ABSTRACT
IT is a curious fact that human ignorance, and especially good honest homespun English ignorance, often produces important and highly beneficial results. " If I had but known what I have had to contend with I would never have undertaken the job" is a remark which many a poor emigrant, many a weary traveller, many a journeyman labourer in every department of life, has fervently muttered to himself. The ejaculation is particularly applicable to the original projectors of our railways, who, had they but known the hydra-headed difficulties which, one after another, they would have to encounter, would most surely have kept their money in their pockets, or, in the phraseology of the vulgar, " would never have undertaken the job."
