140 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
This is an average of forty-one persons killed annually from 
causes beyond their own control ; and it shows, in fact, that the 
railway companies are in reality more mindful of the lives of 
their passengers than the passengers are of their own lives. 
These latter accidents can be classified as follows : 
Table IV.— Accidents to Railway Passengers in 1874, froh Causes 
WITHIN THEIR OWN CONTROL. 
Cause of Accident. No. 
From falling between carriages and platforms . . 49 
Getting out of or into trains in motion . . 22 
Crossing the line at stations . . . .33 
Falling down stairs at stations ... 2 
Falling out of carriages during travelling of trains . 9 
Other accidents ..... 10 
Total . . . 125 
This, however, is not the death-roll from all causes on all 
railways of the United Kingdom during the year 1874. The 
total number of persons recorded at the Board of Trade as 
having been killed was 1,424. Of these 211 were passengers, 
and, of the remainder, #88 were officers or servants of the 
railway companies, or of contractors, and 425 were trespassers, 
or suicides, or others who met with accidents at level crossings 
or from miscellaneous causes. 
1874 was, however, a very exceptional year, for no less than 
71 passengers were killed in the three fearful accidents on the 
Great Western at Shipton, on the Great Eastern at Thorpe, and 
on the North British at Bowness Junction. 
We cannot contemplate these figures without feeling that, 
compared with other causes, the danger of railway travelling 
must be exaggerated. That there is danger in a train no one 
can deny. It is impossible to stand upon a platform when an 
express rushes by without feeling that there is but a rivet, 
a bolt, or a rod between life and death. Yet, though we 
have just read the harrowing accidents of a dreadful collision 
in the north, we unhesitatingly entrust our precious bodies in a 
railway carriage to the south, is a proof that we have faith in 
our railway management, and that we tacitly admit that there 
is also safety in a train. Our ideas of safety are but . relative. 
If the press gave as much prominence to the 94 cases of 
choking, or to the 456 cases of falling down stairs, or to the 
611 cases of being suffocated in bed, as it does to the railway 
accidents, we should hear less cf the railway “ juggernaut,” and 
more of the skill and care with which the enormous railway 
traffic of the country is conducted. 
