The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-12 00:00:00

Tho Railway Clearing House.

The Clearing HOMO being so essential to the railways bas
naturally kept pace with their multiplication. In 1845,
three years after its first establishment, the number of com-
panies on its books was only 16 ; ten years later it had risen
to 73, and it is now 110, with a united mileage of 10,859
miles. In reality the number of companies does not give an
adequate notion of the growth of business, in consequence
of the leasing and amalgamations which are always going
on. The Clearing House knows only the companies which
actually work the lines, and deals only with the inter-
changed traffic, without touching that which is confined
to the line of any particular company. A brief summary
of which the Clearing House accomplishes at the present
time will give a tau idea of the important part which
it plays in the railway system. The number of stations
sanding traffic returns monthly is as follows—Goods and
cattle, 3,121; passengers, 1,817 ; parcels, 2,308. The num-
ber of pairs of stations between which bookings are car-
ried on monthly is—Goods and cattle, 62,470; pas-
sengers, 15,145; parcels, 16,626. Each of these passengers,
each of these cattle or passengers, has to be traced through-
out its whole journey, and a statement drawn up of the
distance which he or it has travelled over each division of
the route. The average number of railways over which each
consignment of goods is conveyed is 3•SB ; each passenger,
3.16 ; each parcel, 3.07. The gross receipts for 12 months
amount to an aggregate of £8,014 791, as compared with
£401,651 in 1815, and £1,8.9,618 in 1855. The present
total is thus composed—Goods and cattle, £5,937,755 ; pas-
sengers, £1,805,915; parcels, £301,123. The total amount
of the receipts of traffic of all kinds cleared in this office
since its establishment reaches the enormous sum of up-
wards of £81,000,000.
Not only each passenger and consignment, but each
carriage, waggon, and tarpaulin has to be traced through
the mass of returns from the thousands of stations up and
down the country. Before the establishment of the Clear.
ing House the practice c f making an extensive use
of carriages and waggons without acknowledgment
had grown to be an evil of serious magnitude. The means,
however, this office of tracing csch
vehicle,
rwohmicthhearme possessed by
omentitleaves
the
present line until it
returns to it, and of obtaining payment of the sums in
we v er
which the companies are reciprocally indebted under the
regulation of mileage and demurrage, soon chocked and
has now quite put an cud to this abuse. The amount of
stock sent on to foreign lines (that is, to lines other than
that of the owners of the stock) in the twelve months
is as follows :—Waggons, 2,287,074 ; sheets, 1,215,492 ;
carriages, vans, &c , 633,060. The total mileage
for which a charge is made through the Clearing
House in the year is now 214,0i.9,685. Tho number of
days for which demurrage is actually charged is 579,925 ;
and the total amount for mileage and demurrage comes to
_ _ . .

£287,937- The Clearing Ifoti;e
.has, since 1812, obtained
payment for the detention or demurrage of rolling stock
for periods equal in the aggregate t 3 half as much
again as has elapsed_ since the creation cf the world.
The detention for a day, a halt-day, or even
an hour beyond the time stipulated by the agreements, is
duly noted down against any company, and the sum total of
all these delays has been found to amount to 9,744 years.
The distance run by the rolling stock in question on foreign
lines since the opening of the office is upwards of
3,935,00),00 miles. Returns are also received at the
Clearing House of everything found on the various lines,
and by this means during the year 1863 as many as 14,893
articles were restored to their owners.
In order to illustrate the complications of through-booking
which the Clearing House has to unravel, we may enume-
rate the number of different companies with which each
traveller and consignor of goods would in the case of cer-
tain through routes have to deal separately, were it not for
this valuable office. The route from Euston-square to In-
verness, for example, embraces the London and North
Western, Caledonian, Scottish Central, Scottish North
Eastern, Inverness and Perth Junction, and Inverness and
Aberdeen Junctior. . In order to get from Darlington
to Cardiff the traveller has to pass over the North
Eastern, Midland, Lancashire and Yorkshire, London and
North Western, Great Western, and ithymney railways.
Between Lynn and Stirling lie the following lines :—The
Great Eastern, Great Northern, Lancashire and Yorkshire,
North Eastern, North British, Edinburgh and Glasgow,
and Scottish Central Rtrlways. From Lynn to Inverness,
via Aberdeen, the route includes iu additi,n to the above
Scottish North Eastern, Great North of Scotland, and In-
verness and Aberdeen Junction.—Railte Scw3.

.
DAR a
motMSTADT, Sept. 9.—Tileion Comadeamber
by M Metz
of Deputies
urgently pressing the
has unanimously voted
and seven of his colleagues,
Government to give in its adhesion immediately,
and at all events before Ist October, t) the new
Z illvcrein.
The Daily News Biographer of Robson appears
to have been Mr John liellingshead, who was present on
the first night of the deceased actor's performance at the
then famous Grecian Saloon, in the City.road, some Went)
years ago,