The Express.
London, England, 1861-09-11 00:00:00

TO OUR WEARER&

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
A !alp edition of the E7preaa iv published every
erenihg during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's races.

Tut: Inquest on the Brighton Railway Accident
has terminated with a verdict which will probably
satisfy that large section of the public who wanted
something a little out of the common, yet noth'-ig
extreme, and to whom the perfection of human
sagacity consists in always stopping half way on '
the road to absolute truth or justice. This sort of
prudence is known by various names in the poli-
tical, moral, and religious worlds, but it invariably
diguities itself with the style and title of "common
" sense," and despises all who are not trimmers as
fanatics. Perhaps it is a pity that railway direc-
tors have not in their management more of
that useful abhorrence of extreme courses
which they are, doubtless, happy to observe in the
decision of a jury. There is, however, a savour
of wild justice in the Brighton verdict, which
just redeems it from vulgarity. A railway guard
might speak of it as something between an "ordi-
" nary " and an " express " verdict ; or, in other
words, • "second class" verdict, sparing the first
and the third, and striking just between the two.
Abstract justice would probably have demanded
the heads of the Directors ; a strictly orthodox
jury would have drawn and quartered • couple of
signalmen. The verdict of manslaughter against
an Assistant Station-master is • novel and
not unexciting performance of public duty on
the part of a British jury, without disturbing the
peace of " first-class" families by a Jacobins al
severity. We have no doubt the awful tribunal
sitting at Hassock's Gate felt that it was an occa-
sion for Roman virtue ; but that in a liberal-
conservative age a line must be drawn somewhere.
So they drew the lino at a Station-master, and
the Directors arc not yet sentenced to travel in
the first and last carriages of an excursion train,
along sharp curves, at forty miles an hour, with an
excursion train clues in front and a regular train
close behind them ; with signals imperfect or out
of order, and an agitated signalman at one end of
a tunnel communicating promiscuously with a
confused signalman at the other. We have no
hope yet of a penal code for Railway Directors,
constructed on the principle of "like cures like."
For the present we most be content with the res-
eeding spirit of moderation, which thinks homicide
made venial by accident, when the accident is the
result of recklessness al elaborately systematic as
the cautions and checks which disgui.e without
preventing danger.

Now, it is well known and willingly admitted
en all sides that the Bri3hton line has been one
of the best admisistercd, as it cm;oinly is a
line on which the best administration is most
urgently required ; yet enough has come out
in the conies of this Inquest to prove that tra-
velling on this well-ordered line on certain days,
and subject to such conditions as the I
public demand imposed, cr, rather, tempted
the Company to accept, was only @cooed,
in probabilities of safety, to an aeronautic voyage
or to a forlorn hope agaisit a masked battery. The
somewhat fussy superfluity of needless informa-
tion
which was so industriously extorted at the
Inquest by the respectable gentlemen who we w
too well aware that "the public eye " was upon
them had a tendency to obscure the central facts
of the PICA and to bewilder and 'mislead opinion
outside. The mock-beroie scene of the "threat.
" ened committal of the Company's Secretary."
the Spartan obstinacy of the Company's Solicitor,
and the awful effect—at a distance—of the
Coroner's nod ; the batch el donuments refused or
withheld, which might hove proved that the cats,-
hophe was the deßberate act of a secret society of
rival shareholders--all these interludes mutt not

be suffered to divot t attention from the true
causes of all such accidents. The causes are net
far to seek. Captain Tvtra, the Government
Inspector, in his clear, concise, and search;ng
statement, stzuck in a moment the source of ell
the mischief. Here are the fac4. The rids is
that there is a minimum of five minutes between
the departure of two trains. What is the peso.
tin f On the morning of this accident there was
an interval of three minutes between the first and
the second train ; an interval of four minutes be-
tween the second and the third. " Increase of
" traffic," it was avowed in evidence by one of the
Company's servants, " had rendered it neomeary
"to allow trains to start at shorter intervals"
than the rule allowed. And "it generally hap-
" paned with excursion trains that the rule was
" disregarded." After etch a frank confession se
this, need we travel over again the con.radhikey
jumble of evidence elicited from some contused and
shaken pennant.; and from pointsinen endowed
with superhuman cant'ess, atac 1 y, and premises of
mind? Need we examine in detail what Captain
Trtsa aptly described as the " secondary" causes
of the accident?—the credibility and conduct of
the aignalmen, the discretion ot the engine-drivers,
the sufficiency of the distance ~:snsia, and so
forth! These details were very properly and
closely invertigated by the jury. and
very ably summed up by the Coroner.
The preen, we conceive, has a broader and simpler
duty to perform. Here is an Assistant Station-
master comtritted for " feloniously killing and
" slaying " more than twenty human beings, by
" want of ordinary caution, in starting three
" trains, one at 8.28, one at 8.31, and one at
" 8.35, in breach of one of the eaprem rules of
" the Company, and of the usual prartice." The
public instinct, we dare say, will congratulate the
jury on having spared the "secondary " instru-
ments of this wholesale slaughter, and singled out
the chief of the efficient camas of the cala-
mity for a salutary example. And we believe
the public instinct will be right. For the person
who started the trains within three and four