The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-02 00:00:00

HIGH WATER. AT LONDON BRIDGE.

TIM DAY —Morning. OR 190 Afternoon. Ob. Oa
TO-11011.011—Morning, Ih. ers.._ Afternoon, lb. Aim

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 2.

BETWEIN strikes and debentures railways are
just now in such involuntary difficulties, that
it seems cruel to blame them for voluntary
faults. But even their shareholders may pardon
us if the faults we would have them correct are
each as must materially injure their own property.
And, certainly, whatever has a tendency to pre-
vent people from travelling, by filling them with
the idea that travelling is dangerous, cannot but
have the most immecliately injurious effects upon
the traffic receipts. For this reason it is only an
act of kindness to the shareholders, while it is one
of bare justice to the public, to call attention
once more to the constantly recurring incidents
that illustrate the necessity for establishing in
some more efficient way than has yet been prac-
tised the means by which passengers can call for
help in case of emergency. It would seem, in-
deed, from the letter of "A Still-surviving
"Traveller," which the Dail y News publishes to-day,
that even the pretence of affording such means has,
on one of our principal lines, been abandoned. It is
true it was at best an arrangement that would have
served for only one of the many contingencies to
which railway travelling is liable. Its use de-
manded that the passenger needing assistance
should rise, should proceed to one point in the
carriage, should break a glass case so delicately as
to shiver the glass without either cutting an artery
or destroying the machinery it protected, should
read the instructions, and should turn the handle
in the direction indicated by an arrow. Very
self-possessed persons might carry out all this pro-
cedure in practice even in the case of a fire break-
ing out, but it is ludicrously inapplicable to any
contingency of more rapid development. The idea
of a woman in the grasp of a ruffian, or an
elderly gentleman stunned by the blow of a life-
preserver, being able to avail themselves of this
highly scientific contrivance, is painfully absurd.
Yet such as these are the cases to be provided for,
as everyday experience clearly shows.
The truth is that the system of locking up men
and women, companions by chance and not by
choice, in enforced companionship for half
an hour, or even an hour at a time, with
no means of calling succour, and no possi-
bility of escape save by death, is a thing so
wholly barbarous that it is marvellous it should
have been endured for a day. But we all
know what its consequences are. One day we
read of a carriage full of passengers just rescued
from burning, just as we read twenty years ago
of a whole train full that were actually burnt.
The other day we had a story of a girl saved from
outrage by the happy accident of a guard looking
in at the peril of his own life, just as a year ago
we had a story of precisely similar character that
happened on a different line, and as, a year before,
we had a story of a woman who made her
escape, and was saved by being held on the step
of the next carriage by a passenger who had
strength to support her till a station was reached.
A week ago we had the story of a clergyman
who was unjustly, but not it seems dishonestly,
accused of an act of indecency in a railway car-
nage ; and this serves to illustrate another phase
of the mischiefs the system produces. It is so
notorious that foul-minded men take advantage of
the opportunities that our present system of tra-
velling affords, that women become morbidly sen-
sitive to their danger, and sometimes fancy insult
where it was least intended. Again, there are fre-
quent cases in which false charges of assault are
brought for purposes of extortion, and in which
it is as hard for the man to disprove the accusa-
tion as it would have been hard for the woman to
lave escaped the violence had it been really
offered. If railway directors fancy that all these
matters have not a very material influence upon
thine receipts they are very much mistaken. The
difference between the travelling that is strictly
necessary and inevitable, and the travelling
that is for objects of pleasure, recreation,
or idleness, is quite sufficient to make the
difference between no dividend and a good one.
The enormous increase of travelling that follows
on a reduction of fares (whether in that case it is
profitable or not is beside the question) proves
bow much the disposition to travel is influenced
by slight motives. But how much stronger
motive than the saving of a few pence or shillings
would be the assurance of safety from danger !
And if a small rise in fares instantly makes itself
felt in diminished numbers, how greatly must
they be reduced by the apprehension of perils which
are known by daily proof to be of such frequent
occurrence. Every man, indeed, knows among
his own acquaintances many of both sexes who
avoid railways as far as possible, and who resort
to them with fear and reluctance, for no other
reason than the dread of finding themselves alone