Thus, out of the total number of 544, 50, or one in 11, have been under the hands of the surgeon in the course of the year, the proportion being about the same among all ages, although the fatal cases were all those of adult colliers, crushed in the progress of their work in removing the mineral deposit from its resting-place underneath insecure strata. It is, perhaps, a minority of the collieries of Great Britain that can produce so favourable a return. However this may be, the importance of collecting the statistics of the casualties occurring in mines cannot be overrated, whether the facts be sought for the purpose of detecting the causes which lead to them, or in the hope of palliating the evils which are their result. The record from which the preceding abstract is made cannot be regarded as a model of method, especially as the classes of accidents which its results exhibit, are those which occur merely in the ordinary course of under-ground labour, without any serious exposure to fire-damp, and without any instance of the most fatal class of accidents, viz., those which occur in the shafts; among which, such as result from winding men and boys over the pulley at the top of the pit, and dashing them down the shaft again, chiefly through the employment of children as engineers, have repeatedly occurred in this neighbourhood. On Accidents upon the Railways in Great Britain. By C. R. WELD, Esq. [Read before the Statistical Society of London, 18th April, 1842.] A VOLUMINOUS Report lately presented to Parliament by the officers of the Railway Department, furnishes matter of so much general importance, that it has been thought a few of the facts laid before the Society in a concise manner would prove interesting. With this view, the returns have been reduced to a form calculated to meet the desired object, and the original tables have undergone all the analysis of which they are susceptible. The amount of traffic for the whole of the past year on the various railways has not been yet returned, but the returns for the half-year ending 1st July, 1841, are given, and are as follows: The number of persons carried on 50 railways amounted to 9,122,613, of whom 1,530,040 occupied first class carriages, 4,144,169 second class carriages, 2,357,745 third class carriages, and 1,090,659 carriages not classed. The number of trains amounted to 99,422, which gives 91 3 persons to each train. The lines on which the trains travel at the greatest speed are as follows: Northern and Eastern Great Western Average Speed, exclusive of Stoppages. 36 miles per hour. On the Leipsic and Dresden Railway the maximum speed is fixed at 10 minutes for every geographical mile, which is equal to 20 miles per hour. The receipts arising from the foregoing number of passengers amounted to 1,145,386l. 7s. 4d., of which 281,0877. 12s. 6d. was received from first class passengers, 231,046l. 3s. 7 d. from second class passengers, 68,5157. 3s. 1d. from third class passengers, and 564,7371. 8s. 2d. from classes of passengers not described. I shall now give the number of accidents that occurred, specifying their nature and consequence; it is, however, much to be regretted that the Act of Parliament does not enable the officers to obtain returns of accidents attended with danger to the public, unless personal injury is actually sustained. CLASS 1. The following is the number of accidents attended with personal injury, arising from causes beyond the control of passengers, from August, 1840, to December 31, 1841 :— Of the 57 accidents, 28 occurred in the five latter months of 1840, and only 29 in the year 1841. CLASS 2. Accidents attended with personal injury to individuals owing to their own negligence or misconduct : Of which 16 occurred in the latter five months of 1840, and 36 in 1841. CLASS 3. Accidents attended with personal injury to servants of the Company under circumstances not involving danger to the public : Of which 35 occurred in the latter five months of 1840, and 60 in 1841. This return is incomplete, as the officers have not called upon Railway Companies to make returns of accidents which are not of a public nature. By the foregoing returns it appears that the number of railway accidents has considerably diminished, as out of 204 accidents which occurred between August, 1840 and December, 1841, 125 took place in the past year, and 79 in the preceding five months; a relative decrease of exactly one-third. Taking the number of passengers carried by the various railways in 1841 at double the number given for the first six months, or at 18,245,226, the accidents amount to 1 in 145,963; and it may be remarked that a large proportion of these occurred from slips in the embankments occasioned by continual wet weather. A diminution has taken place in the accidents resulting from the collisions which have arisen chiefly from mismanagement or defective arrangements. A great proportion of the accidents which occurred in the end of 1840 and the beginning of 1841 were of this nature; no fewer than 17 accidents having occurred in eight months, from August, 1840, to April, 1841, from the single cause of collisions by trains or engines overtaking others travelling on the same line. During the nine months, from April, 1841, to January, 1842, only five collisions of this nature occurred, and those, with one exception, unattended with fatal consequences. This diminution in the number of collisions appears too great to be the result of accident, and may fairly be attributed in a considerable degree to the more general adoption of the precautions suggested by the inspector-general, viz.: the erection of proper fixed signals at stations, the adoption of a better description of tail lamps and hand signals, and the enforcement of more attention to signals on the part of servants. The returns of the past year also show a marked diminution in the number of serious accidents occasioned by the misconduct of engine drivers. In the last five months of 1840, seven accidents occurred, by which eight were killed, and 31 injured; and in 1841, only three accidents occurred, by which two persons were killed, and three injured. This decrease may be attributed to the beneficial results of more extended experience, and to the measures taken by several Railway Companies to raise the character of the engine drivers. By a strange mistake in the drawing up of certain clauses in the acts of various Railway Companies, obliging them under a penalty, to keep the gates at level crossings closed across the railway, instead of across the road, accidents of a serious nature have occurred. In two instances, upon the Hull and Selby and Newcastle and Carlisle Railways, the lives of the gatekeepers fell a sacrifice to the former plan, which the Directors felt themselves obliged to adopt. From the returns made by the different railway companies, it appears that there are 605 six-wheel engines, and 224 four-wheel engines, traversing an extent of 1,330 miles. A general opinion is entertained that four-wheel engines are rather more unsteady, and subject to oscillatory movements, and especially to vertical movements, which, in extreme cases, may lead to jumping off the rails; while, on the other hand, six-wheel engines are thought to be less adapted for going round sharp curves: and this opinion is in some measure borne out by the fact that three accidents occurred to the four-wheel engines out of the total number of 224 engines of this description, arising from their having run off of the line, while no accident occurred to the six-wheel engines in this mode. The circumstance, however, that the two railways which, in proportion to their amount of passenger traffic, have been most free from serious accidents, viz. the London and Birmingham and the Grand Junction, use in the one case four-wheel and in the other six-wheel engines exclusively, appears quite sufficient to show that any attempt at legislative interference to enforce the adoption of any peculiar construction of engine would be, in the present state of experience upon the subject, altogether misplaced." It appears from the returns given in the Appendix to the Report, that the practice of running tender foremost is universally pronounced to be dangerous, and that a very general opinion is expressed against propelling trains by an engine from behind, where it can be avoided. |