Notes on Railroad Accidents

In its present improved shape it is safe to say that in all those requisites which the highest authorities known on the subject have laid down as essential to a model train brake, the Westinghouse stands easily first among the many inventions of the kind. It is now a much more perfect appliance than it was in 1871, for it was then simply atmospheric and continuous in its action, whereas it has since been made automatic and self-regulating. So far as its fundamental principle is concerned, that is too generally understood to call for explanation. By means of an air-pump, attached to the boiler of the locomotive and controlled by the engine-driver, an atmospheric force is brought to bear, through tubes running under the cars, upon the break blocks, pressing them against the wheels. The hand of the engine-driver is in fact on every wheel in the train. This application of power, though unquestionably ingenious and, like all good things, most simple and obvious when once pointed out, was originally open to one great objection, which was persistently and with great force urged against it. The parts of the apparatus were all delicate, and some injury or derangement of them was always possible, and sometimes inevitable. The chief advantage claimed for the brake was, however, that complete dependence could be placed upon it in the regular movement of trains. It was obvious, therefore, that if such dependence was placed upon it and any derangement did occur, the first intimation those in charge of the train would have that something was wrong might well come in the shape of a failure of the brake to act, and a subsequent disaster. Both in Massachusetts and in Connecticut, at the crossing of one railroad by another at the same level in the former state and in the approach to draws in bridges in the latter, a number of cases of this failure of the original Westinghouse non-automatic brake to act did in point of fact occur. Fortunately they, none of them, resulted in disaster. This, however, was mere good luck, as was illustrated in the case of the accident of November 11, 1876, at the Communipaw Ferry on the New Jersey Central. The train was there equipped with the ordinary train brake. It reached Jersey City on time shortly after 4 P.M., but, instead of slacking up, it ran directly through the station and freight offices, carrying away the walls and supports, and the locomotive then plunged into the river beyond. The baggage and smoking car followed but fortunately lodged on the locomotive, thus blocking the remainder of the train. Fortunately no one was killed, and no passengers were seriously injured.

Again, on the Metropolitan Elevated railroad in New York city, on the evening of June 23, 1879, one of the trains was delayed for a few moments at the Franklin street station. Meanwhile the next train came along, and, though the engine-driver of this following train saw the danger signals and endeavored to stop in time, he found his brake out of order, and a collision ensued resulting in the injury of one employé and the severe shattering of a passenger coach and locomotive. It was only a piece of good fortune that the first of these accidents did not result in a repetition of the Norwalk disaster and the second in that of Revere.

It so chanced that it was the Smith vacuum brake which failed to work at Communipaw, and the Eames vacuum which failed to work at Franklin street. This, however, was wholly immaterial. It might just as well have been the original Westinghouse. The difficulty lay, not in the maker's name, but in the imperfect action of the brake; and such significant intimations are not to be disregarded. The chances are naturally large that the failure of the continuous brake to act will not at once occur under just those circumstances which will entail a serious disaster and heavy loss of life; that, however, if such intimations as these are disregarded, it will sooner or later so occur does not admit of doubt.

But the possibility that upon some given occasion it might fail to work was not the only defect in the original Westinghouse; it might well be in perfect order and in full action even, and then suddenly, as the result of derailment or separation of parts, the apparatus might be broken, and at once the shoes would drop from the wheels, and the vehicles of the disabled train would either press forward, or, on an incline, stop and run backwards until their unchecked momentum was exhausted. This appears to have been the case at Wollaston, and contributed some of its most disastrous features to that accident.

To obviate these defects Westinghouse in 1872 invented what he termed a triple valve attachment, by means of which, if the thing can be so expressed, his brake was made to always stand at danger. That is, in case of any derangement of its parts, it was automatically applied and the train stopped. The action of the brake was thus made to give notice of anything wrong anywhere in the train. A noticeable case of this occurred on the Midland railway in England, when on the November 22, 1876, as the Scotch express was approaching the Heeley station, at a speed of some sixty miles an hour, the hind-guard felt the automatic brake suddenly self-applied. The forward truck of a Pullman car in the middle of the train had left the rails; the front part of the train broke the couplings and went on, while the rear carriages, acted upon by the automatic brakes, came to a stand immediately behind the Pullman, which finally rested on its side across the opposite track. There was no loss of life. On the other hand, as the Scotch express on the North Eastern road was approaching Morpeth, on March 25, 1877, at a speed of some twenty-five miles an hour, the locomotive for some reason left the track. The train was not equipped with an automatic brake, and the carriages in it accordingly pressed forward upon each other until three of them were so utterly destroyed as to be indistinguishable. Five passengers lost their lives; the remains of one of whom, together with the wheels of a carriage, were afterwards taken out from the tank of the tender, into which they had been driven by the force of the shock.

The theoretical objection to the automatic brake is obvious. In case of any derangement of its machinery it applies itself, and, should these derangements be of frequent occurrence, the consequent stoppage of trains would prove a great annoyance, if not a source of serious danger. This objection is not sustained by practical experience. The triple valve, so called, is the only complicated portion of the automatic brake, and this valve is well protected and not liable to get out of order.[24] Should it become deranged it will stop the working of the brake on that car alone to which it belongs; and it will become deranged so as to set the brake only from causes which would render the non-automatic brake inoperative. When anything of this sort occurs, it stops the train until the defect is remedied. The returns made to the English Board of Trade enable us to know just how frequently in actual and regular service these stoppages occur, and what they amount to. Take, for instance, the North Eastern and the Caledonian railways. Both use the automatic brake. During the last six months of 1878 the first ran 138,000 train miles with it, in the course of which there were eight delays or stoppages of some three to five minutes each occasioned by the action of the triple-valve; being in round numbers one occasion of delay in 17,000 miles of train movement. On the Caledonian railway, during the same period, four brake failures, due to the action of the triple-valve, were reported in runs aggregating over 62,000 miles, being about one failure to 15,000 miles. These failures moreover occasioned delays of only a few minutes each, and, where the cause of the difficulty was not so immediately apparent that it could at once be remedied, the brake-tubes of the vehicle on which the difficulty occurred were disconnected, and the trains went on.[25] One of these stoppages, however, resulted in a serious accident. As a train on the Caledonian road was approaching the Wemyss Bay junction on December 14th, in a dense fog, the engine driver, seeing the signals at danger, undertook to apply his brake slightly, when it went full on, stopping the train between the distant and home signals, as they are called in the English block system. After the danger signal was lowered, but before the brake could be released, the signal-man allowed a following train to enter upon the same block section, and a collision followed in which some thirteen passengers were slightly injured. This accident, however, as the inspecting officer of the Board of Trade very properly found, was due not at all to the automatic brake, but to "carelessness on the part of the signal-man, who disregarded the rules for the working of the block telegraph instruments," and to the driver of the colliding train, who "disobeyed the company's running regulations." It gives an American, however, a realizing sense of one of the difficulties under which those crowded British lines are operated, to read that in this case the fog was "so thick that the tail-lamp was not visible from an approaching train for more than a few yards."

