impossible,--of which system more
shall be said hereafter. The danger lies in this, that shunting has
frequently to be done during intervals between the passing of
passenger-trains, and, on lines where passenger and goods traffic is
very great, these intervals are sometimes extremely brief. But, strange
to say, this danger is the mother of safety, for the difficulty of
conducting extensive traffic is so great, that a combination of all but
perfect systems of signalling, telegraphing, and organisation is
absolutely needful to prevent constant mishap. Hence the marvellous
result that, in the midst of danger, we are in safety, and travelling by
railway is really less dangerous than travelling by stage-coach used to
be in days of old. Yes, timid reader, we assure you that if you travel
daily by rail your chances of coming to grief are very much fewer than
if you were to travel daily by mail coach. Facts and figures prove this
beyond all doubt, so that we are entitled to take the comfort of it.
The marvel is, not that loss of life is so great, but that it is so
small.

Do you doubt it, reader? Behold the facts and figures--wonder, be
thankful and doubt no more! A "Blue Book" (Captain Tyler's General
Report to the Board of Trade on Railway Accidents during the year 1870)
tells us that the number of passengers killed on railways last year was
ninety. The number of passenger journeys performed was 307 millions,
which gives, in round numbers, one passenger killed for every three and
a half millions that travelled. In the best mail and stage-coaching
days the yearly number of travellers was about two millions. The
present railway death-rate applied to this number amounts to a little
more than one-half of a unit! Will any one out of Bedlam have the
audacity to say that in coaching days only half a passenger was killed
each year? We leave facts to speak for themselves, and common-sense to
judge whether men were safer then than they are now.

But to return. When Mr Sharp was looking at the distant waggons that
were being shunted he observed that the engine which conducted the
operation was moved about with so much unnecessary fuss and jerking that
he concluded it must be worked by a new, or at all events a bad, driver.
He shook his head, therefore, pulled out his watch, and muttered to
himself that it seemed to him far too near the time of the arrival of a
train to make it safe to do such work.

The calculations, ho