Various

“ If railways have produced very important effects upon commercial affairs, they have exercised an influence not less important in a social and intellectual point of view. They have been greatly instrumental in removing prejudices, in cementing old and forming new friendships, in extending information, and in sharpening ingenuity.
Prejudice has been one of the most formidable obstacles to the spread of civilisation. It has for ages kept separate and at enmity nations born to bless and benefit each other ”

“ Having served to bring into one market far more articles of commerce than before were exposed in it, this new mode of locomotion has to a great extent increased throughout our different trades and callings that element of a generous and wholesome competition which is the most effective agent in eliciting a high degree of skill in the cultivation of an art, or the improvement of an invention. ”

“ The fate of the Palæologi—one day on a throne, the next in a dungeon, passing from regal state to wretched exile—may have been the bitter lot of other imperial families. If we find the descendants of the Greek emperors in the humble occupation of sailors and churchwardens, and vestrymen and road-trustees, there is nothing extravagant in the supposition, that we may have royal porters and scavengers on our streets, the sceptre having degenerated into the besom, and the truck taken the place of the chariot of state. ”

“ With regard to Mendez himself, it appeared that when found he was in a state of insensibility, and he was still too weak to give evidence or enter into any particulars; but when, under proper remedies, he had recovered his senses, Faustina Malfi, his sister—to whose house he had been carried—asked him if Giuseppe Ripa was not the assassin; and he answered in the affirmative.
Giuseppe was thrown into prison to await his trial; and having public opinion, as well as that of the authorities against him, he was universally considered a dead man. ”

“ While there are many machines which contribute much more directly to the rapid accumulation of wealth in the persons of individuals, than does the railway locomotive, there is probably none which tends more to enrich a community. Unlike most other mechanical contrivances for the abridgment of labour, the railway locomotive unites in the effects which it produces the elements of social as well as commercial improvement. ”

“ Your cat is a domestic animal, and naturally conservative in its tastes—averse therefore to uproar, and to all those given to change. Its propensities are to meditation and contemplative tranquillity, for which reason it has ever been held in reverence by nations of a similar staid and composed disposition, and has been the favourite companion and constant friend of grave philosophers and thoughtful students. ”

“ By providing facilities towards laying and protecting the delicate machinery along which electricity was to perform its marvellous exploits, railways have directly contributed to apply and develop the resources of one of the most useful and wonderful of inventions, which even in its first stage of infancy has wrought a perfect revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence; and which promises at no very distant day to play the same part among the continents and islands of the globe that it now does between the provinces of an empire. ”

“ With his accession terminated the reign of the last of the Latin emperors at Constantinople (Baldwin II.) , and Michael became the founder of the Grecian dynasty.
The labours of the new monarch to retrieve the calamities of war, by encouraging industry, planting colonies, and extending trade, were deserving of all praise. His ambition raised up against him many enemies, spiritual and temporal; but if his policy was not always judicious, he increased his power and his fame by greatly enlarging his dominions. It was by his intrigues that the revolt of Sicily was instigated. ”

“ We must, however, lament that, although he does full justice to the 'half-reasoning elephant,' to the aptitude and fidelity of the dog, to the marvellous economical arrangements of the bees, and even to the imitative capacity of the magpie, he pays no higher tribute to the merits of the cat than that she is as capable of being amused as himself, and like himself, too, has her periods of gravity when recreative sports are distasteful. ”

“ Opening the door hastily, and rushing into the room, a singular spectacle presented itself—the great soldier of the age, half undressed, his countenance agitated, the beaded drops of perspiration standing on his brow, in his hand his victorious sword, with which he was making frequent and convulsive lunges at some invisible enemy through the tapestry that lined the walls. ”

“ These Soneeassees seldom adhere to the letter of their religion in the present day, although it is said that in times gone by some of their class have sat absorbed and abstracted until their spirit held communion with the great god—their bodies wasting away from neglect, and their nails growing like claws. In the present day, prayer and meditation are given to the winds, and they may be seen fat and sleek, perambulating the streets of the towns and villages, smeared over with ashes and ochre, and great coils of matted hair, which some tastefully wind like a turban round their head. ”