After the application of the triple valve had made it automatic, there remained but one further improvement necessary to render the Westinghouse a well-nigh perfect brake. A superabundance of self-acting power had been secured, but no provision was yet made for graduating the use of that power so that it should be applied in the exact degree, neither more nor less, which would soonest stop the train. This for two reasons is mechanically a matter of no little importance. As is well known a too severe application of brakes, no matter of what kind they are, causes the wheels to stand still and slide upon the rails. This is not only very injurious to rolling stock, the wheels of which are flattened at the points which slide, but, as has long been practically well-known to those whose business it is to run locomotives, when once the wheels begin to slide the retarding power of the brakes is seriously diminished. In order, therefore, to secure the maximum of retarding power, the pressure of the brake-blocks on the revolving wheels should be very great when first applied, and just sufficient not to slide them; and should then be diminished, pari passu with the momentum of the train, until it wholly stops. Familiar as all this has long been to engine-drivers and practical railroad mechanics, yet it has not been conceded in the results of many scientific inquiries. In the report of one of the Royal Commissions on Accidents, for instance, it was asserted that the momentum of a train was retarded more by the action of sliding than of slowly revolving wheels; and again, as recently as in May, 1877, in a scientific discussion in London at one of the meetings of the Society of Arts, a gentleman, with the letters C. E. appended to his name, ventured the surprising assertion that "no brake could do more than skid the wheels of a train, and all continuous brakes professed to do this, and he believed did so about equally well." Now, what it is here asserted no brake can do is exactly what the perfect brake will be made to do,—and what Westinghouse's latest improvement, it is claimed, enables his brake to do. It much more than "skids the wheels," by measuring out exactly that degree of power necessary to hold the wheels just short of the skidding point, and in this way always exerts the maximum retarding force. This is brought about by means of a contrivance which allows the air to leak out of the brake cylinders so as to exactly proportion the pressure of the blocks on the wheels to the speed with which the latter are revolving. In other, and more scientific, language the force with which the brake-blocks are pressed upon the wheels is made to adjust itself automatically as the "coefficient of dynamic friction augments with the reduction of train speed." It hardly needs to be said that in this way the power of the brake is enormously increased.

In America the superiority of the Westinghouse over any other description of train-brake has long been established through that large preponderance of use which in such matters constitutes the final and irreversible verdict.[26] In Europe, however, and especially in Great Britain, ever since the Shipton-on-Cherwell accident in 1874, the battle of the brakes, as it may not inappropriately be called, has waxed hotter and hotter; and not only has this battle been extremely interesting in a scientific way, but it has been highly characteristic, and at times enlivened by touches of human nature which were exceedingly amusing.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES.

The English battle of the brakes may be said to have fairly opened with the official report from Captain Tyler on the Shipton accident, in reference to which he expressed the opinion, which has already been quoted in describing the accident, that "if the train had been fitted with continuous brakes throughout its whole length there is no reason why it should not have been brought to rest without any casuality." The Royal Commission on railroad accidents then took the matter up and called for a series of scientifically conducted experiments. These took place under the supervision of two engineers appointed by the Commission, who were aided by a detail of officers and men from the royal engineers. Eight brakes competed, and a train, consisting of a locomotive and thirteen cars, was specially prepared for each. With these trains some seventy runs were made, and their results recorded and tabulated; the experiments were continued through six consecutive working days. Of the brakes experimented with three were American in their origin,—Westinghouse's automatic and vacuum, and Smith's vacuum. The remainder were English, and were steam, hydraulic, and air brakes; among them also was one simple emergency brake. The result of the trials was a very decided victory for the Westinghouse automatic, and upon its performances the Commission based its conclusion that trains ought to be so equipped that in cases of emergency they could be brought to rest, when travelling on level ground at 50 miles an hour, within a distance of 275 yards; with an allowance of distance in cases of speed greater or less than 50 miles nearly proportioned to its square. These allowances they tabulated as follows:—

To appreciate the enormous advance in what may be called stopping power which these experiments revealed, it should be added that the first series of experiments made at Newark were with trains equipped only with the hand-brake. The average speed in these experiments was 47 miles, and with the train-brake, according to the foregoing tabulation, the stop should have been made in about 250 yards; in reality it was made in a little less than five times that distance, or 1120 yards; in other words the experiments showed that the improved appliances had more than quadrupled the control over trains. It has already been noticed that in the cases of the Angola and the Port Jervis disasters, as well as in that at Shipton, the trains ran some 2,700 feet before they could be stopped. Under the English tabulations above given, in the results of which certain recent improvements do not enter, a train running into the 42d Street Station in New York, at a speed of forty-five miles an hour when under the entrance arches, would be stopped before it reached the buffers at the end of the covered tracks.

The Royal Commission experiments were followed in May and June, 1877, by yet others set on foot by the North Eastern Railway Company for the purpose of making a competitive test of the Westinghouse automatic and the Smith's vacuum brakes. At this trial also the average stop at a speed of 50 miles an hour was effected in 15 seconds, and within a distance of 650 feet. Other series of experiments with similar results were, about the same time, conducted under the auspices of the Belgian and German governments, of which elaborate official reports were made. The result was that at last, under date of August 30, 1877, the Board of Trade issued a circular to the railway companies in which it called attention to the fact that, notwithstanding all the discussion which had taken place and the elaborate official trials which the government had set on foot, there had "apparently been no attempt on the part of the various companies to take the first step of agreeing upon what are the requirements which, in their opinion, are essential to a good continuous brake." In other words, the Board found that, instead of becoming better, matters were rapidly becoming worse. Each company was equipping its rolling stock with that appliance in which its officers happened to be interested as owners or inventors, and when carriages thus equipped passed from the tracks of one road onto those of another the result was a return to the old hand-brake system in a condition of impaired efficiency. The Board accordingly now proceeded to narrow down the field of selection by specifying the following as what it considered the essentials of a good continuous brake:—

a. "The brakes to be efficient in stopping trains, instantaneous in their actions, and capable of being applied without difficulty by engine-drivers or guards.

b. "In case of accident, to be instantaneously self-acting.

c. "The brakes to be put on and taken off (with facility) on the engine and on every vehicle of a train.

d. "The brakes to be regularly used in daily working.

e. "The materials employed to be of a durable character, so as to be easily maintained and kept in order."

