1841.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



85 



By law, engine drivers of railway trains have not hitherto been 

 contemplated as a ilistinct bods', nor have their duties and responsi- 

 bilities been defined, except in general acts relating to all servants of 

 railway companies, and it is to this point we think the attention of 

 legislature may be directed with peculiar advantage ; in case of acci- 

 dent occurring from negligence, it is of vital importance to the com- 

 munity at large that at any rate the delinquent should not again be 

 suffered to risk the loss of life, the mere punisliment by tine or other- 

 wise is not enough to protect the public, and no combination of the 

 railway interest to denounce the man as unfit tor the trust is sufficient 

 to meet the case, for unless the delinquent has been condenuied by an 

 impartial judge, fully competent to understand the case, it remains 

 uncertain if he or some other have been guilty of the offence, and 

 opens a door to ]>ersecution which will effectually prevent men of 

 honourable intentions from accepting duties of so arduous a nature ; it 

 is therefore as necessary that they should be protected from injury 

 when discharging their duties with fidelity and care, as that they 

 should be punished when the reverse obtains, and to attain this ob- 

 ject we should propose that men in this occupation be governed by 

 laws in some measure similar to those enacted for the observance of 

 pilots, to whose duties as conductors and guardians of life and property 

 they approximate more nearly than to any other. 



For this purpose it will be necessary to institute a corporation 

 similar to that of the Trinity House, whose duty and responsibility it 

 should be to examine and grant licences to proper persons for the 

 conduct of railway engines, and to make bve laws for tlieir regulation, 

 and enforce them after approval of the Privy Council, which bye laws 

 should be publicly exhibited for the inspection of alt persons interested 

 therein, for at least three months previous to being enforced. In 

 carrying out the intentions uf a new act of this description, it would 

 be necessary to allow some latitude in the granting of licences to those 

 who are at present engaged as engine drivers. In future, however, 

 those e^tru^ted with the charge of engines might be divided into 

 three classes, viz., 1st, engine drivers: -iid, engine drivers or stokers; 

 and 3rd, apprentices; the two iormer should always accompany the 

 engine, and perhaps the apprentice also, whose instruction should, 

 however, in part consist of mechanical knowledge acquired in the 

 workshops ; as titter each man should derive his authority to act in 

 either capacity by licence, stating the grade to which he belonged, 

 granted after due examination and certificate on oath of the examining 

 officer, which licence should be renewed every year. Each apprentice 

 should serve five years before he becomes eligible to receive a licence 

 as second engine driver, and each second engine driver should farther 

 serve three years before he is entrusted with the entire command of 

 an engine as first engine-man, when he should execute a bond for se- 

 curing obedience to the bye-laws. An annual premium should be 

 paid for each licence, to defray the expenses of cirrying out the act, 

 and the surplus be carried to a fund for superanuated and infirm 

 drivers, which fund should be also provided for by a per centage of 

 (say) sixpence per pound retained from their earnings when employ- 

 ed. All appointments should be registered. Licences should be re- 

 voked, annulled, or suspended by the engineei--in-chief, and those 

 suspended may appeal to the corporation. 



I<o unhcensed person should take charge of any engine, under a 

 penalty. The description should appear on his licence, and none be 

 allowed to act until registered, or without producing his licence. He 

 should deliver up his licence when required, and be liable to penalty 

 for acting when suspended. He should be liable for lending his li- 

 cence, for drunkenness or misconduct. Drivers quitting without con- 

 sent should be liable to jienaltv, and a penalty should be enforced ou 

 railway companies for employing unlicenced engine drivers. Penal- 

 ties should be appropriated to a relief fund. It would not, however, 

 be a sufficient security to the public that the engine drivers only be 

 made subject to these or similar regulations, it is imperative that all 

 other servants connected with the transmission of trains should be 

 subjected to similar regulations and strict definition of respectijfe 

 duties. 



We think it has been far too frequently the practice to allow blame 

 to be cast on the engine drivers, rather than silt to the bottom who 

 may have been the real delinquent, and it has been lost sight of by 

 the public, that perhaps eight out of ten of the late disastrous acci- 

 dents are not wholly attributable to their negligence, and that such a 

 groundless charge against a body of men when endeavouring to exert 

 their utmost abilities, is calculated to cause a bad moral influence, 

 and debar intelligent persons from accepting a situation where no 

 protection is afforded. 



DRAINAGE BILL. 



