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

RAILWAY TRAFFIC RETURNS.

LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY.--Traffiu re-
turn for the week ending Sept. 2, 1855 £23,166 11 4
Corresponding week last year 22,489 13 0

GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY.--Tragic return for the
week ending Aug. 26, 1855 £22,691 6 8
Corresponding week last year 19,950 9 7

thee £6,753 11 2
C3rresponding week last year 6,215 2 3
HwEe:kTEennynna HseopLtY.
271Am5D RAlLWAY.—Traffie return for

Increase in 1855 £533 811

RAILWAY LEGISLATION.

There 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 fromits 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
his,fingers ; another is wondering bow 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 laugh and revel till the feast is o'er ;
Then comes the reckoning—and they laugh no more."
We have often giought 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 is 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 20,000,000/.
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 01000,000/. as the loss we have only
begun to tour ion the real mischief. Are we guilty
.if 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 ? 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
f•-ound 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
gem. 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
again we foretold this inevitable result when railway
affairs 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 retail-11F, and that the amount
actually disbursed by them under the enumerated beads
amounts to just 14,086,1101., or 88,0001. each. Then
there are 45 companies which have not furnished re-
turns at all, and the expenditure of each of these oom-
panies is set by the reporter at the modest average of
30,000/, 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-
ititure of companies which failed in obtaining the
auction of Parliament to their various schemes.
As a grand total, we thus arrive at something mere
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 portion 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
❑ot 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 days, 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
Bisnel of course deserved their reward; but what of those
young gentlemen who were transformed for the nonce
into civil engineers, in full employment at five guineas
a•day, and travelling expenses pail. ? Lads who scarcely
knew the difference between a theodolite and a gridiron

........ .....
were disseminated through the country, to the core dis-
comfiture of the country gentlemen, in whose nostrils
they stank even as poachers. To them the whole pro-
ceeding was a rezular " 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
horsehair and bombazine were worn by mortal man
was such enormous pay bestowed for such inadequate
service. Any first-clays 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 ! 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 cf
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 be taken in promoting a bill but the parties to
it must be drenched with cold punch and cham-
pagne. Whitebait dinners and broiled-bone suppershwas
at
en, alas !the re-
its highest, and the pace maddening, wh
were the order of the day and night. The mirth
Hope had painted with
little—a very little—dirty soap
action set in. The bubbles burst, and all' that was left
of those glorious globes which
her gayest colours was a
na-
tion had paid 20,000,00 .
and
The
hweartears.t i
sßtuhte forpa thisst.
0/ sterlin
notof those who think
We are
Noregret. doubt, as ruin has made
itself soap and water the British
There is the result
of is, have we yet
tohfaotutrimfoermiser weller
eagerness for Parliamentary strife has
en-
tered upon a wiser
companies
for
The machinery mischief,
however,
diminished.
rmaies unchanged, although it may now only he
rsoprcesolt
rtishnes? idle
question
itself felt, the
at half or quarter speed. Railway
still forced into Parliamentary contests against their
are
will. 111-considered and thriftless projects still receive
the sanction of the Legislature. It has long since been
admitted by all men who have had d
universally la practical
worked
dealings with Parliamentary committees
matters that their decisions are vague and
unsatisfactory
in the extreme. The older and - more experienced mem-
bers—of the Lower House especially—excuse themselves
from the laborious and thankless
responsibility of dealing with these enormous interests
is cast upon younger men quite unfitted for the
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 ?-_Times.
The last letters from Varna are of the 21st. Abdi
Paeba, is there, musterine.. the 15,000 Turkish soldiers
who are about to leave for Anatolia.—Times.

THE FORT OF THE HOLY CROSS.—The Fremtiot Blatt
learns from Odessa, Aug. 22, that General Lucien has
just returned from a visit of inspection to Nicolaieff and
Cherson. The•health of the troops is improving, " but
cholera and typhus still carry off thousands of men."
General Todtleben's wound, which was near the ankle,
had 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 "ersa•
tiou" in the Karabelniaia is the " Fort of the Holy
Cross," which is armed with guns of the very largest
calibre. This fort is said to counuaud all the iforka
Qf the ktalaillikOffa . _ . -