16 Railway Accidents. [January, 
upon any of the earlier periods referred to. The year 1871 
was, it appears, exceptionally free from fatal accidents; but 
Captain Tyler shows that it is not desirable to lay too much 
stress on the results of working in the case of any particular 
year, either as to the number of sufferers or as to the number 
of accidents. More returns of accidents than formerly have 
been rendered by the companies within the last two years. 
Inquiries have also been instituted during those two years 
into a greater proportion of cases, and there is, humanly 
speaking, much of chance in both. A dangerous or defec- 
tive mode of working is frequently carried on for a great 
length of time without bad results, while there are accidents 
and loss of life where greater precautions have been adopted, 
or less risk is apparently incurred. A comparatively trifling 
defect may in one case lead to much loss of life, whilst im- 
portant defects may, in another case, be unattended with 
accident. 
Setting aside considerations of humanity, the railway 
companies have a positive and direct pecuniary interest in 
the avoidance of accidents, and capital laid out with that 
object in view is not likely to be wholly unproduétive. 
Under .Lord Campbell’s Aét the railway companies are 
pecuniarily liable to those to whom any injury is caused by 
accidents, &c., on their lines, and, during the ten years 
from 1848 to 1857 inclusive, there was paid as compensation 
on account of passengers and goods injured on fourteen 
lines of railway, no less a sum than £414,440, or at the rate 
of over £40,000 a year. For the five years ending with the 
year 1871, there was similarly paid £2,348,568, of which 
£1,622,370 was as compensation for personal injury, and 
£726,198 as compensation for damage to goods. These 
sums do not, however, include anything on account of 
injury to the servants of the railway companies, to whom 
the latter are not liable by law in the same way that they 
are towards their passengers or goods traffic. 
The following table shows the number of train accidents 
that have formed the subject of inquiry, and have been 
reported on, by officers of the Board of Trade, during the 
past four years. The number of cases inquired into during 
the preceding five years averaged 83 per annum, upon 
which those for the year 1870 show an increase of 57 per 
cents—— 