These requirements pointed about as directly as they could to the Westinghouse, to the exclusion of all competing brakes. Not more than one other complied with them in all respects, and many made no pretence of complying at all. Then followed what may be termed the battle royal of the brakes, which as yet shows no signs of drawing to a close. As the avowed object of the Board of Trade was to introduce, one brake, to the necessary exclusion of all others, throughout the railroad system of Great Britain, the magnitude of the prize was not easy to over-estimate. The weight of scientific and official authority was decidedly in favor of the Westinghouse automatic, but among the railroad men the Smith vacuum found the largest number of adherents. It failed to meet three of the requirements of the Board of Trade, in that it was neither automatic nor instantaneous in its action, while the materials employed in it were not of a durable character. It was, on the other hand, a brake of unquestioned excellence, while it commended itself to the judgment of the average railroad official by its simplicity, and to that of the average railroad director by its apparent cheapness. Any one could understand it, and its first cost was temptingly small. The real struggle in Great Britain, therefore, has been, and now is, between these two brakes; and the fact that both of them are American has been made to enter largely into it, and in a way also which at times lent to the discussion an element of broad humor.

For instance, the energetic agent of the Smith vacuum, feeling himself aggrieved by some statement which appeared in the Times, responded thereto in a circular, in the composition of which he certainly evinced more zeal than either judgment or literary skill. This circular and its author were then referred to by the editors of Engineering, a London scientific journal, in the following slightly de haut en bas style:—

"It is not a little remarkable, and it is a fact not harmonious with the feelings of English engineers, that the two brakes recommending themselves for adoption are of American origin. * * * Now we cannot wonder, considering what our past experience has been in many of our dealings with Americans, that this feeling of distrust and prejudice exists. It is not merely sentimental, it is founded on many and untoward and costly experiences of the past, and the fear of similar experiences in the future. And when we see the representative of one of these systems adopting the traditional policy of his country, and meeting criticism with abuse—abuse of men pre-eminent in the profession, and journals which he apparently forgets are neither American nor venal—we do not wonder that our railway engineers feel a repugnance to commit themselves."

The superiority of the British over the American controversialist, as respects courtesy and restraint in language, being thus satisfactorily established, it only remained to illustrate it. This, however, had already been done in the previous May; for at that time it chanced that Captain Tyler, having retired from his position at the head of the railway inspectors department of the Board of Trade, was considering an offer which Mr. Westinghouse had made him to associate himself with the company owning the brakes known by that name. Before accepting this offer, Captain Tyler took advantage of a meeting of the Society of Arts to publicly give notice that he was considering it. This he did in a really admirable paper on the whole subject of continuous brakes, at the close of which a general discussion was invited and took place, and in the course of it the innate superiority of the British over any other kind of controversialist, so far at least as courtesy and a delicate refraining from imputations is concerned, received pointed illustration.

No sooner had Captain Tyler finished than Mr. Houghton, C. E., took occasion to refer to the paper he had read as "an elaborate puff to the Westinghouse brake, with which he [Tyler] was, as he told, connected, or about to be." Subsequently Mr. Steele proceeded to say that:—

"On receiving the invitation to be present at the meeting, he had been somewhat afraid that Captain Tyler was going to lose his fine character for impartiality by throwing in his lot with the brake-tinkers, but it came out that not only was he going to do that, but actually going to be a partner in a concern. * * * The speaker then proceeded to discuss the Westinghouse brake, which he called the Westinghouse and Tyler brake, designating it as a jack-in-the-box, a rattle trap, to please and decoy, and not an invention at all. No engineer had a hand in its manufacture. It was the discovery of some Philadelphia barber or some such thing. He had spoken of honest brakes. This was a brake which had all sorts of pretensions. It had not worked well, but whenever there was any row about its not working well, they got the papers to praise it up, and that was how the papers were under the thumb, and would not speak of any other. * * * He thought it would not do for railway companies to take a bad brake, and Captain Tyler and Mr. Westinghouse be able to make their fortunes by floating a limited company for its introduction. They had heard of Emma mines and Lisbon tramways, and such like, and he felt it would not be well to stand by and allow this to be done."

All of which was not only to the point, but finely calculated to show the American inventors and agents who were present the nice and mutually respectful manner in which such discussions were carried on by all Englishmen.

Though the avowed adhesion of Sir Henry Tyler to the Westinghouse was a most important move in the war of the brakes, it did not prove a decisive one. The complete control of the field was too valuable a property to be yielded in deference to that, or any other name without a struggle; and, so to speak, there were altogether too many ins and outs to the conflict. Back door influences had everywhere to be encountered. The North Western, for instance, is the most important of the railway companies of the United Kingdom. The locomotive superintendent of that company was the part inventor and proprietor of an emergency brake which had been extensively adopted by it on its rolling stock, but which wholly failed to meet the requirements laid down in its circular by the Board of Trade. Immediately after issuing that circular the Board of Trade called the attention of the company to this fact in connection with an accident which had recently occurred, and in very emphatic language pointed out that the brakes in question could not "in any reasonable sense of the word be called continuous brakes," and that it was clear that the circular requirements were "not complied with by the brake-system of the London & North Western Railway Company;" in case that company persisted in the use of that brake, the secretary of the Board went on to say, "in the event of a casualty occurring, which an efficient system of brakes might have prevented, a heavy personal responsibility will rest upon those who are answerable for such neglect." This was certainly language tolerably direct in its import. As such it was calculated to cause those to whom it was addressed to pause in their action. The company, however, treated it with a superb disregard, all the more contemptuous because veiled in language of deferential civility. They then quietly went on applying their locomotive superintendent's emergency brake to their equipment, until on the 30th of June, 1879, they returned no less than 2,052 carriages fitted with it; that being by far the largest number returned by any one company in the United Kingdom.

A more direct challenge to the Board of Trade and to Parliament could not easily have been devised. To appreciate how direct it was, it is necessary to bear in mind that in its circular of August 30, 1877, in which the requirements of a satisfactory train-brake were laid down, the Board of Trade threw out to the companies the very significant hint, that they "would do well to reflect that if a doubt should arise that from a conflict of interest or opinion, or from any other cause, they [the companies] are not exerting themselves, it is obvious that they will call down upon themselves an interference which the Board of Trade, no less than the companies, desire to avoid." In his general report on the accidents of the year 1877, the successor of Captain Tyler expressed the opinion that "sufficient information and experience would now appear to be available, and the time is approaching when the railway companies may fairly be expected to come to a decision as to which of the systems of continuous brakes is best calculated to fulfil the requisite conditions, and is most worthy of general adoption." At the close of another year, however, the official returns seemed to indicate that, while but a sixth part of the passenger locomotives and a fifth part of the carriages in use on the railroads of the United Kingdom were yet equipped with continuous brakes at all, a concurrence of opinion in favor of any one system was more remote than ever. During the six months ending December 31, 1878, but 127 additional locomotives out of about 4000, and 1,200 additional carriages out of some 32,000 were equipped; of which 70 locomotives and 530 carriages had been equipped with the Smith vacuum, which in three most important respects failed to comply with the Board of Trade requirements. Under these circumstances the Board of Trade was obviously called upon either to withdraw from the position it had taken, or to invite that "interference" in its support to which in its circular of August, 1877 it had so portentously referred. It decided to do the latter, and in March, 1879 the government gave an intimation in the House of Lords that early Parliamentary action was contemplated. As it is expressed, the railway companies are to "be relieved of their indecision."

