The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-27 00:00:00

MON WATER AT LONDON RRIDOL

fu DAT —morning. 911. 4711.
fisigongow—Morning. 10h. 111 m Attentoon, 1013. 53m.

WNDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 27.

It is not easy to say what is the cause that
makes most Railway Boards so slow to give their
passengers the means of protection against tire,
violence, or outrage. Worldly wisdom it cannot
be, for there is no doubt that their refusal costs
them the loss of fares. Mechanical difficul-
ties it cannot be, for some railways supply such
means, more or less perfect ; and what some do
all might do. Red tape they disclaim, affirming
that they are eager to discover a satisfactory
method, and have spent thousands of pounds in
experimentiug. Yet foreign railways have pro-
vided means of communication between passengers
and the guards. It may he remembered, also,
that the Queen, a few years since, wrote a
letter to the chief companies, calling their atten-
tion to the fact that when she travelled special
precautions for her safety were employed,
and urging that her subjects might have the same
securities. We read that in her last journey
from Scotland each carriage in the Royal train was
provided with an electric communication with the
guard, and it is certainly not the fact that such
comforting resources are afforded as yet to her
people.

Little light has been thrown on the subject,
either by the Report of the Commission on Rail-
ways or by the debates in Parliament on the Bill
for enforcing a means of communication. The
former body declined to recommend any plan, and
suggested no other means of attaining the desired
result than that of leaving the responsibility to
the companies, and giving to the passengers a
right of action. This idea is very good if it could
be pet in practice. Nothing is sounder in prin-
ciple than that of leaving responsibility to discover
its own means of protection, and of enforcing
responsibility by recognition of individual rights.
But it is to be feared that the practical applica-
tion of the remedy would reveal great difficulties.
A railway company cannot be made liable for acts
which no care could in any place prevent. A maniac
may enter, a man may intoxicate himself after
he has taken his seat, a murderous assault
may be made on the instant, such as even the
presence of a policeman could not prohibit. The
question of due precaution must therefore always
be left to a jury. But juries would be greatly
puzzled if asked to say in all intermediate cases
whether the injury could have been obviated by
proper communication or proper patrolling. They
would be obliged to sit in judgment on all known
means of effecting these objects, and required to
fix on some one which the company should have
adopted, or else to declare that there were none.
This is to impose on them too heavy a scientific
burden. On the other hand, the mere enacting
that all companies shall provide some mode of
communication leaves open a door for very easy
evasion. The mechanical genius of the country
has been called upon, and, as railway directors
triumphantly maintain, it has failed to provide
any method which is satisfactory. If this be true,
the enactment that some method shall be employed
must prove equally unsatisfactory.
But what if railway directors have imposed on
mechanical invention conditions which make
success practically impossible They have said,
' Find out means by which the guard can be
warned to stop the train, but make them so
difficult to be used that no one shall stop the
train except on dire emergency.' Acting under
these instructions, nothing has been attempted
but some telegraph system to the guards' van,
fenced by a glass plate, which mint be broken
before the apparatus can be reached, made com-
plicated by directions, difficult of access, and
after all serving only to inform the guard that for
the relief of one some hundreds of passengers
must be disturbed and delayed. But this is not
at all what the public wants. It desires a simple,
easily accessible, and unmistakeable means by
which any one who is suffering can call assistance.
But it does not in the least want to stop the
train. It has no more desire to stop the train
than it has to stop the performance at the Opera
in case a lady faints in her box, or to rouse at
night every inmate of an hotel by the clang of an
alarum bell in case a gentleman's nose bleeds in
his bedroom. In both instances assistance is
wanted, and the power of easily summoning it on
such small occasions is equally effectual for secu-
rity against deeds of violence. But railway com-
panies answer that the cases are not parallel,
because the trains they are required to
furn;sh attendance for are in motion.
And this brings us to the ultimate question,
Is there room for a guard to pees up and
down on the trains or not ? If there is, of
course he may be rung for as easily as a waiter ;
if there is not, and cannot be room, the companies
have reason on their side.

But on this critical question facts are against
them. Not only do the American carriages admit
of circulation throughout the train, but the Swiss,
some of the Italian, some of the Austrian, and
some of the Russian do. Mr. HAWKSHAW, our
own leading railway engineer, in his evidence
before the Commission, described a Russian car-
riage which allowed communication between every
compartment, and which ho said might be put
on one of our own lines to-morrow. Re observed,
also, that with very few exceptions our railways
were all wide enough to allow of the guard