  Non-forward elastic hadron-scattering data are collected and analysed within
the Regge approach. Through an analysis of the data in small bins in $t$, we
have directly extracted the pomeron trajectory and the hadronic form factors
(or reggeon couplings). We found higher values than usually used for the
intercept and for the slope of the soft pomeron trajectory. The presence of
zeros in $t$ for the effective hadronic form factors is emphasised.
