equally sure to find himself written down one. Our reporter's chief difficulties are with figures, gradients, radii, and names of places of which he knows nothing (and of these he certainly does make sad work sometimes). He is not, as we implied, relieved at short intervals, as are the gentlemen of the gallery, but sits and writes for the committee all day. An attendant comes in quietly now and then and fetches away his note-book, replacing it with another. So that while he writes others are transcribing his notes, and others again are at work lithographing the transcript. Each morning, when the committee meets, there is ready for the members lithographed copies of the proceedings of the day previous, often filling several hundred sheets of brief paper. These lithographed documents are supplied also to the counsel, solicitors, promoters, opponents, and to all interested in the bill who are prepared to pay a good stiff price for them. So much can be done by combination and system which at first sight would seem impracticable.

The young gentleman who sits alone at the little side table is the only one whom we have yet to introduce to the reader. He is the 'committee clerk,' and his arduous duties consist chiefly in paring his nails and stretching his legs, to both of which employments he devotes himself with quite exemplary attention, and we hope he is liberally remunerated.

And now, having cleared the way by these preliminary notes, let it be supposed that we are promoters of a bill for a new line of railway from Malley-Vron in the county of Denbigh to Bryn-ffrood in Merionethshire. Our prospectus has already pointed out the inadequate railway accommodation of North Wales in general, and of the district which we propose to serve in particular. Our leading counsel, Serjeant Blarney, will enlarge upon these topics at greater length forthwith. For

the present, suffice it to say, that having completed our surveys, we duly advertised our parliamentary notices in October and November

last in the county papers, and in the London Gazette.' We also, before the end of November, duly lodged our plans and specifications in the place appointed by the House. We duly deposited in the Bank of England eight per cent. on the amount of the share capital which we ask leave to raise. We have passed the trying ordeal of the standing orders' examiner. Leave has been given us to bring in our little bill. The committee of selection has appointed the committees of investigation-has grouped all the schemes before Parliament for the session, and we find ourselves remitted to the tender mercies of Lord Marmion, the member for East Bidford, who opens his inquiry this morning along with his honourable colleague, Mr. Slingsby (East Warwickshire), Sir William Chandler (Staley Bridge), Mr. Waterfield (Clerkenwell), and Viscount Wygram (Llandaff).

The

Our bill is one of Group xii., a list of which hangs in the corridor, and may be read there on the usual notice board. It will be seen that the group embraces about a dozen different projects, all for railways in North Wales. But we have only to do with the first four of them. Our own bill is first on the list. next three are rival schemes which aim jointly to fill up the same district which we wish to accommodate singly. These three schemes, therefore, are to be taken as substantially one. They are introduced separately that we may have three opponents instead of one, and in the hope that perhaps one of the three lines may pass, and so form a basis for further extensions hereafter.

Our respective positions, however, are all marked on a huge outline map, our scheme being marked No. I., and our rivals No. 2, 3, and 4, as shown upon it.

Serjeant Blarney, of course, when he opened our case to 'My lords and gentlemen,' had a rod with which as he spoke he pointed out the several places which he named as they were shown upon this map hanging conspicuously on the wall.

He began by stating that never in the whole course of his parlia

mentary experience had it been his happiness he thought he might almost add, never had it been the happiness of any other man'-to lay before a committee a scheme which was able to stand so entirely on its own merits, and which needed so little encomium or explanation from him as the scheme which he now begged to introduce to their notice. He should, indeed, feel that he was offering an insult to the judgment of the committee if he dwelt on the advantages of the line which he had the honour to advocate, otherwise than in the most cursory manner. Gentlemen of the bar, he knew, did not always get credit for superfluous modesty in the acceptance of their honorarium; but certainly when he received his brief and saw the liberal retaining fee which was marked upon it he had said to himself, Now am I justified in taking this case up, where my services are really not wanted, and where the bill could hardly fail to pass without a word said, or a witness called in its favour?'* He assured the committee that he had felt these serious scruples of conscience at undertaking a work which he felt to be, if they would allow the use of the metaphor, a gilding of refined gold, and an adding of perfume to-certainly he could scarcely compare a railway bill to a violet, but he might say to-to a scheme which was already in perfectly good odour.

