LONDON TO THE London and North-Western Railway, with its numerous branches, forms one of the great arteries of communication with the North. The metropolitan terminus is at Euston Square. This station, including its dependency, Camden Town, which is also the terminus of the Black wall branch line, is the greatest railway area in England, or perhaps in Europe. It is the principal gate through which flows and reflows the traffic of a line which has cost more than twenty-two millions sterling; which annually earns more than two millions and a half for the conveyance of passengers, merchandise, and live stock; and which directly employs more than ten thousand servants, besides the tens of thousands to whom, in mills or mines, in ironworks, in steamboats and coasters, it gives indirect employment. What London is to the world, Euston is to Great Britain: there is no part of the country to which railway communication has extended, with the exception of the Dover and Southampton lines, which may not be reached by railway conveyance from Euston station. At the hour mentioned, the Railway passenger-yard is vacant, silent, and as spotlessly clean as a Dutchman's kitchen; nothing is to be seen but a tall soldierlike policeman in green, on watch under the wooden shed, and a few sparrows industriously yet vainly trying to get a breakfast from between the closely packed paving-stones. It is so still, so open; the tall columns of the portico entrance look down on you so grimly; the front of the booking-offices, in their garment of clean stucco, look so primly respectable that you cannot help feeling ashamed of yourself, so early and so lonely. Presently, hurrying on foot, a few passengers arrive; a servantmaid carrying a big box, with the assistance of a little girl; a neat punctual-looking man, probably a banker's clerk on furlough; and a couple of young fellows in shaggy coats, smoking,—who seem by their red eyes and dirty hands, to have made sure of being up early by not going to bed. A rattle outside announces the first omnibus, with a pile of luggage outside and five inside passengers, two commercial travellers, two others who may be curates or schoolmasters, and a brown man with a large sea-chest. At the quarter, the scene thickens; there are few Hansoms, but several night cabs drive up, a vast number of carts of all kinds, from the costermonger's donkey to the dashing Whitechapel. There is very little medium in parliamentary passengers about luggage, -either they have a cart-load or none at all. Children are very plentiful, and the mothers are accompanied with large escorts of female relations, who keep kissing and stuffing the children with real Gibraltar rock and gingerbread to the last moment. Every now and then a well-dressed man hurries past into the booking-office, and takes his ticket with a sheepish air, as if ashamed of what he was doing. Sailors arrive with their chests and hammocks. The other day we had the pleasure of meeting, in the same carriage, a travelling tinker, with the instruments of his craft neatly packed; two gentlemen, whose closelycropped hair and pale plump complexion betokened a recent residence in some gaol or philanthropic institution; an economical baronet, of large fortune; a This station was an after-thought, the result of early experience in railway traffic. Originally the line was to have ended at. Camden Town, but a favourable opportunity led to the purchase of fifteen acres, which has turned out most convenient for the public and the proprietors. It is only to be regretted that it was not possible to bring the station within a few yards of the New Road, so as to render the stream of omnibuses between Paddington and the City available, without compelling the passenger to perspire under his carpetbag, railway-wrapper, umbrella, and hat-box, all the way from the platform to the edge of Euston Square. The great gateway or propylæum, of which our first plate presents a view, is very imposing. It cost thirty thousand pounds; and had the architect been permitted to carry out his original design, no doubt it would have introduced us to some classic fane in character with the lofty Titanic columns. But, as is very common in this country,-the spirit of the proprietors evaporated with the outworks; and the gateway leads to a square courtyard and a building, the exterior of which may be described in the language of guide books when referring to something which cannot be praised, as "a plain, unpre-half-pay officer, with a genteel wife and twelve children, tending, stucco structure," with a convenient wooden shed in front, barely to save passengers from getting wet in rainy weather. The great Waiting Hall which has recently been erected is a most magnificent room, and worthy of the great railway to which it is the vestibule. Euston Station, to be viewed to advantage, should be visited by the gray light of a summer spring morning, about a quarter to six o'clock, threequarters of an hour before the starting of the parliamentary train, which every railway, under a wise legislative enactment, is compelled to run once a-day from each extremity." 