The Press.
London, England, 1853-12-24 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

report that the I`oll 111 l ittal of Children to prison would
*Nays be hurtful to them, and tend to make them more
hardened criminals. Sir John Pakington, in Isis. etn•
bodied these liews in a hill which is ii,bw the law the
subjeet. In I e<ll I another committee of the comm,eles
states' that it was absolutely nee•essary that a larger amomit
of industrial trai ll ing should he given to the children than
Icas at present the case. The first etalferetece on the sub-
jeet lair glm in anti in Is-c: another
Mire, l'tbi 1111 l thee their report to the I ge, the
adoption of whirl' by the Legislature the 0a5t...1...nee of to.
'hey warmly advocated. and the great meeting of that night
aa a strong !woof of the gnat and growing interest whieli
was frit by the peilolic in the settlement ofthisgreat national
question. t heliev eel that 110 truth ea Will he
more indisputable than that a nation a hieli undertebeek the
task of punishing c • was bo'n'd to pre.%e'llt its eOll 111 l
sign as far as possible. It was a Most 1111 l 61411 iiig thing that
almost all laws received It gre•titer t eat attention tair
than tii4ise% 1 I 101 atteeteti the criminal law of the
clammy% because •legislietors did not feel themselves per-
sonally so much interested in that as im other subjects.
War, hear.) It was to be hoped that this selfish and elite
graceful state of things would not he allowed ell Wager
to rat'l'i'n'e. //ear. I

Succeeding resoluti MR, •ed by the Earl of
I %ItItoWIIV Alla MONCKTON .MILNES, were to the
following effect :

" That till* meeting Irtt.t that the lettialation which should be
neeessary hr estathlimllitat indumtrial reformatory selmoht will eu
eouratte the rtalightetted and philanthropic managerm of Mom.. ill
Windham maintained by tolmut&try ethwrtm %ht. hate already
awakened !midi,. attention to the mttbjeet• and a Melt ought 1.. he
I.osteeett Mid ltillleJ, for the make of the varied and taluable
experience they are calculated to supply, lha iuditi.htal veal toga
interemt they unlimt, and the opportunity they prevent for the
intniedinto adoption of treatment towardm eriminal children
different from the ordinary pmui.l ,tit of adults.-
" That the reformatoriem eatablishetl privately 111 thim and other
buntries have been very ruceemmful, and mrford deelmive proof of
the reapeetabiEty and titnemm of the mode of treatment or Jut !title
eriutr %Melt they ha%e adopted."

Many exhortatbms to private and individual exer
tion towards the greatend in view were given by the
speakers who addressed the meeting upon these
resolutions. Finally. a vote of thanks was pass►d to
the noble chairman, and the assembly dispersed.

ANALYTICAL VIEW OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.
THE voluminous reports drawn np at the instance of
the Board of Trade contain many valuable returns
respecting the nature and frequency of railway acci -
dents. These were, however, presented in so con%
plicate(' a form as almost to baffle all the attempts of
ordinary reader, to decipher their meaning, or colleet
from the intricate series of tabulated results the
information which they were known to contain. The
task of disentangling this mass, of grouping together
the most important tables in the most intelligible
form, and of deducing from them the conclusions
which the travelling public are most anxious to learn,
has been undertaken by Mr. Nelson, honorary ,acre.
Lary to the Statistical Society, and aveomplished with
much ability. His labours resulted in a papa read
at one of the meetings of his society during the
current year, which was afterwards included in their
journal, and has just been republished in a separate
Harm. It constitntes a "manual of railway aecidents"
containing a large amount of valuable information,
put together with vast cure, and rendered as compact
and at the same time as intelligible as the subject
allowed.

Hallway aecidh•llts, when they have onl'l` ecalsed 1..
Luau• an individual interest as items in the news of
the day, retain importance chiely in relation to the
future. The piddle value them as furnishing a basis
for eounpubitioin nospeeting the chances of peril in
railway travelling, or the general management of
railway affairs. With smolt an object in view Mr.
Nelson has prepared his analysis. Ills tables are
accordingly so arranged as to show, I st, the frequency,
and, 2tiolly, the causes of the various deaths, Mini
or harmless accidents on the venous railways in
Great Britain. The results of his calculations are
extremely interesting, and in many respells contra
verse the preconceived opinion of the !midi,.

Respecting the frequeney of accidents we MO, for
example, a considerable diminution during the
latter years of railway management, whether we base
the average upon the mileage of open lines, or the
annual number of pasmengera. Ihtring time twelve
and a half years that elapsed between August, lain,
an:l December :11, lasl, the total number of passen
gers amounted to 015,1:1:1,7',1, of whom 2tal were
killed and 1,7941 injured. On the average, therefore,
a fatal catastrophe has overtaken 1 in 2,312,53:1
passenger's, and injury, more or less severe, been
suffered by 1 in 312,509 passengers, during the
course of this period.

Diyhting the Name interval into grmipm of year'',
the averages are shown in the annexed tahle

1K Moll Injured