double the weight of the original iron ones, are used. Wooden sleepers
have replaced the stone blocks, and they, in their turn, will probably
give way to sleepers of steel. The joints are now made by means of
fish-plates, and the most vulnerable part of the rail, the end, is no
longer laid on an anvil for a purpose of being smashed to pieces, but
the ends of the rails are now almost always over a void, and thereby
are not more affected by wear than is any other part of the rail. The
speed is now from 50 to 60 miles an hour for passenger trains, while
slow speed goods engines, weighing 45 tons, draw behind them coal
trains of 800 tons. The injector is now commonly employed, and, by its
aid, a careful driver of the engine of a stopping train can fill up
his boiler while at rest at the stations. The link motion is in common
use, to which, no doubt, is owing the very considerable economy with
which the locomotive engine now works.

As regards the question of safety, it is a fact that, notwithstanding
the increased speed, railway accidents are fewer than they were at the
slow speed. It is also a fact, that if the whole population of London
were to take a railway journey, there would be but one death arising
out of it. Four millions of journeys for one death of a passenger from
causes beyond his own control is, I believe, a state of security which
rarely prevails elsewhere. As an instance, the street accidents in
London alone cause between 200 and 300 deaths per annum. This safety
in railway traveling is no doubt largely due to the block system,
rendered possible by the electric telegraph; and also to the efficient
interlocking of points and signals, which render it impossible now for
a signal man to give an unsafe signal. He may give a wrong one, in the
sense of inviting the wrong train to come in; but, although wrong in
this sense, it would still be safe for that train to do so. If he can
give a signal, that signal never invites to danger; before he can give
it, every one of the signals, which ought to be "at danger," must be
"at danger," and every "point" must have been previously set, so as to
make the road right; then, again, we have the facing point-lock, which
is a great source of safety.

BRAKES.

Further, we have continuous brakes of various kinds, competent in
practice to absorb three miles of speed in every second of time; that
is to say, if a train were going 60 miles an hour, it can be pulled up
in 20 seco