8 vans and breaks attached to passenger-trains,
and 329,163 trucks, waggons, and other vehicles appropriated to
merchandise. Buckled together, buffer to buffer, the locomotives and
tenders would extend from London to Peterborough; while the carrying
vehicles, joined together, would form two trains occupying a double line
of railway extending from London to beyond Inverness.

A notable feature in the growth of railway traffic of late years has been
the increase in the number of third-class passengers, compared with first
and second class. Sixteen years since, the third-class passengers
constituted only about one-third; ten years later, they were about
one-half; whereas now they form more than three-fourths of the whole
number carried. In 1873, there were about 23 million first-class
passengers, 62 million second-class, and not less than 306 million
third-class. Thus George Stephenson's prediction, "that the time would
come when it would be cheaper for a working man to make a journey by
railway than to walk on foot," is already verified.

The degree of safety with which this great traffic has been conducted is
not the least remarkable of its features. Of course, so long as railways
are worked by men they will be liable to the imperfections belonging to
all things human. Though their machinery may be perfect and their
organisation as complete as skill and forethought can make it, workmen
will at times be forgetful and listless; and a moment's carelessness may
lead to the most disastrous results. Yet, taking all circumstances into
account, the wonder is, that travelling by railway at high speed should
have been rendered comparatively so safe.

To be struck by lightning is one of the rarest of all causes of death;
yet more persons are killed by lightning in Great Britain than are killed
on railways from causes beyond their own control. Most persons would
consider the probability of their dying by hanging to be extremely
remote; yet, according to the Registrar-General's returns, it is
considerably greater than that of being killed by railway accident.

The remarkable safety with which railway traffic is on the whole
conducted, is due to constant watchfulness and highly-applied skill. The
men who work the railways are for the most part the picked men of the
country, and every railway station may be regarded as a practical school
of industry, attention, and punctuality.

Few are aware of the complicated means and a