Briefly, then, he would say, that the line which his clients, whom he was sure he was hardly premature in already calling the North Cymry Railway Company, proposed to construct was to be of the length of about 52 miles. The capital, which they proposed to raise by shares, was 500,000l., and the further amount which they proposed to borrow was 166,6677. With these sums and the increased value of surplus property which they might have to dispose of hereafter he anticipated that they

*The solicitor certainly did hint that the learned serjeant objected to receive his brief, which was marked two hundred guineas. But he added that the objection was no longer made when this was altered to two hundred and fifty guineas.

would have so considerable a surplus fund on hand that it was not improbable the company would, in a few years, come again for powers to construct one or two short branches without asking for any additional capital whatever. At present, however, the feeling of the gentlemen who had subscribed the share list was, that they should put their undertaking at once and for ever out of the way of pecuniary embarrassment, and so he asked for power to raise a capital somewhat larger than the amount for which it was absolutely certain the line would be constructed. [Here Mr. Phibber, Q.C., the leader on one of the rival schemes, shakes his head and says, Oh, oh!' mournfully.]

He overheard his learned friend groaning, and saw that he was shaking his head in a way that must be dangerous for the fine ideas which were inside it, if, indeed, it did not quite addle them. But he could easily understand that his learned friend must feel painfully the contrast that he saw in the projects which they respectively advocated.

The town of Malley-Vron, as was already within the knowledge of the committee, though at present destitute of railway accommodation, would soon (independent of the schemes now waiting their decision) no longer be so. The line to it from Pont-Uyn was already nearly completed by the Grand Trunk Company. The question now at issue, therefore, was by whom, and by what route should the railway system be extended southward into the principality. And he had no wish to keep back the fact that this again was not merely a question between two or three small companies. For though his clients were perfectly independent, they did not wish to conceal that they were in close alliance with the Great Southern Company, and that they designed their line to be worked by that company, and in that company's interest. On the other hand, the three rival schemes with which they were met, were avowedly Grand Trunk schemes, and supported by Grand Trunk capital. The committee would find, therefore, that prac

tically the issue which they had to decide was, whether the territory of North Wales was to be handed over to the Grand Trunk Company, whose main lines were palpably inconvenient for connection with it, and who wanted it merely from a grasping dog-in-the-manger policy; or whether it was to be confided to the care of the Great Southern Company, whose lines already embraced nearly all its borders, and whose natural interests were already bound up with those of the district they sought to serve.

He was not there, however, to advocate Great Southern interests or Great Southern policy, but would address himself to the consideration of their project as a local line. And first he would ask the committee to consider the urgent necessity there was of giving an outlet southward to the rapidly developing trade of the town of Malley-Vron, which outlet his clients proposed to give first by a junction with the Great Southern line at Llangwffl, and, second, by their main line to Brynffrood. He would call witnesses to prove how greatly the want of such an outlet was felt locally, and how seriously it affected the commercial interests of the rapidly rising town which they had selected as their starting terminus,—if he might be allowed to make the palpable bull so common in railway phraseology of calling a starting-point a terminus. He would also call witnesses who had embarked large sums of money in the great industrial works which existed along the route which they proposed to take. He would call the proprietor of the immense and well-known brick and tile works of Eyton-Brymbo, who was at present, for want of means of transport, compelled to make his trade comparatively a local one. He would call the owners of the great iron-oro works of Masy-unwin and EbbwWem. He would call the noble proprietor of the world-renowned slate quarries of Llan-y-ffrog, and Savan-y-Rhyg, of which the committee had heard so much.

Lord Marmion here interrupts the learned serjeant to say he has never in his life heard of any of these

places. Viscount Wygram looks much relieved at this, he having apparently begun to fear that somehow he has overlooked a most important district of country.

