813 



RAILWAY. 



RAILWAY. 



911 



that the standing orders have not been complied with, but they 

 do not at all enter into the inquiry as to the merits of the bill. If 

 the standing orders should, however, have been complied with, a 

 report is made to that effect. Within three days from the date of 

 the indorsement of the bill by the examiner of petitions, the 

 petition for its being'read must be presented by a member, and it must 

 be accompanied by a printed copy of the bill ; and if the standing 

 orders have been complied with, the bill is at once ordered to be 

 brought in ; if they have not been complied with, the petition is 

 referred to the standing orders committee, who are empowered to make 

 special reports to the House on such subjects. The second reading of 

 the bill takes place at some period between the third and seventh day 

 from the first reading, and is considered substantially to sanction, in 

 the opinion of the House, the principle of the bill, which is then 

 committed. It is firstly referred to the general committee on railway 

 and canal bills, which names the chairman and members of the select 

 committee before whom the examination into the allegations of the 

 petition and the clauses of the bill takes place. The select committee 

 must consist of five members not locally or otherwise interested in the 

 bill, when the latter is opposed; or the bill may be referred to the 

 chairman of ways and means and to two members, when it is unop- 

 posed. After an interval of eight days at least from the second 

 reading, the select committee proceed to hear the parties who seek the 

 act, and those who have petitioned against the bill, either by them- 

 selves, by their agents, or counsel ; and after a careful examination of 

 the evidence submitted to them (in the House of Lords the evidence 

 is taken upon oath ), the committee are bound to report upon the various 

 subjects involved. These subjects mainly affect the fitness of the 

 proposed railway in an engineering point of view, the peculiar local 

 circumstances affecting the works, and the main allegations of the 

 petitions for or against the bill, with the reasons of the committee for 

 agreeing to or dissenting from them. The committee is bound not to 

 authorise a company to raise a larger sum by loan or mortgage than 

 one-third of the capital ; and until 50 per cent, of the capital has been 

 paid up, the company u not to be allowed to raise any loan. No 

 alterations of turnpike roads are to be allowed which should leave the 

 rate of inclination of the new road more than 1 in 30 ; nor shall any 

 other road be made, without special reason, whose incline shall exceed 

 1 in 20. Numerous provisions are made also by the instructions of the 

 House for the purpose of preventing any abuse of the powers to be 

 conferred by the bill, or of preventing the smuggling of clauses for one 

 object under cover of a bill avowedly proposed for another one. It is 

 worthy of remark that amongst these instructions, which in fact con- 

 stitute the standing orders to the committees, there is one whose 

 object it avowedly U to prevent the payment of interest upon deposits, 

 or payments on calls, until the line is opened a course of proceeding 

 diametrically opposed to the one followed by all other countries in 

 Europe. The usual course of the inquiry before the committee, so as 

 to enable them to make their report to the House, is to discuss firstly 

 the preamble of the bill ; and, if that should be declared to be proved, 

 then to discuss the clauses seriatim. In this uftnner the whole of the 

 measure is capable of being thoroughly examined, and the obnoxious 

 na can be removed if the parties really interested attend to their 

 own business ; the principal difficulty, however, attending all these pro- 

 ceedings lies in their cost. 



When the report of the select committee has been made, the 

 committee clerk delivers into the Private Bill Office " the committee 

 lull," which is printed at the expense of the parties, and delivered to 

 the members of the House. The report of the bill is ordered to lie 

 upon the table, as also is the amended bill ; and after the interval of 

 three clear days from the delivery of the report the consideration of 

 the bill may be proceeded with, on the third reading. So jealous is 

 our legislature, theoretically, of the rights of private property, that it is 

 easy, even at this stage, to stop the progress of a bill ; but, in fact, it 

 is very rarely that the decision of a select committee is reversed. The 

 usual course is, that the bill, as it leaves the committee, passes on the 

 third reading ; and it then has to go through nearly a similar ordeal in 

 the House of Lords ; and, unless important amendments should there 

 be introduced, the bill receives the royal assent, and becomes an Act of 

 Parliament. The proceedings before the House of Lords differ in 

 some respects from those which are followed before the House of 

 Commons ; but the differences consist mainly in points of form, and 

 they seem to have been inspired principally by the desire of the former 

 House to protect in the most efficient manner the vested rights of pro- 

 perty. The reader who would desire to study more in detail the law 

 and the practice of Parliament in these matters, would do well to 

 consult the work by Mr. May (before referred to, and to read the 

 Standing Orders published by the respective Houses of the legislature 

 at the commencement of each session. Amongst other provisions 

 made by the House of Lords, there is one it may be important here to 

 notice namely, that they fix at the commencement of every session a 

 day beyond which they will not take any proceedings in private bills, 

 whencesoever proceeding. Mr. May's work contains also an ample 

 description of the fees payable to the officers of the respective Houses 

 of Parliament, a study of which might fairly be recommended to the 

 attention of the administrative reformers of the day. 



ug to the numerous subjects embraced, a railway act is always a 

 lengthy document ; but of late years these measures have been 



ARTS AND 8CI. DIV. VOL. VI. 



considerably simplified by the passing of the Railway and of the Lands 

 Clauses Consolidation Acts. In cases where companies simply apply 

 for powers for increasing their capital, or when they apply for powers 

 of amalgamation, or purchase of other companies, the forms of parlia- 

 mentary practice are slightly different from those above described; 

 and the Wharucliffe standing orders prescribe the observance of certain 

 conditions under the peculiar circumstances they were designed to 

 meet, especially with reference to the manner of ascertaining the 

 opinions of the shareholders of any existing company as to the extension 

 of their operations. The principle of this legislation is, however, on 

 the whole, extremely equitable, and it substantially affords protection 

 to existing interests, whilst it gives every reasonable facility for the 

 development of enterprise. 