We have long wished that some measure should be brought forward 

 to provide an efficient system of architectural police, and we are pleased 

 to see at last some hopes of this being effected. In the hands of the 

 architect and the engineer to a great degree are left the health and 

 happiness of the population, and this is particularly the ease in large 

 towns. The medical man does but follow, for the responsibility lies 

 more on the architect than on any one else. Most of the requisites 

 fir health depend on the due administration of his duties, food is sup- 

 plied by others, but he has to provide lodging, water, drainage — nay, 

 it may be said, even air. If we want to appreciate how great is this 

 responsibility, lei us take two cases from this metropolis, we will take 

 the western or Kensington division, and the eastern or Whitechapel 

 division, in the former the annual average of deaths is •2-2 per cent., in 

 in the latter 3-1 or more than 50 per cent, higher, a result attributable 

 mainly to the want of drainage and to the bad mode of construction. 

 In Whitechapel there are as many as four females in a hundred who 

 die in a year, an average as low as that of Lisbon, while as we have 

 seen, in another part of the metropolis the average is little more than 

 one half. It is not our purpose at present to enter at any iength into 

 this subject, for we presume that our readers must be too well aware 

 by experience of the main facts — we here however state it as our de- 

 cided conviction that one-third of the deaths in this metropolis, caus- 

 ing an annual loss of Ten Thousand Lives, is mainly owing to the 

 inefficiency of our architectural police, and let it be reinem'iered that 

 London is one of the healtluest cities in the world, that even the great 

 partial mortality of which we have spoken is nothing to that of Dublin, 

 Manchester, Glasgow or Birmingh.im — still in the last ten years One 

 Hundred Thousand Lives have been sacrificed in this metropolis of 

 civilization through the ignorance of the public, and the negligence of 

 the legislature. 



Upon the architect, we have explained, that there devolves a higli 

 share of responsibility, that upon the due discharge of his duties the 

 health of his fellow-citizens is dependent, we therefore say that it is 

 incumbent on ',he profession not to be supine under sucli circumstances, 

 but to give every aid in their power towards remedying the evils 

 which have sprung from a bad system. The proper fulfilment of these 

 onerous duties gives the architect a high claim upon the public sym- 

 pathy, and must tend to raise the moral and social position of the pro- 

 fession. The architect ceases to be an artist, whom we call in to 

 minister to our luxuries, or a mechanic, v^liose brick and mortar ser- 

 vices we can cheaplv pav, he comes before us in another ('apacitv, he 

 has more weighty cares, and the pub'ic will not on y give him a larger 

 share of their esteem, but a greater measure of power. It is to in- 

 structed men that the public have tu look for the erficient direction of 

 a proper system, and to no other hands can it be satisfactorily confided. 

 We therefore call on the profession in the consideration of this im- 

 portant question to dismiss their private interests, and to consult only 

 their public obligations, to look with kindness at measures calculated 

 to elevate the dignity ol' their pursuits, and to see defects only for the 

 purpose of giving every assistance to amend them. 



We confess that the consideration of recommen'iations, such as those 

 contained in the Drainage Bill, is to a certain extent involved in diffi- 

 cultv, for an interference with existing modes is evidently calculated 

 to disturb and seriously injure many iirivate interests. By the pro- 

 posed enactment the landed proprietor will not be allowed to build as 

 he likes, he will be put to expenses which he would be anxious to 

 avoid, and he will not be able to make as much as he formerly could 

 of his property. This is the first feeling suggested on reading the 

 bill, but we should take but a narrow view of the question did we limit 

 ourselves to such a view. There are other private interests concerned 

 besides those of the holder of building ground, there are the interests 

 of all classes of the community which are affected b/ the bad working 

 of the present system. Let us suppose that in the midst of Pimlico or 

 the Regent's Park, among houses in \vhich every comfort has been 

 studied, a small plot should be left unbuilt, it is clearly in the power 

 ofthe owner at present from the demand for habitations created by 

 the population already established in the neighbourhood — it is clearly 

 in the power of the owner, we say, to establish a pernicious fever colony 

 in the midst of the most healthy district. In his anxiety to make the 

 most of his property he may, as others have done, build a nest of 

 houses, back to back,'with narrow alleys, no thoroughfare, and without 

 drainage, and without provision for the removal of tilth of any kind, or 

 he may do worse by letting all the refuse fi 1 one open drain. Let the 

 windows be small and immoveable, the rooms of the most cramped 

 dimension, l»t him fill these houses with those who are unfortunately 

 competitors for the worst accommodation, and malaria will do the rest 

 —fever will spring up in the devoted district, the houses ofthe poor 



