tion of our metropolis. It may be summed up in one sentence. They require "about 160 acres only, which is about one-fourth of the entire city;" the total length of railways proposed is about 20 miles; and "the various public ways of all descriptions which are interfered with are about 300."[1]
The requirement of one-fourth of the area of a city for the conveyance of the inhabitants of the remaining three-fourths, does indeed seem disproportioned. But I am not disposed nor entitled to discuss this great statistical point. The question is, could not the ravages which necessity imposes be repaired, and more deference be paid to that natural piety, under which the ancients classed reverence for religion and respect for the departed?
In contemplating the course of a railway through a populous district, I am sometimes reminded of an anecdote related to me by a gentleman who for many years lived in Southern Africa. He occupied a long low tenement—a bungalow—consisting of one only room, which served him for every purpose, and was situated in a wild district. One day as he was writing at a table at one end of his apartment, he heard a frightful crash at the other, and turning round was aghast at what he beheld. A huge black elephant, of the most formidable kind, had, it would seem, been roaming in quest of some choice food for his meal, when he met this Englishman's cottage in his way. Being totally heedless of its value to any one, he did not take the trouble to prefer his line of deviation, and go round it, but walked straight
- ↑ Haywood, p. 64.