66 or on his way to a cheap county in the north; a party of seven Irish, father, mother, and five grown-up sons and daughters, on their way to America, after a successful residence in London; a tall young woman and a little man, from Stamford, who had been up to London to buy stone bottles, and carried them back rattling in a box. In a word, a parliamentary train collects,-besides mechanics in search of work, sailors going to join a ship, and soldiers on furlough,—all whose necessities or tastes lead them to travel economically, among which last class are to be found a good many Quakers. It is pleasing to observe the attention the poor women, with large families and piles of packages, receive from the officers of the company, a great contrast to the neglect which meets the poorly-clad in stage-coach travelling, as may still be seen in those districts where the rail has not yet superseded the stage coach. We cannot say that we exactly admire the taste of the three baronets whom a railway superintendent found in one third-class carriage; but we must own that to those to whom economy is really an object, there is much worse travelling than by the Parliamentary. Having on another occasion gone down with an Oxford man who had just taken his M.A., an ensign of infantry in his first uniform, a clerk in Somerset House, and a Manchester man who had been visiting a Whig Lord,—and returned third-class, with a tinker, a sailor just returned from Africa, a bird-catcher with his load, and a gentleman in velveteens, rather greasy, who seemed, probably on a private mission, to have visited the misdemeanour wards of all the prisons in England and Scotland. The large cheap load having rumbled off from the south side of the station, about nine o'clock preparations are commenced for the aristocratic Express, which, on this line, is composed of first-class carriages alone, in which, at half the price of the old mail-coach fares, the principal stations on the line are reached at accelerated speed. To attend the departure of this train, there arrive not only the republican omnibuses and cabs, from the damp night crawler to the rattling Hansom, but carriages, with coronets and mitres emblazoned, guarded by the tallest and most obsequious of footmen, and driven by the fattest and most lordly of coachmen; also the neatest of broughams, adorned internally with pale pink and blue butterfly bonnets; dashing dogcarts, with neat grooms behind, mustachioed guardsmen driving; and stately cabriolets prance in, under the guidance of fresh primrose-coloured gloves. But, although the passengers by the Express train are, in every respect, a contrast to those by the Parliamentary, the universal and levelling tendency of the railway system is not less plainly exhibited. The earl or duke, whose dignity formerly compelled him to post in a coupé and four, at a cost of some five or six shillings a mile, and an immense consumption of horse-flesh, wax-lights, and landladies' curtsies on the road, now takes his place unnoticed in a first-class carriage next to a gentleman who travels for a great claret and champagne house, and opposite another going down express to report a railway meeting at Birmingham for a morning paper. If you see a lady carefully and courteously escorted to a carriage marked engaged on a black board, it is probably not a countess, but the wife of one of the principal officers of the company. A bishop in a great-coat creates no sensation; but a tremendous rush of porters and superintendents towards the carriage, announces that a director or well-known engineer is about to take his seat. In fact, civility to all, gentle and simple, is the rule introduced by the English railway system; every 66 porter with a number on his coat is, for the time, the passenger's servant. Special attention is bestowed on those who are personally known, and no one can grumble at that. Some people, who have never visited the Continent, or only visited it for pleasure, travelling at their leisure, make comparisons with the railways of France and Germany, unfavourable to the English system. Our railways are dearer than the foreign, so is our government, we make both ourselves; but compare the military system of the continental railways; the quarter of an hour for admission before the starting of the train, during which, if too early or too late, you are locked out; the weighing of every piece of baggage; the lordly commanding airs of all the officials if any relaxation of rules be required; the insouciance with which the few porters move about, leaving ladies and gentlemen to drag their own luggage;-compare all this with the rapid manner in which the loads of half-a-dozen cabs, driving up from some other railway at the last moment, are transferred to the departing Express; compare the speed, the universal civility, attention, and honesty, that distinguish our railway travelling, and you cannot fail to come to the conclusion, that for a commercial people to whom time is of value, ours is the best article; and if we had not been a lawyer-ridden people, we might also have had the cheapest article. Before starting the Express train, we must not fail to note one new class of passengers, recruited by the speed of railways, viz., the number of gentlemen in breeches, boots, and spurs, with their pinks just peeping from under their rough jackets, who, during the season, get down to Aylesbury, Bletchley, and even Wolverton, to hunt, and back home again to dinner. But the signal sounds. The Express train moves off; two gentlemen at the last moment are in vain crying out for Punch and the Times, while an unheeded hammering at the closed door of the booking-office announces that somebody is too late. There is always some one too late. On this occasion it was a young gentleman in a pair of light top-boots, and a mamma and papa with half-a-dozen children and two nursery-maids in a slow capacious fly. The Mixed train on this North-Western line holds an intermediate rank between the Parliamentary and the Express, consisting as it does of first and secondclass carriages, at lower fares than the one and higher than the other, stopping at fewer stations than the Parliamentary, and at more than the Express; but the circumstance is worth mentioning, because it is by these trains only that horses and carriages are allowed to be conveyed. Carriages require very careful packing on a truck. At the principal stations this may be very well left to the practised porters, but at roadside stations it is a point deserving attention; for it has not unfrequently happened that the jogging and lateral motion of the railway has heated the axles of a carriage or truck, so that at the end of the journey the wheels have been found as fast as if they had been welded, and quite unfit to