The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-06 00:00:00

RAILWAY TRAFFIC RETURNS.

LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY.--Traffic re-
turn for the week ending Sept. 2,1855 223,166 11 4
Corresponding week last year. 22,489 13 0

Correspondingw
eGR e
k ET
ending
NORTHERN
Auwge.ek26iaslitA
tmILWAY.
year
—Traffic return for the,69953069l

CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD RAlLWAY.—Traffic return for
the week ending Sept. 2, 1855 £6,753 11 2
Corresponding week last year 6,215 2 3

Increase in 1855 £533 8 11

RAILTrAY LEGISLATION.

Thero was an engraving to be seen about the shop
windows a few years ago of no peculiar merit in the
execution, but which often arrested the attention of the
passers-by from its subject, and the thoroughly comical
way in which that subject was treated. It represented
a convivial party after the completion of a banquet at
Greenwich or Blackwall—it matters not where just at
the moment the obsequious waiter had brought in the
"little bill," and the president had announced the
amount to his compotators. " Where be your gibes
now ? your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of mer-

riment, that were wont to set the table in a roar ?" One

guest is rubbing the coin in his waistcoat pocket between.
hiefingers ' • another is wondering how he shall explain
matters at home ; a third has thrown himself back in
his chair, and is evidently deep in mental arithmetic.
Underneath is printed the appropriate inscription—
" Men laKli and revel till the feast is o'er ;
Then comes the reckoning—and they laugh no more."
We have often thought that the British public might
very fairly represent that hypped society of jovial fel-
lows, while Mr. Hadfield might stand demurely by as
the waiter of the engraving. His " little bill " for rail-
way legislation ss indeed enough to chill the ardour of

the most sanguine speculator. At the first hasty glance
we find that we have spent a trifling sum of 20,000,0001.
upon barristers, attorneys, Parliamentary agents, wit-
nesses, treating, surveyors, fees, and so forth. The in-
terest upon 20,000,0001., calculated at 3 per cent., would
in itself act as a balm upon many a railway bruise. But
in speaking of 20,000,0001. as the loss we have only
begun to touch upon the real mischief. Are we guilty
cf exaggeration when we say that the greater propor-
tion of this money has been spent in promoting
measures the most ingeniously calculatel for reducing
the dividends of all holders of railway stock t During
the two or three years when the Capel-court fever was
at its height the most earnest endeavours were made to
procure the sanction of Parliament for two, three, or
more competing lines, 'A here the nature of the traffic
and the exigencies of the district would have required
but a single one. Extensions were eagerly sought
for even by those who most heartily disapproved the
policy, because others would have preoccupied the
ground and involved the legitimate tenants in a network
of involvements. It is the old story, however Professor
Lindley and the botanists may stare at our illustration,
that the branches have killed the trunks. The kindly sap
was exhausted, and the taproot withering away under
ground, while our iron horticulturists were, by an in-
genious inversion of a natural law, grafting branch after
branch, and twig after twig, upon an over-burdened
stem. The consequences too many of our readers must
be in a condition to appreciate. They are summed up
in the unpleasant formula, 2 per cent., 1 per cent., or
ro dividend at all, and further calls. Over and over
..gain we foretold this inevitable result when railway
tfairs occupied es large a share of public attention as is
now given to the war with Russia. We have had to
run the gauntlet of public opinion—we have incurred
the displeasure of the bench, and smarted in purse and
in feeling for our honest endeavours to lay the truth
before our countrymen—and here is the result. Per-
haps the stern realities of a diminished income may serve
in some measure to convince the most incredulous of
our readers that when we were so deeply in earnest we
were not wholly in the wrong.
For the moment, however, let us rather consider what
has been spent upon legal, engineering, and Parliament-
ary expenses, and how it has been spent, than the ter-
rible but indirect consequences of the expenditure. It
appears that 160 railway companies in the United
Kingdom have furnished returns, and that the amount
actually disbursed by them under the enumerated beads
amounts to just 14,086,1101., or 83,000/. each. Then
_ _

there are 45 companies which rage not furnished re-

turns at all, and the expenditure of each of these com-
panies is set by the reporter at the modest average of
30,0001. each, or their total expenditure at 1,350,0001.

Let us add the two sums together, and we shall have as
the result of our addition 15,436,1101. for 205 existing
railways. To this must be added at the least
5,000,0001. more to represent the fruitless expen-
diture of companies which failed in obtaining the
sanction of Parliament to their various schemes.