“ By the ancient Egyptians cats were held in the highest esteem; and we learn from Diodorus Siculus, their 'lives and safeties' were tendered more dearly than those of any other animal, whether biped or quadruped. 'He who has voluntarily killed a consecrated animal,' says this writer, 'is punished with death; but if any one has even involuntarily killed a cat or an ibis, it is impossible for him to escape death: the mob drags him to it, treating him with every cruelty, and sometimes without waiting for judgment to be passed. ”

“ When we consider the amount of travelling within the island which is requisite for carrying on the mercantile and general business of the country, and the double saving, therefore, of time on the one hand, and of money on the other, which is effected by means of railways, we cannot fail to perceive that even did this new system of locomotion economise time and labour in no other way than this alone, its effects upon commercial transactions and on business generally would be immense. ”

“ I am neither single nor unblessed with offspring, yet, like Charles Lamb, I have had my 'dream-children.' Years have flown over me since I stood a bride at the altar. My eyes are dim and failing, and my hairs are silver-white. ”

“ The result of such a comparison proves that in point of economy, not less than of speed and endurance, railways take precedence over all other known means of locomotion. This combined result of rapidity and cheapness of transit produces a double effect upon a mercantile community: it at once enables merchants to realise the fruits of a given speculation more quickly, which is nothing else than transacting more business in a shorter period than before ”

“ Writing in the seventeenth century, Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, remarks that 'Turkey gentlewomen, that are perpetual prisoners, still mewed up according to the custom of the place, have little else, beside their household business or to play with their children, to drive away time but to dally with their cats, which they have in delitiis, as many of our ladies and gentlewomen use monkeys and little dogs.' It is not the least merit of the cat that it has banished from our sitting-rooms those frightful mimicries of humanity—the monkey tribe ”

“ What dynasty in ancient times held a prouder or wider sway than the illustrious masters of the Roman world? The solid fabric of their power was the growth of nearly a thousand years, and it cost about thirteen centuries of revolutions and barbaric invasions before it was undermined and finally extinguished. ”

“ Proud and revengeful by nature, this affront seems to have rankled dreadfully in the mind of Gaspar; although, in accordance with that pride, he endeavoured to conceal his feelings under a show of indifference. Those who knew the parties well, however, were not deceived; and when, after an interval, it was discovered that Giuseppe himself was the favoured lover of Bianca, the enmity, though not more open, became more intense than ever.
In the meantime old Venoni, Bianca's father, had become aware of the fine match his daughter had missed, and was extremely angry about it ”

“ So long as Great Britain retains and cultivates the resources of trade and manufactures now at her disposal, and provided no new method of locomotion be invented which shall supersede railways, there is every [pg 24] reason to believe that railways will continue to form an ever-increasing source of wealth to the nation. ”

“ Now railways, as they abridge space by means of speed, have had a tendency to increase the value of pasture and garden ground lying at, comparatively speaking, a very great distance around cities. It is now no unusual thing for the inhabitants of cities such as London, Liverpool, and Manchester, to use at breakfast milk or cream which has travelled thirty or forty miles the very morning it is consumed, and at dinner to partake of vegetables whose place of growth was more than a hundred miles removed from the stall at which they were sold. ”

“ To return, however, not to our sheep, but our cats, we must remark that, in modern times, in spite of the kindness the cat habitually receives in Egypt, his morale is not in that country rated very high—the universal impression being that, although, like Snug the joiner's lion, he is by nature 'a very gentle beast,' still he is by no means 'of a good conscience;' that he is, in short, a most ungrateful beast ”

“ The fall of Constantine was the signal for the degradation and dispersion of his whole race. His two surviving brothers, Demetrius and Thomas, reigned as despots of the Morea in Greece; but the ruin of the empire was the gloomy prelude to their own misfortunes. Demetrius became the pensioner of the new Turkish emperor Mohammed, and received a city of Thrace and some adjacent islands for his own maintenance and that of his followers. ”

“ The criminal class is discovered to be on the whole a narrow class. The practice of living by depredation runs in families, and clings to individuals. The police of any given town could put their hand on almost every person who lives by fraud, theft, and robbery. They could at a day's notice secure nearly every one of them. A knowledge of this fact has suggested to Mr Matthew Hill a plan for capturing the whole criminal class, and obliging them to give security for their good behaviour ”

