Men of Invention and Industry Part 16

It was easy to understand the convenience of the car system to business men, farmers, and even peasants. Before their establishment, it took a man a whole day to walk from Thurles to Clonmel, the second day to do his business, and the third to walk back again; whereas he could, in one day, travel backwards and forwards between the two towns, and have five or six intermediate hours for the purpose of doing his business.

Thus two clear days could be saved.

Still carrying out his scheme, Bianconi, in the following year (1816), put on a car from Clonmel to Waterford. Before that time there was no car accommodation between Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, about half-way to Waterford; but there was an accommodation by boat between Carrick and Waterford. The distance between the two latter places was, by road, twelve miles, and by the river Suir twenty-four miles. Tom Morrissey's boat plied two days a week; it carried from eight to ten pa.s.sengers at 6 1/2d. of the then currency; it did the voyage in from four to five hours, and besides had to wait for the tide to float it up and down the river. When Bianconi's car was put on, it did the distance daily and regularly in two hours, at a fare of two shillings.

The people soon got accustomed to the convenience of the cars. They also learned from them the uses of punctuality and the value of time.

They liked the open-air travelling and the sidelong motion. The new cars were also safe and well-appointed. They were drawn by good horses and driven by good coachmen. Jaunting-car travelling had before been rather unsafe. The country cars were of a ramshackle order, and the drivers were often reckless. "Will I pay the pike, or drive at it, plaise your honour?" said a driver to his pa.s.senger on approaching a turnpike-gate. Sam Lover used to tell a story of a car-driver, who, after driving his pa.s.senger up-hill and down-hill, along a very bad road, asked him for something extra at the end of his journey.

"Faith," said the driver, "its not putting me off with this ye'd be, if ye knew but all." The gentleman gave him another shilling. "And now what do you mean by saying, 'if ye knew but all?'" "That I druv yer honor the last three miles widout a linch-pin!"

Bianconi, to make sure of the soundness and safety of his cars, set up a workshop to build them for himself. He could thus depend upon their soundness, down even to the linch-pin itself. He kept on his carving and gilding shop until his car business had increased so much that it required the whole of his time and attention; and then he gave it up.

In fact, when he was able to run a car from Clonmel to Waterford--a distance of thirty-two miles--at a fare of three-and-sixpence, his eventual triumph was secure.

He made Waterford one of the centres of his operations, as he had already made Clonmel. In 1818 he established a car between Waterford and Ross, in the following year a car between Waterford and Wexford, and another between Waterford and Enniscorthy. A few years later he established other cars between Waterford and Kilkenny, and Waterford and Dungarvan. From these furthest points, again, other cars were established in communication with them, carrying the line further north, east, and west. So much had the travelling between Clonmel and Waterford increased, that in a few years (instead of the eight or ten pa.s.sengers conveyed by Tom Morrissey's boat on the Suir) there was horse and car power capable of conveying a hundred pa.s.sengers daily between the two places.

Bianconi did a great stroke of business at the Waterford election of 1826. Indeed it was the turning point of his fortunes. He was at first greatly cramped for capital. The expense of maintaining and increasing his stock of cars, and of foddering his horses was very great; and he was always on the look-out for more capital. When the Waterford election took place, the Beresford party, then all-powerful, engaged all his cars to drive the electors to the poll. The popular party, however, started a candidate, and applied to Bianconi for help.

But he could not comply, for his cars were all engaged. The morning after his refusal of the application, Bianconi was pelted with mud.

One or two of his cars and horses were heaved over the bridge.

Bianconi then wrote to Beresford's agent, stating that he could no longer risk the lives of his drivers and his horses, and desiring to be released from his engagement. The Beresford party had no desire to endanger the lives of the car-drivers or their horses, and they set Bianconi free. He then engaged with the popular party, and enabled them to win the election. For this he was paid the sum of a thousand pounds. This access of capital was greatly helpful to him under the circ.u.mstances. He was able to command the market, both for horses and fodder. He was also placed in a position to extend the area of his car routes.

