CONSEQUENCES OF IMPRUDENCE. 



9. From what has been stated and explained, it will be evident 

 that of all the means of locomotion which human invention has 

 as yet devised, railway travelling is the safest in an almost 

 infinite degree. Indeed, the risk to life and limb, when reduced 

 to a numerical statement, seems to be evanescent. Nevertheless 

 the apprehension of danger in this mode of travelling enter- 

 tained by timid persons, and even by some who scarcely merit 

 that appellation, is not inconsiderable. 



This may arise partly from the circumstance of the public 

 not being generally aware of the smallness of the amount of the 

 danger which has been here described, but in a greater degree 

 from the terrific results of some of the rare accidents which have 

 occurred. 



In the modes of travelling used before the prevalence of rail- 

 ways, accidents to life and limb were frequent, but in general 

 they were individually so unimportant as not to attract notice, 

 or to find a place in the public journals. In the case of railways, 

 however, where large numbers are carried in the same train, 

 and simultaneously exposed to danger, accidents, though more 

 rare, are sometimes attended with appalling results. Much 

 notice is therefore drawn to them. They are commented on in 

 the journals, and public alarm is excited. 



Notwithstanding the smallness of the amount of risk, yet, as 

 in many cases the danger of accident beyond the control of the 

 passenger may be diminished by the adoption of proper pre- 

 cautions, and in all cases the causes of danger arising from his 

 own ignorance or neglect may be wholly removed, it may be 

 beneficial to give in a succinct form short rules, by the obser- 

 vance of which the traveller will render still less the amount of 

 that risk already so small. 



"With this view we have put together the following series of 

 plain intelligible rules, founded partly upon rather a large 

 personal experience in railway travelling in every quarter of 

 the globe where this species of locomotion has been adopted. 



10. PLAIN RULES FOR RAILWAY TRAVELLERS. 



11. Rule I. NEVER ATTEMPT TO GET INTO OR OUT OF A RAIL- 

 WAY CARRIAGE WHILE IT IS MOVING, NO MATTER HOW 

 SLOWLY. 



Self-preservation imperiously commands the observance of 

 this rule, since forty in an hundred of the accidents which occur 

 to passengers through their own imprudence, arise from this 

 cause, and of these forty, twenty-seven are fatal. 



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