mistake not, a greater versatility and brightness in their minds.

There can be no doubt that the whole aspect of what is called good society has been changed since the advent of railroads. Thirty years ago the "upper ten thousand" were so exclusive that they never seemed to enlarge their boundaries. A new face among society was immediately noted. Now "nous avons changé tout cela." With the railway, town is every season inundated with the representatives of the great moneyed classes, who have found their way into the best society, and have, without doubt, with their new blood brought new ideas. Of old this class, insignificant as it then was, never thought of its season in town," now it has become a necessity to them ; and for its accommodation we see the dear and dirty old hotel expanding into the monster hostelries which are rearing their magnificent façades beside all our great railway termini. When this annual wave of provincialism retreats once more into the country, it carries with it the fashions, refinements, and tastes of the better classes; thus the manners of the whole country are becoming by degrees assimilated to those of the metropolis. And it is not only the moneyed classes who take advantage of the railways to enjoy the season of London, but the very poorest of the poor can now and then, in some cheap trip, come for the day from great distances to see the metropolis.

It would be a curious calculation to compare the percentage of persons that had travelled a hundred miles from their home thirty years ago with those who

now do so. The difference would form a good indication of the expansion of ideas among the population. But if the country is getting into the habit of coming up to town, through the facilities given it by railroads, the town is reciprocating the compliment by retreating into the country.

"Brighton and Back every Sunday for Two Shillings and Sixpence :" here is an astounding fact for the cockney. The railways give him eight hours by the seaside for the sum that it would have cost him, in the days when George was King, to get to Richmond and back. What to him, however, is a luxury, has become to the merchant and professional man a necessity; the five o'clock express to Brighton dots London Bridge with a struggling stream of human life, all pressing to their homes across the Sussex Downs. The same may be said of all our great lines of railways; the stations within an hour's ride of town are becoming the centres of towns of villas, and the price of the annual railway-ticket is calculated as a small addition to house-rent. The city of London, through the instrumentality of railways, is emptied every night, and filled again in the morning. The hard faces that are blanched in the office or countinghouse during the day, in the summer evenings recover the florid hue of health in the bright air of sunny retreats, where roses and children bloom. The same process of interchanging city for country life is going on in all our large towns supplied with railways. Can the importance of this influence of the rail upon health be over-estimated?

There can be little doubt, we think, that the Rail has been mainly instrumental in shortening the hours of labour and of business. Thirty years ago there was no incentive for the City population to close early. The country was so far away that they could not take advantage of spare hours after work was done to get a mouthful of fresh air in the fields; the Saturday half-holiday would only have been a movement in favour of the publicans. Now, when half an hour takes the pent-up cit to Hampton Court, or in half a dozen directions, for revival from London smoke, the habit is growing upon us to fly out into the country as often as possible. As far as the health of the population is concerned, however, we think the railroad has not yet been sufficiently utilized in the direction of the working man. The extraordinary increase of value of all building-ground in the metropolis is beginning to tell most seriously on the working classes; in order to economize room, houses are built back to back, without the slightest attempt at ventilation, and in these dens the ingenious workmen of London are forced to house themselves. The smallest room cannot be obtained near the heart of the City under five shillings a week, and for this rent it has been proved over and over again that a cottage, together with a pass by railway, may be obtained in good air seven or eight miles from town. Surely, as Mr. Pearson has pointed out, if railroads can carry coals at the low rate they do, they could afford to carry workmen at an equally low rate.

We are given to understand that at least one of

the railway companies has seen the force of this argument, and is prepared to enter into a contract with an association engaged in building a workman's village, to bring the men up by an early train in the morning, and carry them home again, for an annual ticket, which, added to the rent, would still bring it under that charged for the dog-holes which they at present inhabit. Convinced as we are that the very foundation of the elevation of the masses lies in the housing question, we look upon the agency of the railway in this direction as one of the most important social schemes of the day, and we feel that it is destined to work a revolution in the condition of the bone and sinew of the population of all great towns. Whilst the action of the Rail upon great cities is undoubtedly centripetal, as we see in the mighty mansions of London and Paris, since their introduction, it is at the same time centrifugal,-wherein lies the secret of its mighty civilizing power. For whilst large aggregations of people are necessary to raise the intellect to its highest pitch of refinement and power, large and constant dispersions of them are imperatively called for to produce that high physical condition on which all sound civilization must rest. We might, then, safely assert that the Rail and the Telegraph have accelerated the onward march of the human race in a greater degree than any other human invention since that of Printing and the discovery of the Compass.

BOAT-BUILDING BY MACHINERY.

MR. THOMPSON'S system of Boat-building by Machinery, which has just been introduced to the British public, is one of the most ingenious applications of laboursaving machines we have yet seen. We have been so accustomed to see Brother Jonathan supersede skilled labour by clever mechanical appliances, that we cease to wonder at any new contrivance, and are quite prepared to find human fingers improved by him off the face of the earth. The sewing-machine laughs to scorn the fingers of the sempstress; the labour-saving machinery of Springfield enables us to manufacture every portion of the Enfield rifle without the intervention of the human hand; we reap and mow by the tireless muscles of iron, instead of those of flesh and blood; and our own Babbage shows us how to calculate by machinery; yet we question if any great branch of human industry seemed less likely to be invaded. by iron limbs than the handicraft of the boat-builder. When we are told that a cutter, 30 feet in length and of 25 tons burthen, can be turned out by machinery in five and a half hours, we have a right to feel