He now found time, amidst his numerous avocations, to get married! He was forty years of age before this event occurred. He married Eliza Hayes, some twenty years younger than himself, the daughter of Patrick Hayes, of Dublin, and of Henrietta Burton, an English-woman. The marriage was celebrated on the 14th of February, 1827; and the ceremony was performed by the late Archbishop Murray. Mr. Bianconi must now have been in good circ.u.mstances, as he settled two thousand pounds upon his wife on their marriage-day. His early married life was divided between his cars, electioneering, and Repeal agitation--for he was always a great ally of O'Connell. Though he joined in the Repeal movement, his sympathies were not with it; for he preferred Imperial to Home Rule. But he could never deny himself the pleasure of following O'Connell, "right or wrong."

Let us give a picture of Bianconi now. The curly-haired Italian boy had grown a handsome man. His black locks curled all over his head like those of an ancient Roman bust. His face was full of power, his chin was firm, his nose was finely cut and well-formed; his eyes were keen and sparkling, as if throwing out a challenge to fortune. He was active, energetic, healthy, and strong, spending his time mostly in the open air. He had a wonderful recollection of faces, and rarely forgot to recognise the countenance that he had once seen. He even knew all his horses by name. He spent little of his time at home, but was constantly rushing about the country after business, extending his connections, organizing his staff, and arranging the centres of his traffic.

To return to the car arrangements. A line was early opened from Clonmel--which was at first the centre of the entire connection--to Cork; and that line was extended northward, through Mallow and Limerick. Then, the Limerick car went on to Tralee, and from thence to Cahirciveen, on the south-west coast of Ireland. The cars were also extended northward from Thurles to Roscrea, Ballinasloe, Athlone, Roscommon, and Sligo, and to all the princ.i.p.al towns in the north-west counties of Ireland.

The cars interlaced with each other, and plied, not so much in continuous main lines, as across country, so as to bring all important towns, but especially the market towns, into regular daily communication with each other. Thus, in the course of about thirty years, Bianconi succeeded in establishing a system of internal communication in Ireland, which traversed the main highways and cross-roads from town to town, and gave the public a regular and safe car accommodation at the average rate of a penny-farthing per mile.

The traffic in all directions steadily increased. The first car used was capable of accommodating only six persons. This was between Clonmel and Cahir. But when it went on to Limerick, a larger car was required. The traffic between Clonmel and Waterford was also begun with a small-sized car. But in the course of a few years, there were four large-sized cars, travelling daily each way, between the two places. And so it was in other directions, between Cork in the south; and Sligo and Strabane in the north and north-west; between Wexford in the east, and Galway and Skibbereen in the west and south-west.

Bianconi first increased the accommodation of these cars so as to carry four persons on each side instead of three, drawn by two horses. But as the two horses could quite as easily carry two additional pa.s.sengers, another piece was added to the car so as to carry five pa.s.sengers. Then another four-wheeled car was built, drawn by three horses, so as to carry six pa.s.sengers on each side. And lastly, a fourth horse was used, and the car was further enlarged, so as to accommodate seven, and eventually eight pa.s.sengers on each side, with one on the box, which made a total accommodation for seventeen pa.s.sengers. The largest and heaviest of the long cars, on four wheels, was called "Finn MacCoul's," after Ossian's Giant; the fast cars, of a light build, on two wheels, were called "Faugh-a-ballagh," or "clear the way"; while the intermediate cars were named "Ma.s.sey Dawsons,"

after a popular Tory squire.

When Bianconi's system was complete, he had about a hundred vehicles at work; a hundred and forty stations for changing horses, where from one to eight grooms were employed; about a hundred drivers, thirteen hundred horses, performing an average distance of three thousand eight hundred miles daily; pa.s.sing through twenty-three counties, and visiting no fewer than a hundred and twenty of the princ.i.p.al towns and cities in the south and west and midland counties of Ireland.

Bianconi's horses consumed on an average from three to four thousand tons of hay yearly, and from thirty to forty thousand barrels of oats, all of which were purchased in the respective localities in which they were grown.

Bianconi's cars--or "The Bians"--soon became very popular. Everybody was under obligations to them. They greatly promoted the improvement of the country. People could go to market and buy or sell their goods more advantageously. It was cheaper for them to ride than to walk.

They brought the whole people of the country so much nearer to each other. They virtually opened up about seven-tenths of Ireland to civilisation and commerce, and among their other advantages, they opened markets for the fresh fish caught by the fishermen of Galway, Clifden, Westport, and other places, enabling them to be sold throughout the country on the day after they were caught. They also opened the magnificent scenery of Ireland to tourists, and enabled them to visit Bantry Bay, Killarney, South Donegal, and the wilds of Connemara in safety, all the year round.

