THEIR AWFUL EFFECTS. 



never known in former times, is undeniable ; but that the risk 

 to life ami linib has been augmented, is a conclusion which 

 we should only be justified in assuming after a much more 

 rigorous examination of the question. 



4. Meanwhile, it may be observed that, notwithstanding the 

 degree to which imaginations may be excited, and fears aroused 

 by such recitals as we have described, still the public instinct, 

 independent of any rigorous statistical analysis of the point, 

 has resisted all exaggerated estimate of the danger, and it 

 is incontestable that travelling over land was formerly regarded 

 with greater apprehension of danger than at present. A 

 century has not elapsed since no prudent person would start 

 upon a journey, say from Exeter to London, without a solemn 

 farewell of his kindred and the deposition of his last will and 

 testament in trustworthy hands. 



5. To prevent exaggerated apprehensions of danger, and 

 reduce the fears of the timid within reasonable limits, it will 

 only be necessary to investigate the actual extent of the danger, 

 by comparing the number of casualties with the number of 

 persons who travel, taking into account the distances over which 

 they are transported. By this means the real risk of life and 

 limb incurred by a railway traveller can be determined with as 

 much arithmetical precision as that with which the average 

 duration of life is computed from the tabular reports of births 

 and deaths ; and we know that the latter has been determined 

 with all the exactitude and certainty necessary to render it the 

 basis of the operations of commercial institutions for life 

 insurance, involving many millions of capital. 



6. To do justice at once to the public who are the victims of 

 these casualties, and to the railway administration to whose 

 negligence and mismanagement they are generally ascribed, it- 

 will be only necessary to ascertain the causes which in each case 

 have produced them. So far as they may prove to arise from 

 the imperfections which are incidental even to the irfost efficient 

 and best constructed machinery, they must be submitted to as 

 inevitable. Happily, however, the proportion of casualties 

 which admit only of this explanation, is infinitesimally minute. 

 So far as they shall appear to arise from maladministration, as 

 from overcrowding the lines with traffic, overloading the engines, 

 or what is the same, providing an insufficient stock of locomotive 

 power, or from the negligence or insufficiency of the railway 

 servants, the executive bodies of the railway companies must be 

 held accountable, and the prevailing character of the accidents 

 will indicate the direction in which administrative reform may be 

 required. So far ; in fine, as they mav appear to arise from 



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