In Great Britain, therefore, the long battle of the brakes would seem to be drawing to its close. The final struggle, however, will be a spirited one, and one which Americans will watch with considerable interest,—for it is in fact a struggle between two American brakes, the Westinghouse and the Smith vacuum. Of the 907 locomotives hitherto equipped with the continuous brakes no less than 819 are equipped with one or the other of these American patents, besides over 4,464 of the 9,919 passenger carriages. The remaining 3,857 locomotives and 30,000 carriages are the prize of victory. As the score now stands the vacuum brake is in almost exactly twice the use of its more scientific rival. The weight of authority and experience, and the requirements of the Board of Trade, are, however, on the opposite side.

As deduced from the European scientific tests and the official returns, the balance of advantages would seem to be as follows:—In favor of the vacuum are its superficial simplicity, and possible economy in first cost:—In favor of the Westinghouse automatic are its superior quickness in application, the greater rapidity in its stopping power, the more durable nature of its materials, the smaller cost in renewal, its less liability to derangement, and above all its self-acting adjustment. The last is the point upon which the final issue of the struggle must probably turn. The use of any train-brake which is not automatic in its action, as has already been pointed out, involves in the long run disaster,—and ultimate serious disaster. The mere fact that the brake is generally so reliable,—that ninety-nine times out of the hundred it works perfectly,—simply makes disaster certain by the fatal confidence it inspires. Ninety-nine times in a hundred the brake proves reliable;—nine times in the remaining ten of the thousand, in which it fails, a lucky chance averts disaster;—but the thousandth time will assuredly come, as it did at Communipaw and on the New York Elevated railway, and, much the worst of all yet, at Wollaston. Soon or late the use of non-automatic continuous brakes will most assuredly, if they are not sooner abandoned, be put an end to by the occurrence of some not-to-be forgotten catastrophe of the first magnitude, distinctly traceable to that cause. Meanwhile that automatic brakes are complicated and sometimes cause inconvenience in their operation is most indisputable. This is an objection, also, to which they are open in common with most of the riper results of human ingenuity;—but, though sun-dials are charmingly simple, we do not, therefore, discard chronometers in their favor; neither do we insist on cutting our harvests with the scythe, because every man who may be called upon to drive a mowing machine may not know how to put one together. But what Sir Henry Tyler has said in respect to this oldest and most fallacious, as well as most wearisome, of objections covers the whole ground and cannot be improved upon. After referring to the fact that simplicity in construction and simplicity in working were two different things, and that, almost invariably, a certain degree of complication in construction is necessary to secure simplicity in working,—after pointing this out he went on to add that,—

"Simplicity as regards the application of railway brakes is not obtained by the system now more commonly employed of brake-handles to be turned by different men in different parts of the train; but is obtained when, by more complicated construction an engine-driver is able easily in an instant to apply ample brake-power at pleasure with more or less force to every wheel of his train; is obtained when, every time an engine-driver starts, or attempts to start his train, the brake itself informs him if it is out of order; and is still more obtained when, on the occasion of an accident and the separation of a coupling, the brakes will unfailingly apply themselves on every wheel of the train without the action of the engine-driver or guards, [brakemen], and before even they have time to realize the necessity for it. This is true simplicity in such a case, and that system of continuous brakes which best accomplishes such results in the shortest space of time is so far preferable to all others."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE RAILROAD JOURNEY RESULTING IN DEATH.

One day in May, 1847, as the Queen of Belgium was going from Verviers to Brussels by rail, the train in which she was journeying came into collision with another train going in the opposite direction. There was naturally something of a panic, and, as royalty was not then accustomed to being knocked about with railroad equality, some of her suite urged the queen to leave the train and to finish her journey by carriage. The contemporaneous court reporter then went on to say, in that language which is so peculiarly his own,—"But her Majesty, as courageously as discreetly, declined to set that example of timidity, and she proceeded to Brussels by the railway." In those days a very exaggerated idea was universally entertained of the great danger incident to travel by rail. Even then, however, had her Majesty, who was doubtless a very sensible woman, happened to be familiar with the statistics of injuries received by those traveling respectively by rail and by carriage, she certainly never on any plea of danger would have been induced to abandon her railroad train in order to trust herself behind horse-flesh. By pursuing the course urged upon her, the queen would have multiplied her chances of accident some sixty fold. Strange as the statement sounds even now, such would seem to have been the fact. In proportion to the whole number carried, the accidents to passengers in "the good old days of stage-coaches" were, as compared to the present time of the railroad dispensation, about as sixty to one. This result, it is true, cannot be verified in the experience either of England or of this country, for neither the English nor we possess any statistics in relation to the earlier period; but they have such statistics in France, stretching over the space of more than forty years, and as reliable as statistics ever are. If these French statistics hold true in New England,—and considering the character of our roads, conveyances, and climate, their showing is more likely to be in our favor than against us,—if they simply hold true, leaving us to assume that stage-coach traveling was no less safe in Massachusetts than in France, then it would follow that to make the dangers of the rail of the present day equal to those of the highway of half a century back, some eighty passengers should annually be killed and some eleven hundred injured within the limits of Massachusetts alone. These figures, however, represent rather more than fifty times the actual average, and from them it would seem to be not unfair to conclude that, notwithstanding the great increase of population and the yet greater increase in travel during the last half-century, there were literally more persons killed and injured each year in Massachusetts fifty years ago through accidents to stage-coaches than there are now through accidents to railroad trains.

The first impression of nine out of ten persons in no way connected with the operations of railroads would probably be found to be the exact opposite to this. A vague but deeply rooted conviction commonly prevails that the railroad has created a new danger; that because of it the average human being's hold on life is more precarious than it was. The first point-blank, bald statement to the contrary would accordingly strike people in the light not only of a paradox, but of a somewhat foolish one. Investigation, nevertheless, bears it out. The fact is that when a railroad accident comes, it is apt to come in such a way as to leave no doubt whatever in relation to it. It is heralded like a battle or an earthquake; it fills columns of the daily press with the largest capitals and the most harrowing details, and thus it makes a deep and lasting impression on the minds of many people. When a multitude of persons, traveling as almost every man now daily travels himself, meet death in such sudden and such awful shape, the event smites the imagination. People seeing it and thinking of it, and hearing and reading of it, and of it only, forget of how infrequent occurrence it is. It was not so in the olden time. Every one rode behind horses,—if not in public then in private conveyances,—and when disaster came it involved but few persons and was rarely accompanied by circumstances which either struck the imagination or attracted any great public notice. In the first place, the modern newspaper, with its perfect machinery for sensational exaggeration, did not then exist,—having itself only recently come in the train of the locomotive;—and, in the next place, the circle of those included in the consequences of any disaster was necessarily small. It is far otherwise now. For weeks and months the vast machinery moves along, doing its work quickly, swiftly, safely; no one pays any attention to it, while millions daily make use of it. It is as much a necessity of their lives as the food they eat and the air they breathe. Suddenly, somehow, and somewhere,—at Versailles, at Norwalk, at Abergele, at New Hamburg, or at Revere,—at some hitherto unfamiliar point upon an insignificant thread of the intricate iron web, an obstruction is encountered, a jar, as it were, is felt, and instantly, with time for hardly an ejaculation or a thought, a multitude of human beings are hurled into eternity. It is no cause for surprise that such an event makes the community in which it happens catch its breadth; neither is it unnatural that people should think more of the few who are killed, of whom they hear so much, than of the myriads who are carried in safety and of whom they hear nothing. Yet it is well to bear in mind that there are two sides to that question also, and in no way could this fact be more forcibly brought to our notice than by the assertion, borne out by all the statistics we possess, that, irrespective of the vast increase in the number of those who travel, a greater number of passengers in stage-coaches were formerly each year killed or injured by accidents to which they in no way contributed through their own carelessness, than are now killed under the same conditions in our railroad cars. In other words, the introduction of the modern railroad, so far from proportionately increasing the dangers of traveling, has absolutely diminished them. It is not, after all, the dangers but the safety of the modern railroad which should excite our special wonder.