Formation of the Road. The Act of Parliament being obtained, the 

 land required for the railway is definitively set out and purchased. 

 Power is usually given to take a width of 22 yards, exclusive of that 

 which is necessary for the sloping sides of cuttings or of embankments ; 

 and it may be added that, in ordinary cases, the average quantity of 

 land taken is about at the rate of 12 acres per mile lineal of road, 

 leaving out of account the stations, when the latter are of considerable 

 importance. The price to be paid for the land is either settled by 

 amicable arrangement, or it is fixed by a jury ; and it includes all 

 claims for compensation, severance, and compulsory purchase. It 

 appears that, practically, railway companies are compelled to pay about 

 double the real value of all the land or hereditaments they take so 

 deeply rooted is the popular opinion that the interests' of private 

 individuals should be studied at the expense of public companies. 



The works themselves connected with the formation of the road 

 consist in the embankments and cuttings, the tunnels, the bridges, 

 viaducts, and culverts, and the stations and minor accessory buildings. 

 These works are usually divided into separate contracts, and are let by 

 public or by private competition, unless when as is far too often the 

 case in England the bulk of the capital has to be provided by the 

 contractor. In ordinary cases, the works which would take the longest 

 time are commenced the first, especially when it is desired to open the 

 line at once in its entire length. Before any works, however, are com- 

 menced, it is essential to make a series of deep borings wherever 

 important structures are to be raised or tunnels to be formed ; the 

 result of the preliminary observations upon the Kilsby Tunnel seem, 

 indeed, to show that these borings should be made very close to one 

 another, and that they should be carried at least to the maximum 

 depth it may be desired hereafter to attain. Careful observations 

 must also be made upon the hydrographical conditions of the country 

 to be traversed, the inclination of the strata, and their hydroscopic 

 nature, not only for the purpose of dealing with the springs they may 

 yield, and their greater or lesser tendency to floods, but also in order 

 to provide against any danger from the slipping of the earth. It must 

 be observed here that tunnels upon railways are objectionable, on 

 account of their darkness, their dampness, and the singular inter- 

 ference they produce with the action of the electrical telegraphs, as 

 well as on account of the special attendance they require. As far, 

 therefore, as possible, they should be avoided ; nor should they ever 

 be resorted to in the open country where land can be obtained cheaply, 

 unless the cutting it would otherwise be necessary to make should 

 exceed 80 feet in depth. In towns, of course, the value of land will 

 materially affect this question, and, as in the case of the Underground 

 Railway, it may even be desirable to execute nearly the whole of the 

 line in tunnel. [TUNNEL.] 



The angle of inclination of the slopes of cuttings should be made to 

 vary with the nature of the material traversed. Hard limestone or 

 sandstone rocks will stand when dressed off vertically ; chalk and 

 the softer limestones-will ultimately assume a slope of about 45, or of 

 1 base to 1 vertical; hard gravel, bound together by waters containing 

 the hydrous oxide of iron, will stand at a similar inclination to chalk, 

 but the ordinary open gravel and sand, without water, should be 

 dressed to a slope of 14 base to 1 in vertical height; the London, 

 Oxford, and Gault clays may sometimes stand with an inclination of 2 

 or 3 to 1, but if they should contain any beds of permeable sand they 

 have been known to slip even with inclinations of 10 to 1. Wherever 

 moveable strata of this description are encountered, the greatest pre- 

 cautions must be taken to provide an efficient surface drainage, so as 

 to prevent the passage of water to the more permeable lower strata. 

 The danger arising from the tendency of some materials to slip after 

 the condition of stability they have naturally assumed has once been 

 disturbed, is principally felt when the cutting has to be made on a 

 hill side, and when it lays bare the lower edges of inclined beds of 

 sand or of gravel intercalated between beds of clay. In many cases, 

 it is better to construct at once a retaining wall than to trust to any 

 form of slope ; but the thrust of a lofty bank of earth, such as is now 

 under consideration, must be so enormous that especial precautions 

 must be taken to guard against its effects, and to provide an outlet for 

 the waters which would otherwise accumulate at the base. The history 

 of the New Cross cutting, near London, of the Euston cutting, of the 

 London end of the Great Northern Railway, of the Kilsby cutting, and 

 of the cutting near the Val Fleury, on the Versailles line, may be 

 cited as illustrations of the accidents to which deep cuttings are 

 exposed, and of the means of obviating them. Much information on 

 this subject is to be found in Sganzin's ' Cours de Construction,' and in 



3 N 