travel. As we move slowly off, towards Camden Town, we emerge with light whirl along within sight of some rows of capital houses, whose gardens descend to the edge of the embankments. On arriving at Camden Town, the busy scene which presents itself on every side deserves a passing notice. The arrangements for building waggons and trucks, and conveying coals, merchandise, goods, and all live stock, present a wonderful scene of busy industry. On this railway the increase of the goods traffic has been of very recent date. At a very early period after the opening of the line, the merchandise department became the monopoly of the great carriers, who found it answer their purpose to divide the profits afforded by the discount allowed to carriers by the railway company, without seeking to develope an increase of occupation. Under this system, while carriers grew rich, the goods traffic remained stationary. But when the amalgamation with the Grand Junction, which had always been its own carrier, took place, a great reduction in rates was made, as well as arrangements for encouraging the conveyance of every kind of saleable article. The company, in fact, became common carriers, but employing Messrs. Pickford and Chaplin and Horne to collect goods. The result was a marvellous increase in the traffic, which has been progressing ever since. A regular trade is now carried on between London and the most remote parts of the kingdom in every conceivable thing that will bear moving. Sheep have been sent from Perth to London, and Covent-garden has supplied tons of the finer description of vegetables to the citizens of Glasgow; every Saturday several tons of the best fish in season are dispatched from Billingsgate to Birmingham, and milk is conveyed in padlocked tins, from and beyond Harrow, at the rate of about one penny per gallon. In articles which are imported into both Liverpool and London, there is a constant interchange, according to the state of the market; thus a penny per pound difference may bring a hundred chests of congou up, or send as many of hyson down the line. All graziers within a day of the rail are able to compete in the London market. The probability of any extraordinary demand, increases the number of beasts arriving weekly at Camden Station from the average of 500 to 2000, and the sheep from 2000 to 6000; and these animals can be brought from the furthest grazing grounds in the kingdom without any loss of weight, and in much better condition than the fat oxen which were formerly driven to Smithfield from the rich pastures round Aylesbury, or the Valley of the Thames. Camden station, under the alterations effected in 1848-9, has a double line of 2,500 feet in length, entirely for goods waggons only, clear of the main line. The length of these lines, exclusive of the main line, exceeds twelve miles. To describe it in detail would be a very unsatisfactory task; because, in the first place, it can ill be understood without a map, and in the next, changes are constantly taking place, and still greater changes will be forced on the company by the increase of goods traffic, which, great as it is, is only in its infancy. Even now freights are paid to the London and North Western for goods all the way to China. But, as an agricultural implement of commerce, the locomotive has been comparatively as little used as the stationary engine, although hundreds of trades of a semi-rural character are drawing toward the railway lines, and away from the country towns, which were formerly the centre of rural commerce because standing on the highways or near canals. such revolutions can only be effected slowly. But The cattle pens have lately been altered and enlarged. Just before Christmas this place is almost as amusing and exciting as a Spanish bull-fight; although, as a general rule, the silence of a place where, during every quarter of an hour, of day and night, so enormous a business is being carried on, is very surprising. Twenty-four steam waggon horses, or engines, for heavy loads are kept here in a circular engine-house, or stable, 160 feet in diameter, with an iron roof. This form renders every engine accessible at a moment's notice. The steam race-horses for the passenger work are kept in an oblong building opposite the others. The demand being more regular, there is no need for the expensive circular arrangement of stables for this class of engines. In a large boiler-house, boiling water and red-hot coke are kept ready night and day, so that on the occasion of any sudden demand no time need be lost in getting up steam. There is besides, a waggonbuilding department, a shop for executing such trifling repairs in the locomotives as need no reference to the great workshop at Wolverton. The passenger carriages are most of them built at Euston station. The carrying department is very conveniently situated close to the Regent's Canal, so as to have easy communication with inland as well as sea navigation. A series of sheds occupy an area of 135,000 superficial feet, and the platforms to receive goods from railway trucks on one side and from waggons on the other, occupy 30,000 feet. These platforms and sheds are provided with 110 cranes, for loading and unloading, with a power varying from one ton and a half to twenty tons. By these appliances, work of the most miscel laneous character goes on all day, and part of the night. The railway trucks and waggons are moved about by horses it is amusing to see the activity with which the heavy brutes often bring a waggon up at a trot, jump out of the way just at the right moment, and allow the waggon to roll up to the right spot by its own momentum. The horses are lodged in stables in the underground vaults, which we cannot commend, as they are dark, damp, full of draughts, and badly ventilated; but it was necessary to use these vaults, and difficult to find stabling for such a number of horses close at hand. The carrying department at Camden is