QUICK TRAVELLING.

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 232, 4 November 1873, Page 2

QUICK TRAVELLING.

It is laid that a journey round the oitj of Nineveh occupied three days. Great Britain in its longest dimension! can now be traversed in leu than half that time. The extremities f>f the island are now, to all intents and purposes, as near to London as Surrey and Hertfordshire were a hundred jears ago. Such is the rapidity with which we can now be trans* ferred from one part of the country to another, that a trip of a few hours only is necessary to convey the trayellers from Kent to Northumberland, from Norfolk to Anglesey, or from Devonshire to the Highlands. As an illustration, let it besupposed that we are at Pensance, near Land's End, and urgent business demands our being at Aberdeen, in the north of Scotland, with the least possible delay. We take our tickets, and start from Penzance by the train learing at 10' a.m., passing through Plymouth, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham, Stafford, Lancaster, Carlisle, through the Vale of Cljrle, past Stirling Castle and Perth, and arrire at our destination at twelve o'clock the next day, haying accomplished a journey of 800 miles in 26 hours. In the old coach times, it would perhaps have taken half as many days to travel so great a diotance, 6eeing that a hundred years as»o there was only one couch in nil Scotland in communication with London, that it set out from Edinburgh only onos a month, and that the journey occupied fire or six days — sometimes a week, Recording to the state of th« weather. Again, by lonvinsj Euston square at B*4o in the evening, a piissonger will arrive at Inverness at 245 p.m. the next day,, baring accomplished a journey of 600 miles in 18 hours. Among many other inofnnceo of quick travelling may bementioned London to Plymouth (247 miles) in 6 hours, London to Edinburgh (399 miles) in 9* hours, or to AberdeAit (543 mile*) in 17 hour*, London to Holyhead (260 miles) fii6 hours and 40 minulc? , London to Manchester (188$ miles)

in 5 hours, Newcastle toP^niouHi (428 miles) in 14 ),ouia »nd 10 minutes .... A table in a late number ot the Engweer gives an elaborate comparison of the times occupied by express tram* <>n the nine givn* rmlwa>* winch have tlieir termini in London, mid tin* le^ult of the whole statement is to show that the avenge rate ol speed iv which the quickest expresses trorel on the mini Imrs of roilwar is 47$ miles an hour, a pace which i» nrobobh al least 10 mile* an hour fu»trr than that attained in am other conntiy in the woihl. Indeed, there arc two lm m on which I'm p»re i» exce»'iU>il. The ten o'clock (i'eif Northern train from London to the north, is timed m " Bradshnw" to ■xrrivi* at Pt'terboiMjrh at 11 30. The distance i* 7H mile*, and the rate at winch the train is actually timed to tra\el is 51 miles an honr But the broad-guage west of England trains on the Great Writern bent even the Great Northern. Th.' train whHi leaves Paddington at II 45 makes the run to Swindon, 771 mile*, without Mopping, and does the journey in 3 minute* less than an hour and a half. This really means a uniform piceof 53i miles an hour. The Great Northern express falls off in its pace after it ha* pas<ed Pefrborouuh, and the quickest train le vnen Grantlnm and York trod* at snmethm<* under 15 miles an hour. The Grctf; Western oprc* 1 * doe? the 29 J mile* fiom Swindon to B.itli in 31 minuto-, a ]>ace oqumilcnt to 52 miles .tnhour The join nry from L-m-dont>Bath by the 11 t5 train i*, in f let, the quickest in the world The distance is lOfi] miles ;it is timed for two hour- and 13 minutes including 10 minute*' stoppage at Swindou. The aetu-il time «pent in travelling is, therefore, two hour* and tluve minutes, winch is something ovi>r 52 milos an hour. There are part« of other line* on whu'h this high rate of speed is nearh reached ; but there arc none in which it is kept up for nny considerable distance. The Sontli-pastern Kailway !ia<s apiece of \ery easy line between Tunbiidse and Ashford, and one of thcr train- i« ti'ned 1o trivel 26| miies in 31 iniimtc«, equivalent to 51! nulpsan hour. The Midland attains U" creatcst (speed on the piece «fitrati;h( and le\el line between Leicestff and Trent, where 20J mill's are travelled in 28 minute*, a rate of Hi miles an honr The London and North-western tram* trtnel the quickest on the line which runs along the Trent Valley from liiigby to Stafford, where 51 mile* are accomplished in one hour and seven minutes, and one of the trains runs the whole 77i miles from Kugby to Crewc in one hour and forty minutes, a pace of I">\ miles an hour. The five o'clock tram on the London and Brighton line docs the whole distance of 50£ miles in one hour and fhe nnr ntes ; a rate of 46J miles an hour ; but this tram actually travels just half a mile tin hour faster than this after it has passed East Cnmlon. The j South-western nowhere attains a pace of more than '13} miles an hour, and that only in the 10} miles between Salisbury and Yeovil, which tho 210 tram does in 5G minutes. As to the Grent Eastern, 41 miles an hour seems to be its fastest. — Leitnre Hour.

The JWfrt York Tribune sa}s ■ — -Tlic " I'm as good nsyou' spirit winch foreign travellers in this country dourly love to dilate upon 119 one of our national chractenstios, lifts been bt^inu out furiously in the West. An authority of a « ellkn^ri sleeping car company has published nu order to ti>e porters employed on tho cars, directing them to remove (heir caps wlicu speaking to passengers, officers of (he company, and conductor*, and it is this which has moused the indignation winch finds expression in a letter to a Western news- , paper. Its writer hopes "that there will not ben single porter so lost to natural manhood as to oomph with the abore nifnniont order." There hi\9 not been, he goes on to §ay •' such an attempt to came men invested with nil the natural and political rights of American citizens to bow down to tho imago of the devil since the daMi of .Nebuehndnezznr, who issued ftdecreo to cast Shadrach, Moshack, and Abednego into tho fiery furnace because they wouldn't fall down and worship the imago which he had set up." I