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

480 RAILWAY SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS.
only occur, during half a year, in the proportion of one in seven mil-
lions ? In the active performance of the duties of life, it is impossible
to find a case in which the proportion of fatal accidents is so small.
But nevertheless, whenever an accident does occur upon a railway, the
public are sure to find it regarded as " Another Fatal Railway Acci-
dent," just as if such accidents were constant, instead of being, as the
Government statistics prove, most rare and extraordinary.
In comparison with deaths by railway accidents, how many are the
fearful are the mis-
accidents to persons walking in the streets ! How
adventures met with by those " who go down to the sea in ships !
Yet Parliament saw fit to provide, specially, for the smallest class of
accidents arising from locomotion, and to afford only scanty redress
for the greatest. Such has been the character of legislation for railways.
The Merchant Shipping Law Consolidation Act, 1854 (17 and
18 Vict. c. 104), recognizes in some sort the liability of shipowners in
cases of loss of life, or of personal damage to passengers. But this
Act only exemplifies, still more strongly, the partial character of legis-
lation as against the Railway Companies. For whilst the damages, in
the case of accident upon a railway, are unlimited, this Act expressly
limits the amount, which can be recovered under its operation, to £30
per head. Still further, if a crowded emigrant ship should be wrecked,
and all the lives on board be lost, the liability of the shipowner would
be limited to the value of the ship and the amount due or accruing to
him on account of freight in the voyage during which the accident
occurred, so that, practically, the deodand amounts to nothing more
than a first charge upon the insurance effected by the shipowner upon
the ship and cargo. A shipowner might thus send his vessel to sea,
her condition unseaworfhy, her compasses ill-adjusted, inefficiently
commanded, and with a disorderly or incapable crew. The ship minht
be wrecked the same night, or be run down, for want of proper vigil-
ance, by some steamer in the Channel. In such cases there would be
only very partial redress against the shipowner, whatever mio-ht be
his culpability. But let a railway carriage be thrown off a fine in a
dark night, by a stone, or a log of wood carelessly or wilfully placed
upon it,—let a fatal accident occur in consequence of some wanton act
not of the Railway Company, but of that public who ought to guard
and protect one another,—and the Railway Company, althoucrh suffer-
ing severe loss of property, without having any pecuniary redress, even
on the legal conviction of the perpetrator of the deed, which may have
been prompted either by a diabolical desire to wreak a petty ven-
geance, or for the gratification of a malicious disposition, is liable to
be mulcted in the heaviest penalties, for the accidental loss of life the
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