very miscellaneous, and moves everything, from the contents of a nursery ground to a full-grown locomotive; but they do not impress a stranger so much as the arrangements at Manchester and Liverpool. The annual consumption of gas at Camden exceeds six million cubic feet. Under the railway system the certainty and rapidity with which merchandise can be transmitted, changes and simplifies more and more every year the operations of trade. For instance, Southampton is the great port for that part of our Indian, South American, and Mediterranean trade, which is conducted by steamers. When a junction has been effected between the London and North-Western and the South-Western, costly packages of silk, muslin, gold tissue, jewellery, may be sent under lock from the Glasgow manufacturers to the quay alongside at Southampton in a few hours, without sign of damage or pilferage, and at the last moment before the departure of the steamer. The communication between the docks on the Thames and Camden Town, will enable a grocer in Manchester to have a hogshead of sugar or tobacco sent in answer to a letter by return of post, at a saving in expense which may be imagined from the fact, that it costs more to cart a butt of sherry from the London Docks to Camden Town, than to send it by rail all the way to Manchester. Leaving Camden station, the traveller is whirled rapidly on through Middlesex, the metropolitan county, whose surface consists for the most part of gentle undulations, just affording a sufficient scope for drainage purposes. A range of low hills skirt the northern side of London, by Highgate and Hampstead. Another similar range extends along the borders of Hertfordshire, from three to four hundred feet above the level of the Thames, between which Harrow occupies an insulated eminence. To the south-west the country is an almost unbroken flat, scarcely rising twenty feet above the level of the Thames. Willesden, Sudbury, and Harrow-on-the-Hill, with its beacon-like church spire. Harrow School is almost as much one of the institutions of England as Oxford and Cambridge Universities. It is one of the great public schools, which, if they do not make the ripest scholars, make " men of our aristocracy. This school was founded by one John Lyon, a farmer of the parish, who died in 1592. Attached to it there are four exhibitions of £20 each, and two scholarships of £50 each. The great celebrity of the school, however, rests upon the education of those who are not on the foundation-the sons of noblemen and wealthy gentlemen, who in this, as in many other instances, have treated those for whose benefit the school was founded as the cuckoo treats the young of the hedge-sparrow. Among its illustrious scholars, Harrow numbers Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel. An old saw runs: "Eton fops, Harrow gentlemen, Winchester scholars, and Westminster black guards." Since the palmy days, when Dr. Drury was master, and Byron and Peel were pupils, Harrow had declined to insignificance, from which it has been again raised by the abilities of Dr. Wordsworth, and his successor, Dr. Vaughan. The term of "Harrow gentlemen" still deservedly survives, Harrow being still the gate through which sons of families of moderate pretensions may most safely pass on their way to Oxford or Cambridge. Harrow Hill, on the boldest parts of which the village is placed, springs pretty equally from all sides of a rich and extensive plain; and the spire of its church is the landmark for a great extent of surrounding country. Towards the north the view is limited by the high ground at the extremity of the Harrow Weald; but in this direction the prospect is enriched by masses of wood, with frequent inequalities of surface, which forms a landscape of great beauty. On the west the views are extensive, but over a country distinguished for its flatness, Windsor and its mag The surrounding country belongs entirely to the basin of the Thames, which forms its southern boundary. The high grounds about Hampstead, Highgate, and Hornsey are varied and picturesque, as are most of the immediate environs of the capital. From these heights a prospect of great extent, as well as beauty, is obtained over a richly wooded district, embracing in one direc-nificent castle terminating the view. tion the Thames, with all its windings, from London to Langdon Hill, in Essex, a distance of sixty miles; in a northern direction to Hanslop, in Northamptonshire; to Banstead Downs in the south; and to Red Hill, in Buckinghamshire, and Windsor Castle, in the west. Leaving Camden Town, we rapidly pass Kilburn, Passing northward through Harrow Weald, an extensive district on the northern side of the parish, so called from its wooded surface, and which presents many rich and diversified prospects, the traveller reaches Pinner station, where we pass from Middlesex into the neighbouring county of Hertfordshire. HERTFORDSHIRE. PASSING Bushey, we soon reach Watford, which is one of the principal stations in this county. By far the greatest proportion of Hertfordshire is under tillage. Its general aspect is extremely pleasant; and though it neither boasts of lofty hills nor vales sufficiently depressed to give it a character for picturesque scenery, its surface is sufficiently diversified. The northern part of the county is the most hilly, and a range of high ground stretches out from the neighbourhood of King's Langley, toward Berkhampstead and Tring, which command a great extent of fine scenery. Another elevated ledge commences at St. Albans, and proceeds in a northerly direction towards Market Street; while several other ranges of elevated ground run nearly parallel with the former, from the vicinity of Sandridge, Whethampstead, and Whitwell. The woodlands of Hertfordshire are extensive, the whole country, especially in the neighbourhood of the populous town of Watford, on the river Colne, being interspersed with small woods and copses. Previous |