Serjeant Blarney asked if anything could possibly strengthen his case more than this remark of his lordship's. Here were the teeming industries and the busy populations of the places which he had named going on year after year increasing in numbers, in extent, and in value, and yet so entirely were they isolated from the rest of the world for want of that railway accommodation, which had become to commerce as vital as the air we breathe is to ourselves, that even his lordship had to this day never heard of them. After such a testimony he would leave the local case, as regarded these towns, in the hands of the unimpeachable witnesses whom he should have the honour to call before the committee. There was, however, still the town of Malla with its famous lakes, and their southern terminus Bryn-ffrood, both places dear to all tourists, and which it was the object of his clients to make accessible to many thousands who otherwise might never see them. For he was sure the committee would agree with him, that however charming to those with plenty of time and plenty of money might be the idea of pedestrian excursions in this beautiful country of North Wales, there were a vast majority who had but scant leisure and shallow purses, and with whom considerations touching their poor feet and their poor pockets must always have great weight, and whose love of the beauties of nature, and whose finer feelings could only

'Shut that door,' roars Lord Marmion.

Mr. Wigsby, our junior, takes advantage of this interruption to mako one or two remarks to the learned serjeant. His lordship enters into a private conversation, apparently of a jocular tendency, wth Sir Wm. Chandler. Two or three other members of the committee who have been much engaged with sherry and sandwiches become suddenly interested in the proceedings, their

attention being aroused by the cessation of the sound of the serjeant's voice. The learned serjeant takes breath, and also snuff, and waits very patiently till the noble chairman says, 'Now, Mr. Blarney, where had you got us to ?'

The learned serjeant never finishes that eloquent sentence on which he was engaged, but starts a new theme. He had, he said, been given to understand that his learned friends on the opposite side, with a valour worthy of a better cause, intended to raise objections to the length of tunneling which his clients proposed to construct on the route of their railway. They proposed also, he was told, to take similar objections to certain proposed gradients and radii. But he hoped this was not correct, as he should much regret that the time of the committee should be taken up to so little purpose. At the same time, he should feel it necessary to have engineering evidence ready of a character quite unimpeachable.

Then perhaps he might be expected, before he sat down, to say something regarding the three rival schemes which were put forward as an alternative to the project he had the honour of advocating. But really he waited in dumb amazement to hear first by what possible flight of imaginative genius anything could be said in their favour.

He

was disarmed from attack, not because he found no point of attack, but because he could see no possible defence. He felt that if he spoke against these poor abortions, he should be doing a no more valiant act than to push down a decrepit old man, or to strike a man who was down already. He would merely point out the nature of the country which these lines proposed to traverse. Why, gentlemen, it might be doubted whether it could ever be said of it with truth, that 'every rood of ground maintained its rat,' so barren was it and uninhabited. It was a district in which there was no traffic to carry and no passenger to travel. It was probably this latter consideration which had weighed with the projectors in drawing up their schemes. If they had thought it at

all probable that they would ever have a passenger to carry, his friends would never have come before Parliament with a route made up of petty junction-lines over which no one of the three applying companies would have power to work a through train. It was clear, however, that the contingency of a passenger presenting himself who wanted to go from one end of the route to the other had been thought so remote, that it was not worth while providing for it.

'In conclusion,' says the learned serjeant (and thereupon his lordship, the chairman, looks pleased), 'I feel that it is quite unnecessary for me to enlarge upon the shameless manner in which these three vexatious and senseless projects have been intruded on the legislature, but I will just remark

And now Lord Marmion looks very sad again. For his lordship knows, from long experience, that when a learned serjeant says he find it quite unnecessary to enlarge,' that learned serjeant is just about to enlarge at very great length indeed. So his lordship lays himself back in his chair, folds his arms, and waits with resignation. And Serjeant Blarney finds so many matters on which he considers it quite unnecessary to enlarge, and he really does enlarge upon them all to that degree, that when at last he sits down, the committee instantly rises up. In fact, our serjeant, who begins by saying he has nothing to say, occupies exactly the whole of the first day in saying it, so it is evident how little even of the outline of his arguments is given here.

'We meet again at eleven tomorrow,' says the chairman, as we all put away our papers, and disperse with as much noise as a pack of urchins leaving school.

Punctually as the clock strikes eleven on the morrow, the chairman steps into the room, as if he had been waiting at the door, and business is resumed at once by the examination of witnesses on our behalf.

Our first witness is the proprietor of extensive coal mines, which will be well accommodated by our scheme, and which are at present without