WHAT IS THE RISK? 



passengers travelling an hundred miles ten would be killed and 

 an hundred wounded. The risk of life in such a journey would, 

 therefore, be 1 to 100,000, and the risk of personal injury, not 

 causing death, would be 1 to 10,000. That is to say, when a 

 traveller undertakes a railway trip of an hundred miles on that 

 system of railways, the chances against his being killed are 

 100,000 to 1, and the chances against his being injured, without 

 loss of life, are 10,000 to 1.* 



10. The official returns, published annually by the Board of 

 Trade, supply all the data which are necessary to ascertain the 

 actual amount of danger incurred in railway travelling in the 

 United Kingdom. We propose, in the present tract, to apply to 

 the data thus supplied the principles of calculation explained 

 above, so as to ascertain what is, under the existing system of 

 railway management, the actual risk to life and limb incurred 

 by a railway traveller. 



By applying the same calculation to different intervals, we 

 shall see whether the disasters which have from time to time 

 been reported, have caused such improved management as to 

 diminish the risk in any sensible degree. 



11. The following is the classified summary of the accidents 

 reported as having taken place on the railways of the United 

 Kingdom in 1847-8 : 



Analysis of the Railway Accidents for the Two Years ending 

 December 31, 1848. 



* More exactly the chances would be 999,999 to 1 in the former case, 

 and 99,999 to 1 in the latter. We have preferred the round numbers as 

 being more simple, and sufficiently exact for all practical purposes. 



It is easy to see how from these data the risks attending other distances 

 would be calculated, since the risk would vary in the exact ratio of the 



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