But  the  distance  between  the  separated  classes  of
society,  and  the  distance  between  the  opponent  ranks  of
industry,  are  reduced  as  intercourse  is  enlarged.  The
locomotive  does  more  than  subdue  the  space  between
town  and  town — it  lessens  the  space  between  man  and
man ;  and  gives  them  newer  thoughts  the  closer  that
they  come  together.  While  it  is  yet  the  sleeping  time
of  night,  its  brother  steam-engine,  at  the  printing  press,
labours  as  if  each  piston  stroke  was  an  impulse  of  its
great  heart  to  enlarge  the  minds  of  the  human  millions,
for  whom,  while  the  sun  is  but  rising,  the  locomotive
^hall  cany  away  to  all  points  of  the  geographic  compassji


182  THE  AUTOBIOGBAPHY   OF

through  all  sections  of  the  social  scale,  the  knowledge
which  the  press  has  multiplied  in  the  night.
Each  new  subjugator  of  time  and  geographic  distance,
be  it  steam,  strong  enough  to  mingle  the  population  of
cities  and  shires  in  one  corporeal  admixture ;  or  elec-
tricity, fleet  enough  to  snatch  up  a  thought,  leave  it  a
hundred  miles  away,  and  return  for  another  ere  the
birth- time  of  the  next  be  over, — each  is  a  subjugator
of  enmities  and  social  distances.  "Were  I  again  the
*'  Lothian  lout "  I  was  in  1831,  going  in  my  "  thick
shoon,"  trowsers  of  corduroy,  coat  of  fustian,  and  bonnet
of  blue,  with  a  sun-tanned  face  under  the  bonnet  of  blue,
perhaps  the  artizans  with  coats  of  broad  cloth,  and  tails
to  their  coats,  might  no  longer  take  the  measure  of
tnind  by  the  measure  of  the  coat  tail,  but  admit  that
mind  may  have  an  abiding  place  under  fustian,  with
thick  shoon  below  it  and  a  blue  bonnet  above.
