The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-12 00:00:00

.
to be a subject of conversation when a new and
still more appalling tragedy is apparent. There is,
it is true, but one victim,but the circnmstancesof his
death are so frightful, and appeal so forcibly to the
sympathies of everyone of us, that the effect pro-
duced on the public mind is greater than the sen-
sation created by the Egham accident. An elderly
gentleman, well-dressed, and wearing a massive
watch and chain, enters a first-class railway car•
siege on a metropolitan line. His journey is but of
a brief duration, merely extending from the central
station in the heart of the city to a northern suburb
a few miles distant, and still fully within the radius
of London. The hour is not late, the line is not
lonely, and the train was occupied by the usual ave-
rage of passengers, yet, under these circumstances
of apparent security, Mr. BRIGGS falls a victim to
one of the most coldblooded, atrocious, and unpro-
voked !misters on record. The only shadow of a
reason which can be adduced for the crime is the
sight of Mr. BRIGGS' watch and chain ; and wholly
insufficient as this motive would appear to be in
any case, the singularity of the case is heightened
by the fact of gold having actually been left in the
murdered gentleman's pockets. Whether the vi•
cinity of the station induced the murderer to hurry
over his work, whether the resistance of the sufferer
prevented his securing more than the watch and
chain, or whether the whole catastrophe was the
work of a madman, remains to be elucidated. We
can only very fervently hope that the criminal will
be brought to justice, and that the pub-
lic may, at least, have what security for the
future can be afforded them by the detection of the
crime and consequent warning to other ruffians.
For the bereaved family of the murdered gentleman
those can be only one feeling of deep and general
sympathy, but their afflictions brings doubly home
to every :household the atrocity of such a crime.
In these days almost every father of a family
whose business draws him to the city, fixes his
home in one of the suburban districts, and one of
the boasted advantages of the intrusive Metropo-
litan railway lines is, that rapid and easy commu•
nication between such districts and the centre of
the Metropolis is rendered possible. But if such
a tragedy as this is to be possible, if a traveller
by a London line is not only to be liable to the
ordinary chances of accident from collision or ex-
plosion, but is likewise to incur the risk of a
frightful death from the hands of any ruffian who
may covet his watch or chain, then the attractions
of railway communication are very considerably
lessened. The fact is, that by our present railway
arrangements there is a very defective protection
for passengers, and it is to be hoped that this
melancholy affair will induce the public to insist
upon some improvement. It is quite preposterous
that a person should be shut in for a given number
of miles, with perhaps a thief, perhaps a murderer,
perhaps a madman, with no possibility of commu-
nicating with the driver, or even with his fellow-
passengers who may perchance hear screams and
struggles, but are powerless to assist. Even in Ame-
rica, where human life is so lightly valued, and from
whence we have intelli3ence of a terrible railway
accident, things are better managed in this particu-
lar. Why should England, ;he mother of railways,
be so utterly incapable of dealing with the question.
Sarely it is possible to establish some system of
communication by which at least travellers can
assist each other in waiting for the arrival at the
station. There are so many eases in which it is no
matter of idle fancy, but of life and death, to attract
the attention of the guard or the driver that it is
only surprising that railways have been suffered
to exist so long without some such possibility. Fire
is by no means an impossible accident, yet a person
might be burned to death before assistance reached
him. The simple expedient of a bell-wire lim-
ning through the carriages would be a protection,.
since if it were known that help could be obtained,
half the temptation to the crime would be gone. It
is not long since a desperate encounter took place
with a madman, on the very same line on which
the murder of Mr. BRIGGS has just occurred, and
had there been only one gentleman with the lunatic,
instead of two, the result would have been the same.
Can English ingenuity devise no means of solving
so simple a problem? Our railway companies had
better make the experiment, for they are in a man-
ner responsible for the lives and limbs of their pas-
sengers, and they may be assured that the public
will not be satisfied with the existing state of
things,