The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

RAILWAY SYSTEM AKD ITS KESULTS. 479
but by a new adaptation, it is contemplated, that messages shall pass in
opposite directions without the smallest interference with each olher.
The means employed are simply mechanical. The system would have
been some time since in operation in England, but for the difficulty to
be overcome from the variableness of the insulation of the wires, occa-
sioned by the humidity of our climate. But already several beautiful'
modifications have been devised, in order to overcome this difficulty,
and there is daily hope that the improvement will be perfected.
So much as regards railways. As regards the public, the electric
telegraphs of England have been rapidly growing in importance, al-
though, comparatively, we are still very backward in taking advantage
of the facilities they afford. It is only a little more than eight years
since the telegraph was first worked in this country. During the first
quarter of 1848, the receipts of the Electric Telegraph Company were
only £160 ; in the second quarter they increased to £240 ; in the third
to £320 ; in the fourth to £400 ; and the receipts, despite the fact that
other Companies have grown up, and that the charges are now only
one third of the amount originally demanded, have now reached £3,000
per week ! The growth has thus been fifty fold in seven years ; a pro-
gress unexampled in commercial annals, except in association with railway
intercourse.
One of the original grounds of opposition to railways was the danger-
ous character of the traffic. A writer in one of our most popular re-
views thus expressed, some years ago, the common opinion upon the
danger of railway travelling :
—
" It is certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the
rate of 18 or 20 miles an hour, by means of a high-pressure engine, to
be told that there is no danger of being sea-sick while on shore ; that
they are not to be scalded to death, nor drowned, nor dashed to pieces
by the bursting of a boiler ; and that they need not mind being struck
by the scattered fragments, or dashed in pieces by the flying oflf or
breaking of a wheel. But, with all these assurances, we should as soon
expect the people of Woolwich to sufier themselves to be fired ofi" upon
one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of
such a machine, going at such a rate."
It is curious, occasionally, to contrast prediction and event. The
last return of the Government Railway Department shows that the
number of passengers killed, in proportion to the number conveyed
upon railways in the United Kingdom, was, for the first half-year of
1854, 1 in 7,195,343 ! Can it be assumed—would any Life Assurance
Company in the world assume—that to English gentlemen and ladies
sittino- at home at their ease by their firesides, fatal accidents would