.M., every morning, puzzled me, the
uninitiated, much. Each waggon, truck, or
covered van, when loaded, has a coloured
ticket fixed upon it, the colour of the ticket
telling at once whether the truck to which it
is attached has to go north, south, east, or
west. As the afternoon closes men begin to
sort these scores of loaded waggons, first
grouping them into long lines, according to
their colours, and then sub-arranging the
carriages of each line, according to the
addresses printed on their cards. Those going
the shortest distance are put last, and merely
have to be unhooked as they reach their
destination. Ready and covered up by the
appointed time, the trains glide away swiftly
through the tunnel, as worms run into their
holes.

What sort of goods pass through these
warehouses? A good deal of everything: bales
of silks and packages of sacking; musical
instruments and agricultural tools;
ponderous machinery and children's toys;
potatoes, pigs, perfumery; glass, grindstones,
guano —all are to be seen here daily, hourly,
wholesale, retail, and for exportation. We
were assured that the average number of
pianofortes passing through these depôts is
not less than a thousand a month, nearly all
designed for shipment to the New World
and the Colonies, The brewers of pale ale
transmit about eight thousand tuns of their
beer annually through the hands of the
Company's manager.

Little need be said of London goods
stations; but in coming back to town I took a peep
at the depôt for stores in Euston Square.
There are lanthorns enough there for a Chinese
feast; casks of nails and screws and hinges,
full to the bung; tallow and oil enough to
keep some tribes of Esquimaux throughout
the winter; brushes, brooms and shovels in
such multitude that one might imagine a
design on the part of the North-Western
directors to make one magnificent, clean sweep
of it from Euston Square to Lime Street,
Liverpool.

The East and West India Dock Junction,
now North London Railway, connects the
above named docks and the Eastern Counties
and Tilbury railways with the London and
North Western and Great Northern lines.
It also passes on, as Londoners all know,
from Camden Town, and intersecting the
South Western railway, runs to Kew Gardens.
This line is little and important. By
means of its newly fitted depôt at Haydon
Square, goods of all kinds which were formerly
carted from Camden Town to the City, are
now conveyed by rail during the night; and
thus there is removed from our too crowded
thoroughfares a traffic of about four thousand
tons a week. This depôt has been formed
out of one of the East India Company's old
warehouses. Sluggish monopoly has given
place to bustling competition. The amount
of work done at this one station day and
night, so quietly and unobtrusively, would
very much astonish Leadenhall Street men.
Indian corahs and bandannas, China taptahs,
preserved ginger, and nankeens have given
up their rooms to Manchester cottons, Bradford
alpacas, hardwood, crockery, and other
English manufactured goods. The work
at the great lifting cranes is performed here
by means of a beautiful hydraulic machine.
Huge railway waggons, heavily laden, are,
by means of this power, lowered from the
upper storey, which is on a level with the railway,
to the basement floor. There they are
unloaded into carriers' waggons, and then,
being empty, lifted again to the level of the
line, ready to run and fetch another load.