of knowledge in this
country as to the extent to which the different classes of
passenger traffic yield adequate profit to the railroad
companies. English passenger traffic differs from that of
most other countries in this respect, that the chief
companies attach third-class carriages to almost every
train. The accommodation provided for third-class passengers
in England is also much superior to what is found in other
countries where there is the same distinction of classes.
The effect of those two distinguishing features of the
English railway system is that third-class carriages are
much more and first-class carriages much less utilized than
in other countries. The tendency appears to be towards an
increasing use of third-class, and a decreasing use of
first-class vehicles. But, all the same, the leading English
lines continue to provide a large proportion of first-class
accommodation in every train, and it is no unusual thing to
find the third-class carriages of express trains absolutely
full, while first-class carriages are almost empty. The
natural result is that third-class travel is a source of
profit, while first-class travel is not.... So far as
passenger traffic is a source of net profit, that profit is
contributed by the third-class. The total receipts from
passenger traffic in England and Wales amounted in 1885 to
L21,968,000. But if the average receipts per carriage over
the whole had been the same as in the case of the Midland
first-class vehicles, namely, L330, the total receipts from
passenger traffic would only have been about nine millions.
It is not necessary to be an expert in order to see that
traffic so conducted must be attended with a very serious
loss."

Of the stock-watering of American railroad companies Mr. Jeans says:

"It seldom happens that in the United States the cost of a
railway and its equivalent corresponds, as it ought to, to
the total capital expenditure. There is no country in the
world where the business of watering stocks is better
understood or carried out more systematically and on so
large a scale. For this reason there is liable to be a great
deal of error entertained in reference to the natural cost
of American lines."

There are many financia