Various Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 / Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852
THINGS IN EXPECTATION
Upon the whole, however, we are ourselves inclined to look at the bright side of affairs; and in doing so, we are not without hope of being able to make some proselytes. Let us just see what are the prospects of the next twenty yearsa long enough space for a man to look forward to in anything else than a dream. War, it is true, may intervene, or some other terrible catastrophe; but we shall not admit this into our hypothesis, which proceeds on the assumption, that although people may wrangle here and there, and here and there fly at each other's throats, still the bulk of civilised mankind will go on tranquilly enough to present no direct barrier to the advancing tide. Here is a list of a few trifles in expectation.
A line of communication by railway from England to the principal cities in India, interrupted only by narrow sea-channels, and these bridged by steamboats. It will then be possible to travel from London to Calcutta in a week.
At the same time, there will be railways to other parts of AsiaIspahan, Bagdad, Damascus, and Jerusalem. From the last-mentioned city, a line will probably proceed through the land of Edom, to Suez and Cairo; thence to Alexandria. This last portion is already in hand. Think of a railway station in the Valley of Jehoshaphat! As the course of the Jordan presents few 'engineering difficulties,' there might be a single line all the way from Nazareth to the Dead Sea, on which a steamer might take passengers to the neighbourhood of Petra. At a point near the shore of that mysterious sheet of water, a late traveller indicates the spot where Lot's wife was transformed into a pillar of salt. How interesting it would be to make this a stopping-place for tourists to view the adjacent sceneryrocky, wild, and scorched, as if fresh from the wondrous work of devastation!
It cannot be doubted that in a period much short of twenty years, railways will have penetrated from Berlin northwards to Russia; and therefore a communication of this kind through the whole of Europe, even to the shores of the Indian Ocean, will be among the ordinary things of the day.
As for communication by electric telegraph, where will it not be? Every town of any importance, from Moscow to Madras, will be connected by the marvellous wires. These wires will cross seas; they will reach from London to New York, and from New York to far-western citiespossibly to California. The sending of messages thousands of miles, in the twinkling of an eye, will be an everyday affair. 'Send Dr So-and-so on by the next train,' will be the order despatched by a family in Calcutta, when requiring medical assistance from London; and accordingly the doctor will set off in his travels per express, from the Thames to the banks of the Ganges. Spanning the globe by thought will then be no longer a figure of speechit will be a reality. Science will do it all.
Long before twenty yearsmost likely in two or threea journey round the world by steam may be achieved with comparative ease and at no great expense. Here is the way we shall go: London to Liverpool by rail; Liverpool to Chagres by steamer; Chagres to Panama by rail; Panama to Hong-Kong, touching at St Francisco; Hong-Kong to Sincapore, whence, if you have a fancy, you can diverge to Borneo, Australia, and New Zealand; Sincapore to Madras, Bombay, Aden, and Suezthe whole of the run to this point from Panama being done by steamer; Suez to Cairo, and Cairo to Alexandria (rail in preparation); lastly, by steamer from Alexandria to England. It is deeply interesting to watch the progress of intrusion on the Pacific. Already, within these few years, its placid surface has been tracked with steam-navigation; of which almost every day brings us accounts of the extension over that beautiful ocean.
found in connection with the prevalence of English as a vernacular, we are led to anticipate prodigious strides in the popularising of literature during the next twenty years. What, also, may we not expect to see done for the extension of epistolary correspondence? Intercourse by letter has advanced only one step of its progress, by the system of inland penny-postage. Another step remains to be effected: the system of carrying letters oversea on the same easy terms. That this Ocean Penny-Postage, as it is termed, will be carried out, at least as regards the larger British colonies, within a period much under twenty years, is exceedingly probable. When this grand achievement is accomplished, there will ensue a stream of intercommunication with distant lands, of which we can at present form no proper conception, and which will go far towards binding all parts of the earth in a general bond of brotherhood.
Such are a few of the things which we may be said to be warranted in looking for within a reasonably short period of time. Other things, equally if not more contributive to human melioration, are less distinctly in expectation. The political prospects of the continental nations are for the present under a cloud. With all the glitter of artistic and social refinement that surrounds them, the bulk of them appear to have emerged but little beyond the middle ages; and one really begins to inquire, with a kind of pity, whether they have natural capacities for anything better. The near proximity to England of populations so backward in all ideas of civil polity, and so changeful and impulsive in their character, cannot but be detrimental to our hopes of national advancement among ourselves; so true is it that peace and happiness are not more matter of internal conviction than of external circumstances.