All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

3io All About Inventions main to educate the public to an order of things which was certain to come, would have prevailed. But to his discomfiture he learned that there is always something more powerful than mere public antag- onism to anything new. He was trenching seriously upon the preserves of vested interests. Stage-coach proprietors, who were already beginning to feel the effects of the competition offered by the steam railways, but whose wails fell upon deaf ears, now turned to assault the new arrival upon the roads with additional vehemence and acerbity. They assumed an attitude which was apparently animated from motives of kindness to animals. They urged that steam and animals could not run side by side; the animals were certain to suffer. This craftily conceived objection had the effect which was desired. It ranged all animal lovers, who were then in an overwhelming preponderance, upon their side. Then there was the damage which was being inflicted upon the road surfaces, and which was declared to be due to the faster moving and heavier steam cars. Who was to pay for the necessary repairs ? Such a cunningly contrived campaign of hostility was certain to bear fruit. If the steam rival could not be summarily ejected from the highways by legal procedure, then an alternative method must be adopted. The vehicles must be harassed and sub- jected to intolerable pettifogging taxation so that all possibilities of rendering the enterprises profitable might be effectively prevented. In this vested in- terests were successful. Whereas the tolls for horsed vehicles were only 3s., steam cars were mulcted to