Bianconi's service to the public was so great, and it was done with so much tact, that n.o.body had a word to say against him. Everybody was his friend. Not even the Whiteboys would injure him or the mails he carried. He could say with pride, that in the most disturbed times his cars had never been molested. Even during the Whiteboy insurrection, though hundreds of people were on the roads at night, the traffic went on without interference. At the meeting of the British a.s.sociation in 1857, Bianconi said: "My conveyances, many of them carrying very important mails, have been travelling during all hours of the day and night, often in lonely and unfrequented places; and during the long period of forty-two years that my establishment has been in existence, the slightest injury has never been done by the people to my property, or that entrusted to my care; and this fact gives me greater pleasure than any pride I might feel in reflecting upon the other rewards of my life's labour."

Of course Bianconi's cars were found of great use for carrying the mails. The post was, at the beginning of his enterprise, very badly served in Ireland, chiefly by foot and horse posts. When the first car was run from Clonmel to Cahir, Bianconi offered to carry the mail for half the price then paid for "sending it alternately by a mule and a bad horse." The post was afterwards found to come regularly instead of irregularly to Cahir; and the practice of sending the mails by Bianconi's cars increased from year to year. Dispatch won its way to popularity in Ireland as elsewhere, and Bianconi lived to see all the cross-posts in Ireland arranged on his system.

The postage authorities frequently used the cars of Bianconi as a means of competing with the few existing mail-coaches. For instance, they asked him to compete for carrying the post between Limerick and Tralee, then carried by a mail-coach. Before tendering, Bianconi called on the contractor, to induce him to give in to the requirements of the Post Office, because he knew that the postal authorities only desired to make use of him to fight the coach proprietors. But having been informed that it was the intention of the Post Office to discontinue the mail-coach whether Bianconi took the contract or not, he at length sent in his tender, and obtained the contract.

He succeeded in performing the service, and delivered the mail much earlier than it had been done before. But the former contractor, finding that he had made a mistake, got up a movement in favour of re-establishing the mail-coach upon that line of road; and he eventually induced the postage authorities to take the mail contract out of the hands of Bianconi, and give it back to himself, as formerly.

Bianconi, however, continued to keep his cars upon the road. He had before stated to the contractor, that if he once started his cars, he would not leave it, even though the contract were taken from him. Both coach and car therefore ran for years upon the road, each losing thousands of pounds. "But," said Bianconi, when asked about the matter by the Committee on Postage in 1838, "I kept my word: I must either lose character by breaking my word, or lose money. I prefer losing money to giving up the line of road."

Bianconi had also other compet.i.tors to contend with, especially from coach and car proprietors. No sooner had he shown to others the way to fortune, than he had plenty of imitators. But they did not possess his rare genius for organisation, nor perhaps his still rarer principles.

They had not his tact, his foresight, his knowledge, nor his perseverance. When Bianconi was asked by the Select Committee on Postage, "Do the opposition cars started against you induce you to reduce your fares?" his answer was, "No; I seldom do. Our fares are so close to the first cost, that if any man runs cheaper than I do, he must starve off, as few can serve the public lower and better than I do."[3]

Bianconi was once present at a meeting of car proprietors, called for the purpose of uniting to put down a new opposition coach. Bianconi would not concur, but protested against it, saying, "If car proprietors had united against me when I started, I should have been crushed. But is not the country big enough for us all?" The coach proprietors, after many angry words, threatened to unite in running down Bianconi himself. "Very well," he said, "you may run me off the road--that is possible; but while there is this" (pulling a flower out of his coat) "you will not put me down." The threat merely ended in smoke, the courage and perseverance of Bianconi having long since become generally recognised.

We have spoken of the principles of Mr. Bianconi. They were most honourable. His establishment might be spoken of as a school of morality. In the first place, he practically taught and enforced the virtues of punctuality, truthfulness, sobriety, and honesty. He also taught the public generally the value of time, to which, in fact, his own success was in a great measure due. While pa.s.sing through Clonmel in 1840, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall called upon Bianconi and went over his establishment, as well as over his house and farm, a short distance from the town. The travellers had a very pressing engagement, and could not stay to hear the story of how their entertainer had contrived to "make so much out of so little." "How much time have you?" he asked. "Just five minutes." "The car," says Mr. Hall, "had conveyed us to the back entrance. Bianconi instantly rang the bell, and said to the servant, 'Tell the driver to bring the car round to the front,'

adding, 'that will save one minute, and enable me to tell you all within the time.' This was, in truth the secret of his success, making the most of time."[4]

But the success of Bianconi was also due to the admirable principles on which his establishment was conducted. His drivers were noted as being among the most civil and obliging men in Ireland, besides being pleasant companions to boot. They were careful, punctual, truthful, and honest; but all this was the result of strict discipline on the part of their master.

