enterprises, and the London & North Western and Great Northern had already linked up London with the industrial North, while the Great Western ran in from the West. For some years the Midland Company, after it extended from Bedford to Leeds, used King's Cross Station for their passenger work, bur by 1853 that marvellous structure. St. Pancras, was in course of preparation. The M.S. & L. and the G.N.R. seriously affected Midland passenger traffic from 1845 to 1850. Landed interests imposed every sort of difficulty. Surveying engineers were charged with trespassing, even with poaching, and agents and keepers were put on to watch the game. The Duke of Devonshire demanded that any line through his estate should go through a covered way! The Duke of Rutland demanded that not a tree should be lapped or removed, thus causing a nice calculation. To suit the two dukes two stations had to be built—Bakewell and Hassop—and all kinds of concessions had to be made to other landowners.
Every hand was for itself against the great public, which has had to pay ever since. Companies fought each other, and made compacts with each other against a third. The Lancashire & Yorkshire, the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincoln, and the London & North Western, made an agreement in 1850 to keep the Midland out of Manchester. Vested interests fought each other for monopoly of towns and routes all over the country, in order to collect toll on traffic into those centres. By the year 1849 there were railways touching 3,000 parishes, in which the rates levied were £800,000—less than some of our single cities to-day—and of this sum railways paid £250,000.
The Midland Company, in the year 1852, came within 2½ per cent, of terms with the London & North Western for joint running into Euston, but they decided to buy out St. Pancras, for which 3,000 houses were removed. The Leeds & Bradford line furnishes a good example of a local line absorbed. The Midland had paid an annual rental of £90,000, which on May 12th, 1852, was commuted by £1,800,000 in 18,000 shares of £100 each, at 4% per cent, for five years, and afterwards "four per cent, in perpetuity." Such