“ Italy was understood to be the asylum of the imperial outcasts; and there they might have vegetated in oblivion, or dropped into unhonoured graves without leaving a single representative, had not a monumental inscription revealed the fact, that a descendant of the Cæsars had found a retreat and a tomb in an obscure parish in England. In the small church of Landulph, in Cornwall, the following inscription upon a small metal tablet, fixed in the wall, removes all doubt as to the identity and royal pedigree of the person whose memory it records. ”

“ All investments of capital which are from their nature permanent, require time for the development of their effects, and may, as regards many of their immediate results, prove rather injurious than beneficial. To this class of speculations railways belong. Introduced for the purpose of facilitating locomotion, and thus improving the industry of the country, this new system of transit was calculated to produce rather an eventual and permanent, than an immediate benefit to the empire. ”

“ In modern Egypt the cat, although more docile and companionable than its European sister, has much degenerated; but still, on account of its usefulness in destroying scorpions and other reptiles, it is treated with some consideration—suffered to eat out of the same dish with the children, to join with them in their sports, and to be their constant companion and daily friend. A modern Egyptian would esteem it a heinous sin indeed, to destroy, or even maltreat a cat ”

“ Only the other day we read in the newspapers that a Frenchman who had been guilty of embezzlement, and was afraid of being found out, went into a theatre in Lyon and stabbed a young woman whom he had never seen before in his life, in order that he might die by the hands of the executioner, and so escape the inconvenience of rushing into the other world without having time to make his peace with Heaven. ”

“ Then my dream-people were all full-grown men and women. I do not recollect that I ever thought about children until I possessed some of my own. Those waking visions were very sweet—sweeter than the realities of life that followed ”

“ It should have been borne in mind that there is a distinct class of persons to whom any kind of provision is desirable, and who, being sunk below all sentiments of self-respect, shame, and regret, would very willingly sell themselves into slavery for the sake of a momentary gratification. ”

“ The railway system has had a marked effect upon the state of the money-market of the commercial world in general, and of this country in particular. From the successful experiment made in 1830 in steam locomotion between Liverpool and Manchester, this new method of transit has been developing itself with a rapidity to which no parallel is to be found in the history of mercantile enterprise. ”

“ It will be said the man was mad—I suppose he was; and so is everybody whilst under the influence of an absorbing passion, whether the mania be love, jealousy, fanaticism, or revenge. The following tale will illustrate one phase of such a madness.
In the year 1789, there resided in Italy, not far from Aquila in the Abruzzo, a man called Gaspar Mendez. He appears to have been a Spaniard, if not actually by birth, at least by descent, and to have possessed a small estate, which he rendered valuable by pasturing cattle. ”

“ Many can afford to give a little; and where nothing is exacted, many give willingly. Little charity is bestowed by Europeans in the streets, as they generally ride in palanquins or carriages, and as, besides, they feel the weight even of a purse too much on a hot day. However, let it not be supposed that they, like Dives, wallow in wealth, and close their ears to the importunities of the heathen. The Baboo or Sircar gives weekly or monthly pensions to some patronised beggars ”

“ Bianca, however, continued faithful to her lover, and for some time nothing happened to advance the suit of either party. In that interval a sister of Gaspar's had married a man called Alessandro Malfi, who, being a friend of Giuseppe's, endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation betwixt the rivals, or, rather, to produce a more cordial feeling, for there had never been a quarrel; and as far as Ripa was concerned, as he had no cause for jealousy, there was no reason why he should bear ill-will to the unsuccessful candidate. ”

“ The fleetest racer equipped for speed alone, cannot equal, even for a single mile, the rate at which the locomotive engine, dragging after it a load of eighty tons, can, for hours together, be driven with ease and safety along its iron path. ”

“ One writer proposes to work convicts in gangs at out-door labour, such as mining, and making railways; but the public would never tolerate the spectacle of this worst species of slave-labour; and besides, the employment of honest workers would be ruined. We are inclined to think that imprisonment, in a severe form, is after all the only practicable means of dealing with criminals. If anything be urgently wanted, it is a plan for preventing the growth of the criminal class ”