What is the average length of the railroad journey resulting in death by accident to a prudent traveler?—What is the average length of one resulting in some personal injury to him?—These are two questions which interest every one. Few persons, probably, start upon any considerable journey, implying days and nights on the rail, without almost unconsciously taking into some consideration the risks of accident. Visions of collision, derailment, plunging through bridges, will rise unbidden. Even the old traveler who has enjoyed a long immunity is apt at times, with some little apprehension, to call to mind the musty adage of the pitcher and the well, and to ask himself how much longer it will be safe for him to rely on his good luck. A hundred thousand miles, perhaps, and no accident yet!—Surely, on every doctrine of chances, he now owes to fate an arm or a leg;—perhaps a life. The statistics of a long series of years enable us, however, to approximate with a tolerable degree of precision to an answer to these questions, and the answer is simply astounding;—so astounding, in fact, that, before undertaking to give it, the question itself ought to be stated with all possible precision. It is this:—Taking all persons who as passengers travel by rail,—and this includes all dwellers in civilized countries,—what number of journeys of the average length are safely accomplished, to each one which results in the death or injury of a passenger from some cause over which he had no control?—The cases of death or injury must be confined to passengers, and to those of them only who expose themselves to no unnecessary risk.

When approaching a question of this sort, statisticians are apt to assume for their answers an appearance of mathematical accuracy. It is needless to say that this is a mere affectation. The best results which can be arrived at are, after all, mere approximations, and they also vary greatly year by year. The body of facts from which conclusions are to be deduced must cover not only a definite area of space, but also a considerable lapse of time. Even Great Britain, with its 17,000 miles of track and its hundreds of millions of annual passenger journeys, shows results which, one year with another, vary strangely. For instance, during the four years anterior to 1874, but one passenger was killed, upon an average, to each 11,000,000 carried; while in 1874 the proportion, under the influence of a succession of disasters, suddenly doubled, rising to one in every 5,500,000; and then again in 1877, a year of peculiar exemption, it fell off to one in every 50,000,000. The percentage of fatal casualties to the whole number carried was in 1847-9 five fold what it was in 1878. If such fluctuations reveal themselves in the statistics of Great Britain, those met with in the narrower field of a single state in this country might well seem at first glance to set all computation at defiance. During the ten years, for example, between 1861 and 1870, about 200,000,000 passengers were returned as carried on the Massachusetts roads, with 135 cases of injury to individuals. Then came the year of the Revere disaster, and out of 26,000,000 carried, no less than 115 were killed or injured. Seven years of comparative immunity then ensued, during which, out of 240,000,000 carried, but two were killed and forty-five injured. In other words, through a period of ten years the casualties were approximately as one to 1,500,000; then during a single year they rose to one in 250,000, or a seven-fold increase; and then through a period of seven years they diminished to one in 3,400,000, a decrease of about ninety per cent.

Taking, however, the very worst of years,—the year of the Revere disaster, which stands unparalleled in the history of Massachusetts,—it will yet be found that the answer to the question as to the length of the average railroad journey resulting in death or in injury will be expressed, not in thousands nor in hundreds of thousands of miles, but in millions. During that year some 26,000,000 passenger journeys were made within the limits of the state, and each journey averaged a distance of about 13 miles. It would seem, therefore, that, even in that year, the average journey resulting in death was 11,000,000 miles, while that resulting either in death or personal injury was not less than 3,300,000.

The year 1871, however, represented by no means a fair average. On the contrary, it indicated what may fairly be considered an excessive degree of danger, exciting nervous apprehensions in the breasts of those even who were not constitutionally timid. To reach what may be considered a normal average, therefore, it would be more proper to include a longer period in the computation. Take, for instance, the nine years, 1871-79, during which alone has any effort been made to reach statistical accuracy in respect to Massachusetts railroad accidents. During those nine years, speaking in round numbers and making no pretence at anything beyond a general approximation, some 303,000,000 passenger journeys of 13 miles each have been made on the railroads and within the state. Of these 51 have resulted in death and 308 in injuries to persons from causes over which they had no control. The average distance, therefore, traveled by all, before death happened to any one, was about 80,000,000 miles, and that travelled before any one was either injured or killed was about 10,800,000.

The Revere disaster of 1871, however, as has been seen, brought about important changes in the methods of operating the railroads of Massachusetts. Consequently the danger incident to railroad traveling was materially reduced; and in the next eight years (1872-9) some 274,000,000 passenger journeys were made within the limits of the state. The Wollaston disaster of October, 1878, was included in this period, during which 223 persons were injured and 21 were killed. The average journey for these years resulting in any injury to a passenger was close upon 15,000,000 miles, while that resulting in death was 170,000,000.

But it may fairly be asked,—What, after all, do these figures mean?—They are, indeed, so large as to exceed comprehension; for, after certain comparatively narrow limits are passed the practical infinite is approached, and the mere adding of a few more ciphers after a numeral conveys no new idea. On the contrary, the piling up of figures rather tends to weaken than to strengthen a statement, for to many it suggests an idea of ridiculous exaggeration. Indeed, when a few years ago a somewhat similar statement to that just made was advanced in an official report, a critic undertook to expose the fallacy of it in the columns of a daily paper by referring to a case within the writer's own observation in which a family of three persons had been killed on their very first journey in a railroad car. It is not, of course, necessary to waste time over such a criticism as this. Railroad accidents continually take place, and in consequence of them people are killed and injured, and of these there may well be some who are then making their first journey by rail; but in estimating the dangers of railroad traveling the much larger number who are not killed or injured at all must likewise be taken into consideration. Any person as he may be reading this page in a railroad car may be killed or injured through some accident, even while his eye is glancing over the figures which show how infinitesimal his danger is; but the chances are none the less as a million to one that any particular reader will go down to his grave uninjured by any accident on the rail, unless it be occasioned by his or her own carelessness.

