Lectures, reports, letters, and papers on sanitary questions / by Robert Rawlinson.

  • Rawlinson, Robert.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures, reports, letters, and papers on sanitary questions / by Robert Rawlinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    153/164 page 147
    Second Letter to “ Tur Times,’ October 16th, 1873. To the Editor. Str,—Is there no possibility of stopping this mad railway-making scheme? Those who know this African coast are, how- ever, wondering how the material is to be landed through several miles of surf. Engineers, accustomed to railway-making and working at home, are also wondering how a 4ft. 8} in. gauge railway is to be laid and the waggons are to be worked on the African coast, even as a temporary line. The ground to receive the sleepers must be prepared, or the rails cannot be laid; and if the sleepers are not well and truly bedded, light rails, of 24lb. to the yard, will bend like wire. (Contractors’ temporary rails are, as a rule, 35lb. to the yard, and this in England, where there is time to lay them.) Let me ask any man who can reflect, what he would say to making a > temporary railway in a few weeks from the coast-line of any part of Great Britain to the interior, if the materials had to be landed on a shallow lee shore in small boats, the ground to be prepared, and sleepers and rails to be laid to carry waggons and engines, then working waggons and engines on rails 24lb. to the yard? How is this tobe done? As time is an element in such operations— that is, time for railway-making, which railway shall be sufficiently strong to bear locomotive engine traffic—want of time to do this will alone defeat this dreadfully ill-devised and advised railway project: unless this Ashantee business is in duration to outlast the siege of Troy. The Crimean example cannot justify a railway on the coast of Africa, where to turn over the soil and disturb the sub-soil is death, malaria being so fatal on the Gold Coast ; but in the Crimea there was a quiet, protected, deep-water harbour from which to land the materials ; a wholesome country to live in, and accommodation to establish steam-engine power, forges, saw-pits, circular saws, and regular workshops. The line of country intervening from Balaclava harbour to ‘‘the front”’ was only a few miles in length and not diffi- cult (the steep gradient excepted); but it will be remembered that when this Crimean railway had been made and was working, a new road was also subsequently made parallel to it—showing thatarailway did not supersede the necessity for aroad. And so itmust bein Africa. Troops cannot march on a line of railway—there must be a road, and if there is a road there is no need for a railway. If the road had been made first in the Crimea, the railway might have remained unmade. We are, I suppose, too wealthy to make war in common- sense fashion. This, Sir, is one of the signs of national decay. We had better give up such wars and abandon such colonies rather than show ourselves so contemptible ; or, if this is to be our mode of procedure in the future, ‘‘ Rich England” will be more a phrase of contempt than at present. There is another matter connected with this war to be noticed. Salt-beef and pork have been sent out by the Commissariat ; better in such a climate feed our soldiers on turtle soup at a guinea a quart than feed them on ration salt beef and pork. Orimean experiences ought not to be wasted in this matter. Fresh meat (Australian) can be supplied in abundance.
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