1:23 Mr. B. Brudenell Carter [May 9, 



to aid in the look-out. It must be also remembered that to overrun 

 a danger signal does not of necessity imjily a collision. A driver 

 may overrun the signal, and after doing so may see a train or other 

 obstruction on the line, and may stop in time to avoid an accident. 

 In such a case he would probably be reported and fined for over- 

 running the signal ; and, if the same thing occurred again, he would 

 be dismissed for his assumed carelessness, probably with no suspicion 

 of his defect. Colour-blind firemen are unquestionably thus driven 

 out of the service by the complaints of their drivers ; and none but 

 railway officials know how many cases of overrunning signals, followed 

 by disputes as to what the signals actually were, occur in the course 

 of a year's work. I have never heard of an instance in this country 

 in which, after a railway accident, the colour-vision of the driver 

 concerned, or of his fireman, has been tested by an expert, on the part 

 either of the Board of Trade or of the Company ; but a fireman in 

 the United States has recently recovered heavy damages from the 

 Company for the loss of one of his legs in a collision which was 

 proved to have beea occasioned by the colour-blindness of the driver. 

 Looking at the whole question, I feel that the danger on railways is 

 a real one, but that it is minimised by the several considerations to 

 which I have referred, and that it is much smaller than the frequency 

 of the defect might lead us to think likely. 



At sea, the danger is much more formidable. The lights appear 

 at all sorts of times and places, and there may be only one responsible 

 person on the look-out. Mr. Bickerton, of Liverpool, has lately 

 published accounts of three cases in which the colour-blindness of 

 officers of the mercantile marine, all of whom had passed the Board 

 of Trade examination, was accidentally discovered by the captains 

 being on deck when the officers in question gave wrong orders con- 

 sequent upon mistaking the light shown by an approaching vessel. 

 The loss of the Ville du Havre was almost certainly due to colour- 

 blindness ; and a very fatal collision in American waters, some years 

 ago, between the I>-aac Bell and the Lumberman, 'was traced, long after 

 the event, to the colour-blindness of a pilot, who had been unjustly 

 accused of being drunk at the time of the occurrence. In how many 

 instances colour-blindness has been the unsuspected cause of wrecks 

 and other calamities at sea, it is impossible to do more than con- 

 jecture. 



It is necessary, then, alike in the public interest and in the 

 interest of the colour-blind, who have doubtless often suffered in the 

 misfortunes which their defects have produced, to detect them in time 

 to prevent them from entering into the marine and railway services ; 

 and the next question is, how this detection should be accomplished. 

 We have to distinguish the colour-blind from the colour-sighted ; but 

 we must be careful not to confound colour-blindness with the much 

 more common condition of colour-ignorance. 



It would surprise many people, more especially many ladies, to 

 discover the extent to which sheer ignorance of colour prevails among 