The drivers were taken from the lowest grades of the establishment, and promoted to higher positions according to their respective merits as opportunity offered. "Much surprise," says Bianconi, "has often been expressed at the high order of men connected with my car establishment and at its popularity; but parties thus expressing themselves forget to look at Irish society with sufficient grasp. For my part, I cannot better compare it than to a man merging to convalescence from a serious attack of malignant fever, and requiring generous nutrition in place of medical treatment"[5]

To attach the men to the system, as well as to confer upon them the due reward for their labour, he provided for all the workmen who had been injured, worn out, or become superannuated in his service. The drivers could then retire upon a full pension, which they enjoyed during the rest of their lives. They were also paid their full wages during sickness, and at their death Bianconi educated their children, who grew up to manhood, and afterwards filled the situations held by their deceased parents.

Every workman had thus a special interest in his own good conduct.

They knew that nothing but misbehaviour could deprive them of the benefits they enjoyed; and hence their endeavours to maintain their positions by observing the strict discipline enjoined by their employer.

Sobriety was, of course, indispensable--a drunken car-driver being amongst the most dangerous of servants. The drivers must also be truthful, and the man found telling a lie, however venial, was instantly dismissed. Honesty was also strongly enforced, not only for the sake of the public, but for the sake of the men themselves. Hence he never allowed his men to carry letters. If they did so, he fined them in the first instance very severely, and in the second instance dismissed them. "I do so," he said, "because if I do not respect other inst.i.tutions (the Post Office), my men will soon learn not to respect my own. Then, for carrying letters during the extent of their trip, the men most probably would not get money, but drink, and hence become dissipated and unworthy of confidence."

Thus truth, accuracy, punctuality, sobriety, and honesty being strictly enforced, formed the fundamental principle of the entire management.

At the same time, Bianconi treated his drivers with every confidence and respect. He made them feel that, in doing their work well, they conferred a greater benefit on him and on the public than he did on them by paying them their wages.

When attending the British a.s.sociation at Cork, Bianconi said that, "in proportion as he advanced his drivers, he lowered their wages."

"Then," said Dr. Taylor, the Secretary, "I wouldn't like to serve you."

"Yes, you would," replied Bianconi, "because in promoting my drivers I place them on a more lucrative line, where their certainty of receiving fees from pa.s.sengers is greater."

Bianconi was as merciful to his horses as to his men. He had much greater difficulty at first in finding good men than good horses, because the latter were not exposed to the temptations to which the former were subject. Although the price of horses continued to rise, he nevertheless bought the best horses at increased prices, and he took care not to work them overmuch. He gave his horses as well as his men their seventh day's rest. "I find by experience," he said, "that I can work a horse eight miles a day for six days in the week, easier than I can work six miles for seven days; and that is one of my reasons for having no cars, unless carrying a mail, plying upon Sundays."

Bianconi had confidence in men generally. The result was that men had confidence in him. Even the Whiteboys respected him. At the close of a long and useful life he could say with truth, "I never yet attempted to do an act of generosity or common justice, publicly or privately, that I was not met by manifold reciprocity."

By bringing the various cla.s.ses of society into connection with each other, Bianconi believed, and doubtless with truth, that he was the means of making them respect each other, and that he thereby promoted the civilisation of Ireland. At the meeting of the social Science Congress, held at Dublin in 1861, he said: "The state of the roads was such as to limit the rate of travelling to about seven miles an hour, and the pa.s.sengers were often obliged to walk up hills. Thus all cla.s.ses were brought together, and I have felt much pleasure in believing that the intercourse thus created tended to inspire the higher cla.s.ses with respect and regard for the natural good qualities of the humbler people, which the latter reciprocated by a becoming deference and an anxiety to please and oblige. Such a moral benefit appears to me to be worthy of special notice and congratulation."

