300 KEPOET — 1870. 



£100,000 where £50,000 casli would have sufEced, the extra price being allowed 

 to contractors who took the bonds. Money expended upon or retained for the con- 

 struction of lines not yet opened for traific all fall to be deducted, and would re- 

 duce the cost below £400,000,000. Of this sum, much has been expended upon 

 harbours, steam-packets^ and other wasteful enterprises ; yet, after all, 4^ per cent, 

 is divided *. 



It is submitted that this dividend may be rather increased than reduced. Hun- 

 dreds of thousands of tons of goods are transported for which no return is made ; 

 21 cwt. to 25 cwt. are called a ton, and the gross receipts are now understated, as 

 discounts allowed to certain favoured customers are suppressed ; statistical accm'acy 

 is thus made impossible, whilst a wide door for frauds is opened. 



The suggested remedy of purchase by the State involves a heavy probable spoli- 

 ation of the tax-payers ; but the present system is intolerable, and unless the Board 

 of Trade is endowed by Parliament with additional powers, and vigorously orga- 

 nizes itself to action in the public interest, instead of as at present, and for the last 

 twenty years, interfering between a deeply dissatisfied public and the railway com- 

 panies, a cry will be raised for purchase. The law of supply and demand cannot 

 apph' the remedy ; there is not, and in the nature of the case cannot be, competi- 

 tion. The lurid light of the Abergele holocaust has demonstrated that selfishness 

 cannot be relied upon as the safeguard of human life. The public health demands 

 greater facilities of locomotion, and Lancashire wants cheap oread. 



On Mechanics^ Institutions and the JEIementari/ Education Bill. 

 By E. Eenals. 



Although Mechanics' Institutions had been established for more than a quarter 

 of a century, tlicy had failed to enlist the sympathj' of working men. This posi- 

 tion was maintained by the statistics which had been supplied to him from some of 

 the largest institutions in the kingdom. 



With elemeutarjf schools scattered over the country in sufficient numbers to 

 meet the educational wants of the population, one great hindrance to the useful- 

 ness of Mechanics' Institutions will be removed. To render these institutions cen- 

 tres of education for working men four things were needed : — 1, that the iScieuce 

 Classes which are promoted bj' the Committee of Council on Education should 

 always be connected with Mechanics' Institutions ; 2, that each institution should 

 provide a technical library for the use of workmen ; ?>, that youths, on leaving 

 school to learn a trade, should be gradually brought into union with an institution 

 by having free admission to a course of technical instruction bearing directly on the 

 employments which it is intended they should follow ; and 4, that a portion of 

 the managing body should be composed of working men. It was contended that, as 

 mitrained labour was constantly being superseded by mechanical contrivances and 

 inventions, the technical and scientific education thus afibrded by Mechanics' In- 

 stitutions would prepare a larger number of operatives for higher grades of industry ; 

 and in this way the capacities of our producing-classes would be improved and ele- 

 vated. 



On the Utilization of Fibrous Cottonseed. By Thomas Hose. 



The author said that in such a utilitarian age as this it would be matter for sur- 

 prise that a vegetable production which should be valuable, and could be supplied 

 by the million of tons, was now wasted. The waste product was fibrous cotton- 

 seed. In America alone more than a million and a half tons of this seed were yearly 

 wasted. This seed was composed of 50 per cent, kernel, M'hich yielded about one- 

 third oil and 50 per cent, husk (shell with fibre adhering), of which the fibre would 

 be one-third. From this he gathered that the now wasted seeds would produce 

 250,000 tons pure cotton, 250,000 tons oil, and 500,000 tons of cattle-cake, the 

 value of which he estimated at £20,000,000. The husks could be taken to the 



* The accounts for 1860 (issued in January 1871) fail to distinguish capital raised for 

 unopened lines, although Companies are required by law to do so. 



