now goes to Pekin. It was an era so dark and backward that one
might wonder how people could sleep in their beds at night for
thinking about their sad state.

Happily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era were
passably pleased with themselves, and they never even suspected
that they were not quite modern and quite awake. They thought that
the intellectual, the industrial, and the social movements had
gone about as far as these movements could go, and they were
amazed at their own progress. Instead of being humble and ashamed,
they actually showed pride in their pitiful achievements. They
ought to have looked forward meekly to the prodigious feats of
posterity; but, having too little faith and too much conceit, they
were content to look behind and make comparisons with the past.
They did not foresee the miraculous generation which is us. A
poor, blind, complacent people! The ludicrous horse-car was
typical of them. The driver rang a huge bell, five minutes before
starting, that could he heard from the Wesleyan Chapel to the Cock
Yard, and then after deliberations and hesitations the vehicle
rolled off on its rails into unknown dangers while passengers
shouted good-bye. At Bleakridge it had to stop for the turnpike,
and it was assisted up the mountains of Leveson Place and
Sutherland Street (towards Hanbridge) by a third horse, on whose
back was perched a tiny, whip-cracking boy; that boy lived like a
shuttle on the road between Leveson Place and Sutherland Street,
and even in wet weather he was the envy of all other boys. After
half an hour's perilous transit the car drew up solemnly in a
narrow street by the Signal office in Hanbridge, and the ruddy
driver, having revolved many times the polished iron handle of his
sole brake, turned his attention to his passengers in calm