As a grand total, we thus arrive at something mire
than 20,000,0001. as the sum expended by this nation
upon the polemics of railways. A certain deduction
should, of course, be made for such ration of the en-
gineering work as was really calculated to promote the
interest of the shareholders and the service of the public;
but this deduction, on the most liberal estimate, will
int serve to weaken the force of the argument. When
we look back upon the season of the railway mania, and
remember what engineering was in those dap, when all
that was requisite was to satisfy the "standing orders," we
cannot make a very high estimate of its value. The well-
ordered and intelligent labours of a Stephenson or a
Brunel of course deserved their reward; but what of those
young gentlemen who were transformed for the nonce
into civil engineers, in lull employment at five guineas
a-dav, and travelling expenses pail ? Lads who scarcely
knew the difference between a theodolite and a gridiron
were disseminated through the country, to the rote dis-
comfiture of the country gentlemen, in whose nostrils
they stank even as poachers. To them the whole pro-
ceeding was a regular "lark." It was, no doubt, a
comical enough affair to stir up the Protectionist squires
at the dead of night, and force them to defend the invio-
lability of their paternal acres at the pitchfork's point,
but we have paid dear for the joke. But what can be
said to the enormous fees bestowed upon counsel for
addressing the Parliamentary committees ? Never since
hor,ehair and bombazine were worn by mortal man
was such enormous pay bestowed for such inadequate
service. Any first-class auctioneer could have done
the work with the most perfect facility ; the late Mr.
George Robins would undoubtedly have shone as a
star of the first magnitude ; and yet how enormous was
the remuneration I One gentleman retires with a princely
fortune acquired by timely vociferation during a couple
of sessions ; a dozen others realise sums upon which
they might have retired had they been so inclined.
Learned gentlemen, of whom their very tailors despaired,
paid their debts in full. They were paid for Their pre-
sence, and paid for their absence ; paid for their speech,
and paid for their silence ; in short, when the madness
was at its height, a barrister was in the lucky position of
a cabman on a rainy night, who can scarce escape the
anxious bail of a customer's damp despair. From the
committee room let us pass to the taverns. Not a step
could he taken in promoting a bill but the parties to
it must be drenched with cold punch and cham-
pagne. Whitebait dinners and broiled bone suppers
were the order of the day and night. The ml !the irth was at
its highest, and the pace maddening, when,,il thatas
was left.
a
re-
action set in. The bubbles burst,
and painted with
of those glorious glebes which Elope
her gayest colours was a little--a very
b‘ad.
tion had paid 20,000,0001. sterling
.
The past is the past.
IN:
aare
not of those who think
that time is well spent in idle There is
little—dirty soar
and water. But for this soap and wayter the British nap-
regret.
of our former errors ; the question is,have we yet en-
teredwiser course I No doubt, as ruin has made
eagerness for Parliamentary strife has
itself uponfel a
the
diminished.
The machinery
for mischief, however,
remains
unchanged, although it may now only be
worked at half or quarter speed. Railway companies
tio na
admitted
theitte
d Legislature.
a ll men wholt has
have l o long
a since
practical
are still forced into Parliamentary contests against their
will, 111-considered and thriftless projects still receive
with Parliamentary committees railway
matters their decisions are vague and
itnhet universallyh dealingssean c
extreme.
rfreosmpontshiehilliatyboorfioduesalainndg
the Lower House especially—excuse themselves
n unsatisfactoryra i w a
mem-
bers—ofy
with
thankless employment. The
is cast upon younger men quite unfitted for the
thes enormous interests
task. The worst is, that if anything should occur
to bring on another fit of the railway fever, we can only
meet it as it was met before. Cannot the parties most
deeply interested suggest some remedy for so serious an
evil 9.—Times.
The last letters from Varna are of the 21st. Abdi
Pasha is there, mustering the 15,000 Turkish soldiers
who are about to leave for Anatolia.—Times.
:c1 \

THE FORT OF THE HOLY CROSS.--The Fronde), Blatt
learns from Odessa, Aug. '22, that General Luders has
just returned from a visit of inspection to Nicolaieff and
Cherson. The health of the troops is improving, "hut
cholera and typhus still carry off thousands of men."
General Todtleben's wound, which was near the ankle,
bad nearly healed, but he went out to inspect the works
too soon, and is again confined to his bed. In order to
keep the General perfectly quiet, Prince Gortschakoff
has sent him to Simpheropol. Todtleben's last "crea-
tion" in the Sarabelniaia is the " Fort of the Holy
Cross," which is armed with gips of•the• very largest
calibre. This fort is said to command al! the works
of the bialaklactff•