As daily returns of all "foreign" carriages arriving and departing from
all Clearing-House stations are forwarded to the same office, they are
thus in a position to check the traffic, detect discrepancies, and
finally make the proper entries as to mileage and demurrage in the
accounts of the respective companies. Frequently the charge of
one-tenth of a penny per mile for a tarpaulin is divided among several
companies in various proportions. For a waggon or carriage from
Edinburgh to London, mileage and demurrage accounts are sent out by the
Clearing-House to four companies. Formerly, before demurrage was
introduced, carriages were frequently detained on lines to which they
did not belong, for weeks, and even months, until sometimes they were
lost sight of altogether!

Once a month the balances are struck, and the various railways, instead
of having to pay enormous sums to each other, obtain settlement by means
of comparatively small balances.

For example, the London and North-Western railway sends its through
passengers over the Caledonian line. The mileage charged for its
"foreign" carriages is three farthings per mile. Small though that sum
is, it amounts at the end of a month perhaps to 5000 pounds. This
little bill is sent to the Clearing-House by the Caledonian against the
London and North-Western. But during the same period the latter company
has been running up a somewhat similar bill against the former company.
Both accounts are sent in to the Clearing-House. They amount together
to perhaps some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds, yet when one is set
off against the other a ten or twenty pound note may be all that is
required to change hands in order to balance the accounts.

The total mileage of lines under the jurisdiction of the Clearing-House,
and over which it exercises complete surveillance on every train that
passes up or down night or day, as far as regulating the various
interests of the companies is concerned, amounts to more than 14,000.
The _Times_, at the conclusion of a very interesting article on this
subject, says,--"Our whole railway system would be as nothing without
the Clearing-House, which affords another illustration of the great
truth that the British railway public is the best served railway public
in the world, and, on the whole, the least grateful." We hope and
incline to believe that in the latter remark, the great Thunderer is
wrong, and that it is only a small, narrow-mind