Even when railways were introduced, Bianconi did not resist them, but welcomed them as "the great civilisers of the age." There was, in his opinion, room enough for all methods of conveyance in Ireland. When Captain Thomas Drummond was appointed Under-Secretary for Ireland in 1835, and afterwards chairman of the Irish Railway Commission, he had often occasion to confer with Mr. Bianconi, who gave him every a.s.sistance. Mr. Drummond conceived the greatest respect for Bianconi, and often asked him how it was that he, a foreigner, should have acquired so extensive an influence and so distinguished a position in Ireland?

"The question came upon me," said Bianconi, "by surprise, and I did not at the time answer it. But another day he repeated his question, and I replied, 'Well, it was because, while the big and the little were fighting, I crept up between them, carried out my enterprise, and obliged everybody.'" This, however, did not satisfy Mr. Drummond, who asked Bianconi to write down for him an autobiography, containing the incidents of his early life down to the period of his great Irish enterprise. Bianconi proceeded to do this, writing down his past history in the occasional intervals which he could s.n.a.t.c.h from the immense business which he still continued personally to superintend.

But before the "Drummond memoir" could be finished Mr. Drummond himself had ceased to live, having died in 1840, princ.i.p.ally of overwork. What he thought of Bianconi, however, has been preserved in his Report of the Irish Railway Commission of 1838, written by Mr. Drummond himself, in which he thus speaks of his enterprising friend in starting and conducting the great Irish car establishment:--

"With a capital little exceeding the expense of outfit he commenced.

Fortune, or rather the due reward of industry and integrity, favoured his first efforts. He soon began to increase the number of his cars and multiply routes, until his establishment spread over the whole of Ireland. These results are the more striking and instructive as having been accomplished in a district which has long been represented as the focus of unreclaimed violence and barbarism, where neither life nor property can be deemed secure. Whilst many possessing a personal interest in everything tending to improve or enrich the country have been so misled or inconsiderate as to repel by exaggerated statements British capital from their doors, this foreigner chose Tipperary as the centre of his operations, wherein to embark all the fruits of his industry in a traffic peculiarly exposed to the power and even to the caprice of the peasantry. The event has shown that his confidence in their good sense was not ill-grounded.

"By a system of steady and just treatment he has obtained a complete mastery, exempt from lawless intimidation or control, over the various servants and agents employed by him, and his establishment is popular with all cla.s.ses on account of its general usefulness and the fair liberal spirit of its management. The success achieved by this spirited gentleman is the result, not of a single speculation, which might have been favoured by local circ.u.mstances, but of a series of distinct experiments, all of which have been successful."

When the railways were actually made and opened, they ran right through the centre of Bianconi's long-established systems of communication.

They broke up his lines, and sent them to the right and left. But, though they greatly disturbed him, they did not destroy him. In his enterprising hands the railways merely changed the direction of the cars. He had at first to take about a thousand horses off the road, with thirty-seven vehicles, travelling 2446 miles daily. But he remodelled his system so as to run his cars between the railway-stations and the towns to the right and left of the main lines.

He also directed his attention to those parts of Ireland which had not before had the benefit of his conveyances. And in thus still continuing to accommodate the public, the number of his horses and carriages again increased, until, in 1861, he was employing 900 horses, travelling over 4000 miles daily; and in 1866, when he resigned his business, he was running only 684 miles daily below the maximum run in 1845, before the railways had begun to interfere with his traffic.

His cars were then running to Dungarvan, Waterford, and Wexford in the south-west of Ireland; to Bandon, Rosscarbery, Skibbereen, and Cahirciveen, in the south; to Tralee, Galway, Clifden, Westport, and Belmullet in the west; to Sligo, Enniskillen, Strabane, and Letterkenny in the north; while, in the centre of Ireland, the towns of Thurles, Kilkenny, Birr, and Ballinasloe were also daily served by the cars of Bianconi.

At the meeting of the British a.s.sociation, held in Dublin in 1857, Mr.

Bianconi mentioned a fact which, he thought, ill.u.s.trated the increasing prosperity of the country and the progress of the people. It was, that although the population had so considerably decreased by emigration and other causes, the proportion of travellers by his conveyances continued to increase, demonstrating not only that the people had more money, but that they appreciated the money value of time, and also the advantages of the car system established for their accommodation.