Admitting, therefore, that ill luck or hard fortune must fall to the lot of certain unascertainable persons, yet the chances of incurring that ill fortune are so small that they are not materially increased by any amount of traveling which can be accomplished within the limits of a human life. So far from exhausting a fair average immunity from accident by constant traveling, the statistics of Massachusetts during the last eight years would seem to indicate that if any given person were born upon a railroad car, and remained upon it traveling 500 miles a day all his life, he would, with average good fortune, be somewhat over 80 years of age before he would be involved in any accident resulting in his death or personal injury, while he would attain the highly respectable age of 930 years before being killed. Even supposing that the most exceptional average of the Revere year became usual, a man who was killed by an accident at 70 years of age should, unless he were fairly to be accounted unlucky, have accomplished a journey of some 440 miles every day of his life, Sundays included, from the time of his birth to that of his death; while even to have brought him within the fair liability of any injury at all, his daily journey should have been some 120 miles. Under the conditions of the last eight years his average daily journey through the three score years and ten to entitle him to be killed in an accident at the end of them would be about 600 miles.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RAILROAD DEATH RATE.

In connection with the statistics of railroad casualties it is not without interest to examine the general vital statistics of some considerable city, for they show clearly enough what a large degree of literal truth there was in the half jocose proposition attributed to John Bright, that the safest place in which a man could put himself was inside a first-class railroad carriage of a train in full motion. Take the statistics of Boston, for instance, for the year 1878. During the four years 1875-8, it will be remembered, a single passenger only was killed on the railroads of Massachusetts in consequence of an accident to which he by his own carelessness in no way contributed.[27] The average number of persons annually injured, not fatally, during those years was about five.

Yet during the year 1878, excluding all cases of mere injury of which no account was made, no less than 53 persons came to their deaths in Boston from falling down stairs, and 37 more from falling out of windows; seven were scalded to death in 1878 alone. In the year 1874 seventeen were killed by being run over by teams in the streets, while the pastime of coasting was carried on at a cost of ten lives more. During the five years 1874-8 there were more persons murdered in the city of Boston alone than lost their lives as passengers through the negligence of all the railroad corporations in the whole state of Massachusetts during the nine years 1871-8; though in those nine years were included both the Revere and the Wollaston disasters, the former of which resulted in the death of 29, and the latter of 21 persons. Neither are the comparative results here stated in any respect novel or peculiar to Massachusetts. Years ago it was officially announced in France that people were less safe in their own houses than while traveling on the railroads; and, in support of this somewhat startling proposition, statistics were produced showing fourteen cases of death of persons remaining at home and there falling over carpets, or, in the case of females, having their garments catch fire, to ten deaths on the rail. Even the game of cricket counted eight victims to the railroad's ten.

It will not, of course, be inferred that the cases of death or injury to passengers from causes beyond their control include by any means all the casualties involved in the operation of the railroad system. On the contrary, they include but a very small portion of them. The experience of the Massachusetts roads during the seven years between September 30, 1871, and September 30, 1878, may again be cited in reference to this point. During that time there were but 52 cases of injury to passengers from causes over which they had no control, but in connection with the entire working of the railroad system no less than 1,900 cases of injury were reported, of which 1,008 were fatal; an average of 144 deaths a year. Of these cases, naturally, a large proportion were employés, whose occupation not only involves much necessary risk, but whose familiarity with risk causes them always to incur it even in the most unnecessary and foolhardy manner. During the seven years 293 of them were killed and 375 were reported as injured. Nor is it supposed that the list included by any means all the cases of injury which occurred. About one half of the accidents to employés are occasioned by their falling from the trains when in motion, usually from freight trains and in cold weather, and from being crushed between cars while engaged in coupling them together. From this last cause alone an average of 27 casualties are annually reported. One fact, however, will sufficiently illustrate how very difficult it is to protect this class of men from danger, or rather from themselves. As is well known, on freight trains they are obliged to ride on the tops of the cars; but these are built so high that their roofs come dangerously near the bottoms of the highway bridges, which cross the track sometimes in close proximity to each other. Accordingly many unfortunate brakemen were killed by being knocked off the trains as they passed under these bridges. With a view to affording the utmost possible protection against this form of accident, a statute was passed by the Massachusetts legislature compelling the corporations to erect guards at a suitable distance from every overhead bridge which was less than eighteen feet in the clear above the track. These guards were so arranged as to swing lightly across the tops of the cars, giving any one standing upon them a sharp rap, warning him of the danger he was in. This warning rap, however, so annoyed the brakemen that the guards were on a number of the roads systematically destroyed as often as they were put up; so that at last another law had to be passed, making their destruction a criminal offense. The brakemen themselves resisted the attempt to divest their perilous occupation of one of its most insidious dangers.

In this respect, however, brakemen differ in no degree from the rest of the community. On all hands railroad accidents seem to be systematically encouraged, and the wonder is that the list of casualties is not larger. In Massachusetts, for instance, even in the most crowded portions of the largest cities and towns, not only do the railroads cross the highways at grade, but whenever new thoroughfares are laid out the people of the neighborhood almost invariably insist upon their crossing the railroads at a grade and not otherwise. Not but that, upon theory and in the abstract, every one is opposed to grade-crossings; but those most directly concerned always claim that their particular crossing is exceptional in character. In vain do corporations protest and public officials argue; when the concrete case arises all neighborhoods become alike and strenuously insist on their right to incur everlasting danger rather than to have the level of their street broken. During the last seven years to September 30, 1878, 191 persons have been injured, and 98 of them fatally injured, at these crossings in Massachusetts, and it is certain as fate that the number is destined to annually increase. What the result in a remote future will be, it is not now easy to forecast. One thing only would seem certain: the time will come when the two classes of traffic thus recklessly made to cross each other will at many points have to be separated, no matter at what cost to the community which now challenges the danger it will then find itself compelled to avoid.

The heaviest and most regular cause of death and injury involved in the operation of the railroad system yet remains to be referred to; and again it is recklessness which is at the root of it, and this time recklessness in direct violation of law. The railroad tracks are everywhere favorite promenades, and apparently even resting-places, especially for those who are more or less drunk. In Great Britain physical demolition by a railroad train is also a somewhat favorite method of committing suicide, and that, too, in the most deliberate and cool-blooded manner. Cases have not been uncommon in which persons have been seen to coolly lay themselves down in front of an advancing train, and very neatly effect their own decapitation by placing their necks across the rail. In England alone, during the last seven years, there have been no less than 280 cases of death reported under the head of suicides, or an average of 40 each year, the number in 1878 rising to 60. In America these cases are not returned in a class by themselves. Under the general head of accidents to trespassers, however, that is, accidents to men, women and children, especially the latter, illegally lying, walking, or playing on the tracks or riding upon the cars,—under this head are regularly classified more than one third of all the casualties incident to working the Massachusetts railroads. During the last seven years these have amounted to an aggregate of 724 cases of injury, no less than 494 of which were fatal. Of course, very many other cases of this description, which were not fatal, were never reported. And here again the recklessness of the public has received further illustration, and this time in a very unpleasant way. Certain corporations operating roads terminating in Boston endeavored at one time to diminish this slaughter by enforcing the laws against walking on railroad tracks. A few trespassers were arrested and fined, and then the resentment of those whose wonted privileges were thus interfered with began to make itself felt. Obstructions were found placed in the way of night trains. The mere attempt to keep people from risking their lives by getting in the way of locomotives placed whole trains full of passengers in imminent jeopardy.

