Fly-boats sped
along the surface of the canals conveying passengers to towns or
watering-places, and the company were very bright and enjoyed
themselves. But all are dead highways now, strangled by steam and by
the railways. The promoters of canals opposed the railways with might
and main, and tried to protect their properties. Hence the railways
were obliged to buy them up, and then left them lone and neglected.
The change was tragic. You can, even now, travel all over the country
by the means of these silent waterways. You start from London along
the Regent's Canal, which joins the Grand Junction Canal, and this
spreads forth northwards and joins other canals that ramify to the
Wash, to Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds. You can go to every great
town in England as far as York if you have patience and endless time.
There are four thousand miles of canals in England. They were not well
constructed; we built them just as we do many other things, without
any regular system, with no uniform depth or width or carrying
capacity, or size of locks or height of bridges. Canals bearing barges
of forty tons connect with those capable of bearing ninety tons. And
now most of them are derelict, with dilapidated banks, foul bottoms,
and shallow horse haulage. The bargemen have taken to other callings,
but occasionally you may see a barge looking gay and bright drawn by
an unconcerned horse on the towpath, with a man lazily smoking his
pipe at the helm and his family of water gipsies, who pass an
open-air, nomadic existence, tranquil, and entirely innocent of
schooling.
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