'It will, I think, be generally allowed that it was very natural I should desire to have my name publicly (Ital. sic) associated with Mr. Stephenson's as Joint Engineer for these Bridges.'—p. 170. And accordingly in his plates Mr. Fairbairn has offered to the public a beautiful PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF A PORTION OF THE BRITANNIA BRIDGE 6 RESTING ON THE CENTRE OF THE MENAI STRAIT. 'ROBERT STEPHENSON AND WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN, ENGINEERS.' Now the facts of the case, or rather of the picture, are briefly as follows: 1. The masonry of the lofty tower, so faithfully represented, was erected under the sole superintendence of Mr. Frank Forster, C.E. 2. The tube, not so correctly represented,-inasmuch as, from the date of Mr. Fairbairn's retirement, nearly two years must elapse before it can attain the position it occupies in the picture, -has almost entirely been constructed under the sole superintendence of Mr. Edwin Clark, C.E. 3. Mr. Fairbairn did not for a single day work at the construction of the tower, or, excepting a few occasional visits, at that of the tube. 'SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI.' CHAPTER VI. MORAL. THE sums expended by the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company to the 30th June last have been as follows: 200,000 0 0 Contribution to be paid towards the construction of the Holyhead Harbour of Refuge Present market-value of original stock 72 per cent. discount. 20 per cent. discount. The above figures strikingly illustrate the consequences of the system, or rather want of system, which the Imperial Parliament has hitherto pursued in railway legislation. If the communication between England and Ireland viâ Holyhead, had-on the principle which at the time we earnestly recommended-been considered as one great arterial line, the proportionate expense of contributing to a harbour of refuge, as well as the enormous cost of raising the two bridges necessary for crossing the Conway and Menai Straits to a height sufficient for the distinctly different purposes of railway traffic and the sailing of large vessels, might, with some appearance of justice, have been thrown upon the aforesaid large Company ;—although in the day of M'Adam roads, Telford's bridges over the very same places, and the construction of harbours, were considered as national works, and were accordingly executed at the cost of the public. Very improvidently, however, the moderately re munerating portions of the line were first established by Parliament;—and thus the little Company which, with feeble means, was to continue from Chester the circulation of the Royal mails -of goods of all descriptions-of first, second, and third class passengers-and of Her Majesty's troops and artillery between London and Dublin, was saddled not only with its own natural burden, but with the preternatural works we have described ; indeed, in order to obtain its Act of Parliament, it was so completely at the mercy of the Government, that it was obliged to submit to certain excruciating terms which-with the nonpayment to the Company of its 30,000l. a-year for the mailservice, which the members of the late Administration well know was insured to it-and with a competition between the Government and the Company's steamers most lamentably inflicting a serious loss upon both parties-have, it appears, reduced the value of its shares in the market by more than 70 per cent., and, of course, completely drained its capital of all dividend. 'And,' it has been said, 'so much the better for the public!" Be it so we have no desire to relieve the proprietors of the Chester and Holyhead Railway from the terms (whatever they may be) of their contract. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that, if Parliament holds every Railway Company hard and fast to its bargain when it has made a bad one, it ought not, at all events, by ex post facto legislation, to let loose the public from every imprudent engagement which they, on their parts, have contracted to perform. We will exemplify our meaning by a particular case. 6 At the fag-end of last session Lord Monteagle introduced into the House of Lords a bill, which, though hastily approved by a vote of that House, was very properly, as we think, discountenanced by Lord John Russell, and finally thrown out in the House of Commons, to deprive railway proprietors of the power they now enjoy of solely auditing their own accounts. It was not attempted to be shown that an auditor appointed by the public could increase the number of trains - improve station accommodation -or give additional security or even comfort to any description of persons travelling by rail. It was not attempted to be shown that the proposed measure would confer a single additional privilege upon railway share-owners. On the contrary, it was frankly admitted that 'to THEM the books of the Company are by law at all times open;' but as a highly popular doctrine, it was honestly and unscrupulously explained that the real object of the proposed audit-bill was to enable the public, by legislative clairvoyance,' accurately to ascertain the present and prospective state of every Railway Company, in order that the proprietors thereof might be prevented from any longer selling their shares to the aforesaid 'public' at prices above their intrinsic value. If Parliament were to force every horse-dealer to divulge the vices and infirmities of the sorry animal he is at this moment 'chaunting,' there can be no doubt that the public, by a general illumination, would have vast reason to rejoice. If Parliament were to oblige the proprietors of all quack medicines to pre-publish the exact cost of the ingredients which compose them, there can be no doubt that John Bull might henceforward repeatedly swallow a peck of pills for less money than he is now paying for a single ounce box.' In fact, for aught that we in our sequestered hermitage know, it may be very possible, that if every merchant's ledger were, to-morrow morning, by legislative enactment, to be declared public property, the prices of sugar, tea, iron, hides, coals, and a hundred other articles in the market, would, in the course of a few hours, be lowered. It has, however, hitherto been considered that the British merchant's counting-house is as much his castle' as his residence; that his accounts are as sacred as his person; and that, morally speaking, nothing but a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act can authorise the seizure of either the one or the other. When Mr. Stephenson's magnificent project of a cast-iron bridge of two arches, 100 feet high at the crown,—which, instead of costing 600,000l. (being at the rate of 1000l. per yard), could have been executed for 250,000l.,—was rejected by the Admiralty, that powerful Board very justifiably declined to advise by what other means the stipulations they required should or even could be effected. The doubts, the difficulties, the risks, and the uncertainties were all, with an official shrug, very prudently thrown upon the little Company; and if the expenses of the Chester and Holyhead Railway could thus be legitimately forced into darkness, is it just, after the proprietors have not only performed their bargain, but have nearly been ruined by doing so, that their accounts should, by an ex post facto law, be dragged into daylight, not merely to gratify idle disinterested curiosity, but for the open avowed object of shielding the public-or rather public stockbrokers-from the very risk and pecuniary uncertainty which they (the proprietors) were forced to encounter? But, as in all transactions, 'honesty is the best policy,' so we submit that the proposed interference with the rights of Railway proprietors to be the sole auditors of their own accounts is not only unjust, but impolitic. Thousands of owners of Railway stock have, by a fatal experience, lately learned that it is possible for a joint-stock company, as it is possible for any of the individuals composing it, to encourage profuse expenditure, to act dishonestly, and, for a short time, to veil impending run by mystified accounts. The antidote, however, to this poisonous admixture of indolence and fraud is already working its cure. The punishment of the principal transgressor has already become 6 greater than he can bear;' and a salutary suspicion has not only spontaneously aroused the proprietors of two hundred millions of Railway property, who had hitherto very culpably neglected their own affairs, but has materially depreciated all Railway stock; and there can be no doubt that this wholesome castigatory depression of their property below its intrinsic value will, to the evident benefit of the share-purchasing public, continue to exist, until Railway proprietors have sense enough to perceive that it is their interest to remove the suspicion which created it, by the prompt establishment of that open examination, and that honest as well as disinterested audit of their accounts(in the last half-yearly printed statement of the London and North-Western Railway Company's affairs we observe that there was expended in six months in 'audit and account 24881. 5s. 6d.') -which will satisfy men of business; and which was, no doubt, Lord Monteagle's object when—with rather more zeal than consideration—he proposed that it should forcibly be effected by Act of Parliament. The desideratum, however, we feel confident, can be obtained milder means; and although between buyers and sellers of all scriptions contention must always exist to a certain degree, we that the proprietors of the rails which have gridironed the |