Undoubtedly, however, by far the most effective means of keeping railroad tracks from becoming foot-paths, and thus at once putting an end to the largest item in the grand total of the expenditure of life incident to the operation of railroads, is that secured by the Pennsylvania railroad as an unintentional corollary to its method of ballasting. That superb organization, every detail of whose wonderful system is a fit subject for study to all interested in the operation of railroads, has a roadway peculiar to itself. A principal feature in this is a surface of broken stone ballast, covering not only the space between the rails, but also the interval between the tracks as well as the road-bed on the outside of each track for a distance of some three feet. It resembles nothing so much as a newly macadamized highway. That, too, is its permanent condition. To walk on the sharp and uneven edges of this broken stone is possible, with a sufficient expenditure of patience and shoe-leather; but certainly no human being would ever walk there from preference, or if any other path could be found. Not only is it in itself, as a system of ballasting, looked upon as better than any other, but it confounds the tramp. Its systematic adoption in crowded, suburban neighborhoods would, therefore, answer a double purpose. It would secure to the corporations permanent road-beds exclusively for their own use, and obviate the necessity of arrests or futile threats to enforce the penalties of the law against trespassers. It seems singular that this most obvious and effective way of putting a stop to what is both a nuisance and a danger has not yet been resorted to by men familiar with the use of spikes and broken glass on the tops of fences and walls.

Meanwhile, taken even in its largest aggregate, the loss of life incident to the working of the railroad system is not excessive, nor is it out of proportion to what might reasonably be expected. It is to be constantly borne in mind, not only that the railroad performs a great function in modern life, but that it also and of necessity performs it in a very dangerous way. A practically irresistible force crashing through the busy hive of modern civilization at a wild rate of speed, going hither and thither, across highways and by-ways and along a path which is in itself a thoroughfare,—such an agency cannot be expected to work incessantly and yet never to come in contact with the human frame. Naturally, however, it might be a very car of Juggernaut. Is it so in fact?—To demonstrate that it is not, it is but necessary again to recur to the comparison between the statistics of railroad accidents and those which necessarily occur in the experience of all considerable cities. Take again those of Boston and of the railroad system of Massachusetts. These for the purpose of illustration are as good as any, and in their results would only be confirmed in the experience of Paris as compared with the railroad system of France, or in that of London as compared with the railroad system of Great Britain. During the eight years between September 30, 1870, and September 30, 1878, the entire railroad system of Massachusetts was operated at a cost of 1,165 lives, apart from all cases of injury which did not prove fatal. The returns in this respect also may be accepted as reasonably accurate, as the deaths were all returned, though the cases of merely personal injury probably were not. The annual average was 146 lives. During the ten years, 1868-78, 2,587 cases of death from accidental causes, or 259 a year, were recorded as having taken place in the city of Boston. In other words, the annual average of deaths by accident in the city of Boston alone exceeds that consequent on running all the railroads of the state by eighty per cent. Unless, therefore, the railroad system is to be considered as an exception to all other functions of modern life, and as such is to be expected to do its work without injury to life or limb, this showing does not constitute a very heavy indictment against it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

AMERICAN AS COMPARED WITH FOREIGN RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.

Up to this point, the statistics and experience of Massachusetts only have been referred to. This is owing to the fact that the railroad returns of that state are more carefully prepared and tabulated than are those of any other state, and afford, therefore, more satisfactory data from which to draw conclusions. The territorial area from which the statistics are in this case derived is very limited, and it yet remains to compare the results deduced from them with those derived from the similar experience of other communities. This, however, is not an easy thing to do; and, while it is difficult enough as respects Europe, it is even more difficult as respects America taken as a whole. This last fact is especially unfortunate in view of the circumstance that, in regard to railway accidents, the United States, whether deservedly or not, enjoy a most undesirable reputation. Foreign authorities have a way of referring to our "well-known national disregard of human life," with a sort of complacency, at once patronizing and contemptuous, which is the reverse of pleasing. Judging by the tone of their comments, the natural inference would be that railroad disasters of the worst description were in America matters of such frequent occurrence as to excite scarcely any remark. As will presently be made very apparent, this impression, for it is only an impression, can, so far as the country as a whole is concerned, neither be proved nor disproved, from the absence of sufficient data from which to argue. As respects Massachusetts, however, and the same statement may perhaps be made of the whole belt of states north of the Potomac and the Ohio, there is no basis for it. There is no reason to suppose that railroad traveling is throughout that region accompanied by any peculiar or unusual degree of danger.

The great difficulty, just referred to, in comparing the results deduced from equally complete statistics of different countries, lies in the variety of the arbitrary rules under which the computations in making them up are effected. As an example in point, take the railroad returns of Great Britain and those of Massachusetts. They are in each case prepared with a great deal of care, and the results deduced from them may fairly be accepted as approximately correct. As respects accidents, the number of cases of death and of personal injury are annually reported, and with tolerable completeness, though in the latter respect there is probably in both cases room for improvement. The whole comparison turns, however, on the way in which the entire number of passengers annually carried is computed. In Great Britain, for instance, in 1878, these were returned, using round numbers only, at 565,000,000, and in Massachusetts at 34,000,000. By dividing these totals by the number of cases of death and injury reported as occurring to passengers from causes beyond their control, we shall arrive apparently at a fair comparative showing as to the relative safety of railroad traveling in the two communities. The result for that particular year would have been that while in Great Britain one passenger in each 23,500,000 was killed, and one in each 481,600 injured from causes beyond their control, in Massachusetts none were killed and only one in each 14,000,000 was in any way injured. Unfortunately, however, a closer examination reveals a very great error in the computation, affecting every comparative result drawn from it. In the English returns no allowance whatever is made for the very large number of journeys made by season-ticket or commutation passengers, while in Massachusetts, on the contrary, each person of this class enters into the grand total as making two trips each day, 156 trips on each quarterly ticket, and 626 trips on each annual. Now in 1878 more than 418,000 holders of season tickets were returned by the railway companies of Great Britain. How many of these were quarterly and how many were annual travelers, does not appear. If they were all annual travelers, no less than 261,000,000 journeys should be added to the 565,000,000 in the returns, in order to arrive at an equal basis for a comparison between the foreign and the American roads: this method, however, would be manifestly inaccurate, so it only remains, in the absence of all reliable data, and for the purpose of comparison solely, to strike out from the Massachusetts returns the 8,320,727 season-ticket passages, which at once reduces by over 3,000,000 the number of journeys to each case of injury. As season-ticket passengers do travel and are exposed to danger in the same degree as trip-ticket passengers, no result is approximately accurate which leaves them out of the computation. At present, however, the question relates not to the positive danger or safety of traveling by rail, but to its relative danger in different communities.

