1180 REPORT—1885. 
g. Where it hinders the ready transfer of property or rights to those most capable 
of utilising them. 
h. Where it ignores the just relations to the State, and znter se of taxable 
‘subjects, and levies in flagrant disproportion to the benefits conferred. 
?, Where it negatives invention in mercantile and financial documents and 
hinders adaptation to altered circumstances. 
3. A new view of the Consequences of Unpunctuality in Railway Trains. 
By Cornetivs Watrorp, F.L.A., FSS. 
I do not purpose on this occasion to enter upon any general discussion of railway 
management, further than to say that for a full generation after the introduction of 
railway travelling, the most perverse ingenuity appears to have been brought to 
bear in order to prevent the masses of the people from enjoying its advantages. 
One of the natural consequences of this policy, beyond direct loss of revenue, seems 
to have been that when the masses began to travel, in many cases the railways 
were not in a position, as to terminal accommodation, &c., to convey them with 
punta ys not in a position, in fact, to perform the conditions of their own time- 
tables. 
By means of railways, merchants, traders, professional men, clerks, and others 
having their vocations in cities and towns, are enabled to reside in the suburbs; 
but this very fact presupposes the existence of facilities of transit to and from these 
surburban homes to their business locations. 
It is only when violent outbursts of complaint arise in the public press from 
time to time, that we obtain an insight into the method in which these supposed 
conditions are fulfilled, or rather are systematically disregarded. 
It was through the medium of recently published communications—and I shall 
only rely upon those authenticated with name and address—that I gathered the 
facts upon which I am about to comment. Persons living within a ten-mile 
radius of the southern half of the metropolis spoke of from ten to twenty-five 
minutes’ delay in performing the journey either way as a chronic state of 
irregularity. 
No doubt the landing of tens of thousands of persons daily between the hours of 
8.80 and 10.30 a.m., and conveying these away again between the hours of 4. and 6 
p-m.,is attended with enormous practical difficulties. But the railway companies 
undertake to do it, and readily enter into contracts to that end. 
On the strength of these assurances people remove their homes into the 
eountry, and build or buy houses, or enter into rental engagements extending over 
terms of years. In doing so under the present state of things, other perils than 
those involved in such financial engagements await them. These it is the especial 
object of this paper to comment upon. 
I will take for my particular text the case of a systematic delay of fifteen 
minutes on the journey each way—by no means a maximum instance of delay. 
That involves in the six working days of the week a loss of three hours of direct 
time, amounting in the year of 50 working weeks to 150 hours; equal to 25 
ordinary business days of six hours, or about equivalent to one-twelfth of the city 
working year. 
This 1s as applied to one individual. But take the average number of passengers 
in each of these city trains at 300—rather below than above the number carried on 
many lines—and see what the accumulated results in wasted time reaches. Then 
again, multiply this total by the two or three hundred trains running daily into 
London alone, and the aggregate waste of time can be readily computed into 
figures almost astounding. 
Now if it were simply a matter of waste of time, that could in some 
degree be taken into account and allowed for in estimating the advantages of a 
country as against a town residence; but the greater evils of these constantly- 
recurring delays show themselves in other forms. There is the mental anxiety of 
the morning in knowing that the business of the day is being thrown back by 
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