CHANCES AGAINST ACCIDENT. 



23 and the injury of 22 persons of all classes, and that the same 

 amount of passenger traffic in 1850-1, cost the lives of 19 and 

 the injury of 30 persons. The total number of sufferers being 

 45 in the former and 49 in the latter period. 



So far therefore as the aggregate of the sufferers from 

 accidents can be taken as exponents of the efficiency of railway 

 management, no very sensible improvement seems to have taken 

 place in the five years over which these reports extend. 



20. On the foreign railways it might be expected that the 

 prevalence of accidents would be less, owing to the less crowded 

 state of the lines. On the Belgian railways, during the three 

 years ending 1st December, 1846, there were but three passengers 

 killed by causes beyond their control. The total mileage of the 

 passengers was 239,629541, from which it follows that in the 

 transport of a million of passengers an hundred miles, the 

 number of passengers killed by causes beyond their control, 

 was 1'25, being very little less than on the English railways. 



21. On the French railways, accidents have been still more 

 rare. One fatal accident occurred many years ago on the 

 Paris and Versailles Railway, on which occasion a train took 

 fire, and appalling consequences followed. Another serious 

 accident occurred on the Fampoux embankment of the 

 Northern Railway in 1846. These however stand almost alone. 



In the two years ending 31st December, 1848, there was not a 

 single fatal accident to a passenger reported on any French 

 railway. 



22. It may not be uninteresting to put in juxtaposition with 

 this the returns of accidents produced by ordinary horse- 

 coaches travelling in Paris and its environs : 



Total . . . 74 2073 



23. However insignificant may be the proportion of the 

 number of persons injured to the total amount of passenger 

 traffic, it may not be without interest or utility to inquire into 

 the causes which produced these accidents. 



The causes which are not dependent on the imprudence of the 

 sufferers are, generally, either collision of the passenger train 



169 