Allowance for this discrepancy can, however, be made by adding to the English official results an additional nineteen per cent., that, according to the returns of 1877 and 1878, being the proportion of the season-ticket to other passengers on the roads of Great Britain. Taking then the Board of Trade returns for the eight years 1870-7, it will be found that during this period about one passenger in each 14,500,000 carried in that country has been killed in railroad accidents, and about one in each 436,000 injured. This may be assumed as a fair average for purpose of comparison, though it ought to be said that in Great Britain the percentage of casualties to passengers shows a decided tendency to decrease, and during the years 1877-8 the percentages of killed fell from one in 15,000,000 to one in 38,000,000 and those of injured from one in 436,000 to one in 766,000. The aggregates from which these results are deduced are so enormous, rising into the thousands of millions, that a certain degree of reliance can be placed on them. In the case of Massachusetts, however, the entire period during which the statistics are entitled to the slightest weight includes only eight years, 1872-9, and offers an aggregate of but 274,000,000 journeys, or but about forty per cent. of those included in the British returns of the single year 1878. During these years the killed in Massachusetts were one in each 13,000,000 and the injured one in each 1,230,000;—or, while the killed in the two cases were very nearly in the same proportion,—respectively one in 14.5, and one in 13, speaking in millions,—the British injured were really three to one of the Massachusetts.

The equality as respects the killed in this comparison, and the marked discrepancy as respects the injured is calculated at first sight to throw doubts on the fullness of the Massachusetts returns. There seems no good reason why the injured should in the one case be so much more numerous than in the other. This, however, is susceptible on closer examination of a very simple and satisfactory explanation. In case of accident the danger of sustaining slight personal injury is not so great in Massachusetts as in Great Britain. This is due to the heavier and more solid construction of the American passenger coaches, and their different interior arrangement. This fact, and the real cause of the large number of slightly injured,—"shaken" they call it,—in the English railroad accidents is made very apparent in the following extract from Mr. Calcroft's report for 1877;—

"It is no doubt a fact that collisions and other accidents to railway trains are attended with less serious consequences in proportion to the solidity of construction of passenger carriages. The accomodation and internal arrangements of third-class carriages, however, especially those used in ordinary trains, are defective as regards safety and comfort, as compared with many carriages of the same class on foreign railways. The first-class passenger, except when thrown against his opposite companion, or when some luggage falls upon him, is generally saved from severe contusion by the well-stuffed or padded linings of the carriages; whilst the second-class and third-class passenger is generally thrown with violence against the hard wood-work. If the second and third-class carriages had a high padded back lining, extending above the head of the passenger, it would probably tend to lesson the danger to life and limb which, as the returns of accidents show, passengers in carriages of this class are much exposed to in train accidents."[28]

In 1878 the passenger journeys made in the second and third class carriages of the United Kingdom were thirteen to one of those made in first class carriages;—or, expressed in millions, there were but 41 of the latter to 523 of the former. There can be very little question indeed that if, during the last ten years, thirteen out of fourteen of the passengers on Massachusetts railroads had been carried in narrow compartments with wooden seats and unlined sides the number of those returned as slightly injured in the numerous accidents which occurred would have been at least three-fold larger than it was. If it had not been ten-fold larger it would have been surprising.

The foregoing comparison, relates however, simply to passengers killed in accidents for which they are in no degree responsible. When, however, the question reverts to the general cost in life and limb at which the railroad systems are worked and the railroad traffic is carried on to the entire communities served, the comparison is less favorable to Massachusetts. Taking the eight years of 1871-8, the British returns include 30,641 cases of injury, and 9,113 of death; while those of Massachusetts for the same years included 1,165 deaths, with only 1,044 cases of injury; in the one case a total of 39,745 casualties, as compared with 2,209 the other. It will, however be noticed that while in the British returns the cases of injury are nearly three-fold those of death, in the Massachusetts returns the deaths exceed the cases of injury. This fact in the present case cannot but throw grave suspicion on the completeness of the Massachusetts returns. As a matter of practical experience it is well known that cases of injury almost invariably exceed those of death, and the returns in which the disproportion is greatest, if no sufficient explanation presents itself, are probably the most full and reliable. Taking, therefore, the deaths in the two cases as the better basis for comparison, it will be found that the roads of Great Britain in the grand result accomplished seventeen-fold the work of those of Massachusetts with less than eight times as many casualties; had the proportion between the results accomplished and the fatal injuries inflicted been maintained, but 536 deaths instead of 1,165 would have appeared in the Massachusetts returns. The reason of this difference in result is worth looking for, and fortunately the statistical tables are in both cases carried sufficiently into detail to make an analysis possible; and this analysis, when made, seems to indicate very clearly that while, for those directly connected with the railroads, either as passengers or as employés, the Massachusetts system in its working involves relatively a less degree of danger than that of Great Britain, yet for the outside community it involves very much more. Take, for instance, the two heads of accidents at grade-crossings and accidents to trespassers, which have been already referred to. In Great Britain highway grade-crossings are discouraged. In Massachusetts they are practically insisted upon. The results of the policy pursued may in each case be read with sufficient distinctness in the bills of mortality. During the years 1872-7, of 1,929 casualties to persons on the railroads of Massachusetts, no less than 200 occurred at highway grade crossings. Had the accidents of this description in Great Britain been equally numerous in proportion to the larger volume of the traffic of that country, they would have resulted in over 3,000 cases of death or personal injury; they did in fact result in 586 such cases. In Massachusetts, again, to walk at will on any part of a railroad track is looked upon as a sort of prescriptive and inalienable right of every member of the community, irrespective of age, sex, color, or previous condition of servitude. Accordingly, during the six years referred to, this right was exercised at the cost of life or limb to 591 persons,—one in four of all the casualties which occurred in connection with the railroad system. In Great Britain the custom of using the tracks of railroads as a foot-path seems to exist, but, so far from being regarded as a right, it is practiced in perpetual terror of the law. Accordingly, instead of some 9,000 cases of death or injury from this cause during these six years, which would have been the proportion under like conditions in Massachusetts, the returns showed only 2,379. These two are among the most constant and fruitful causes of accident in connection with the railroad system of America. In great Britain their proportion to the whole number of casualties which take place is scarcely a seventh part of what it is in Massachusetts. Here they constitute very nearly fifty per cent. of all the accidents which occur; there they constitute but a little over seven. There is in this comparison a good deal of solid food for legislative thought, if American legislators would but take it in; for this is one matter the public policy in regard to which can only be fixed by law.