'A Most Curious and Interesting Dialogue on the NEW RAIL ROADS, Or, the delight and pleasure of Travelling by Hot Water'

"BILL Good morning, Jack. I am glad I have met with you to bid you a good-bye, for I am going away for a while for you know there is a great deal of employment going forward in making these new Railroads.

JACK Yes, Bill, the Railroads are something like the new Work-houses¹, make work at present for a few, and in the end be the ruin of a great many.

BILL Why, Jack, steam is all the rage, steam boats, steam sawyers, steam bakers and millers, and I expect very soon we shall have to live upon steam.

JACK No ! No ! Bill, you're mistaken, instead of living by steam, it will prove a great help in taking away life, and numbers will be thrown out of employment, for I cannot see what benefit we shall derive from it.

BILL Why, Jack, it may be a benefit to the town of Leicester, the London markets will be plentifully supplied with all kinds of corn, butter, cheese, eggs and stockings, and from the Seaports fish alive on the dish.

JACK Why we now see the Railroads a moving panorama of live lumber, like a string of Noah's Arks, filled with men and women, pigs, sheep and oxen carried by steam to the markets, where they will be sold by steam, killed by steam, cooked by steam, and then devoured by steam.

BILL And, Jack, it will be a fine chance for the Leicester bricklayers, they may now undertake to send ready built Workhouses by steam for the poor paupers of the different parishes from the North to the South of England; well secured with iron bars and cast iron roofs to keep them from escaping.

JACK Why they tell me, Bill, that as there are no more coach horses wanted, they will be taken to the fellmonger's yard, there to be converted into hog's lard.

BILL But what will become of the Innkeepers, Ostlers¹ and Coach Proprietors ?

JACK Become of them! Why as they have always been fond of the horse line, they may now enlist in the line of Horses of her Majesty the great Queen of Spain or ride upon English donkeys for the good of their health.

BILL Well, Jack, I must bid you good-bye at present for this job won't last always; for Shareholders, Engine scheme and all may yet be blown up by the boiler of hot water."

 

The Wonderful Effects of the Leicester Railroad

Of all the great wonders that ever were known -
And some wonderful things have occurred in this town -
The Leicester railroad it will beat them all hollow;
And the man who first thought of it was a wonderful; fellow.

No drunken stage-coachmen to break people's necks,
Turned o'er into ditches, sprawled on out on your backs;
No blustering guard that, through some mistake,
Fires of his blunderbuss(1) if a mouse should but squeak.

No, no, my good friends, now this rail road is finished,
All coachmen and cattle² henceforth shall be banished.
You may ride up to London in three hours and a quarter, [Note 480.01]
With nothing to drive but a kettle of water.

You may breakfast in Liecester on toast and butter
And need not put yourself in a flutter;
You can ride up to London and dine ther at noon,
And take tea at Leicester the same afternoon.

What a beautiful site it is for to see
A long string of carriages on the railway'
All loaded with passengers inside and out,
And moved by what comes from a tea-kettle's spout.

As for packages and parcels and such like of gear,
There's more goes in one day than used to go in a year,
It is only to load half a score(2) of waggons,
Send a boiler along with them and off they'll be jogging:

And then what a lot of employment 'twill make,
The Leicester bricklayers may now undertake
To send ready-built houses to London by steam;
No doubt it will turn out a very good scheme.

What a chnce for the gentry who are fond of fish;
They may have trout and salmon alive on the dish,
In the morning from river to the railroad they're taken,
Dress'd in Leicester at noon what a great undertaking.

And any old woman that has enough sense
By raking and scraping to save eighteen pence,
If in service(1) in London she has got a daughter,
She may ride up to see her by this boiler of water.

As for inkeepers and ostler(1)s and all such riff raff(1),
The railroad will disperse them before it like chaff;
They may list(1) for Her Highness, the great Queen of Spain,
And curse the inventors of railroads and steam.

Coach horses that devoour more corn in a year
Than would maintain three parts of the labouring poor,
They are all to go to the fellmonger(1)'s yard
And converted if possible into hog's_lard¹.

And all the coach proprietors that have rolled in wealth
Must ride upon donkeys for the good of their health,
And to keep up their spirits must strike up this theme
And curse all the railroads and boiling hot steam.