The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES,—Now that a railway passenger has been
the victim of one of the foulest murders which have
been committed in our time, it is possible that the
railway companies may be forced by public opinion
to abandon their practice of locking passengers in
the compartment of a carriage, and leaving them
without the power of communicating with any
human being as long as the train is in motion. Yes.
terday Mr. Baillie Cochrane asked a question on
this subject iu the House of Commons, and received
an answer which shows how thoroughly Mr. Milner
Gibson has acquired the official style. While the
body of a man slaughtered through neglect of the
obvious expedients which are practised on the rail.
ways of every other country in the world lies await-
ing an inquest, Mr. Gibson expresses himself in the
following Conservative fashion :—" It would, no
doubt, be possible to compel railway companies, by
legislation, to introduce into the carriages some
mode of communicating with the guards ; but he
doubted the expediency of doing so. As our rail-
ways were constructed the question was not with-
out considerable practical difficulties. Evidence had
been taken on the subject before a committee up-
stairs, and the inspectors of railways were not by
any means unanimous as to the expediency of adopt-
ing a plan whereby the passengers might be enabled
to communicate with the guards;" and so on; the
conclusion at which the public must arrive at being
that, so far as the Government is concerned, they
may be murdered and robbed with impunity for
ever. But long-suffering as we are, there is a point
beyond which even railway directors will not be
allowed to carry their despotism. Some time since
a carriage took fire, and the passengers were in im-
minent danger of destruction, their efforts to make
their situation known to the driver or guard being
wholly unavailing. Only yesterday we gave an
account of a still worse case. A young woman,
to save herself from the indecent assaults of a man
with whom she happened to be left alone, opened
the door and got outside, standing on the step
of the carriage. She soon became insensible
with fright, and must have perished had it not
been for the exertions of a gentleman in the
next compartment, whose attention was called to her
by a boy who saw her hanging on by a door-handle.
This gentleman had to support her for five miles,
until the notice of the guard was directed to the
matter by some labourers who saw the train coming
past and called out to him. Can anything be more
scandalous than such a story ? Is it not plain that
no man is safe from assassination, no woman from
rape, as long as people are left sometimes for more
than an hour without the possibility of making
known their situation P Some time since there was
a fearful scene with a lunatic in a railway carriage
which strongly resembled a tale of Edgar Poe, and
no person can be sure when he takes his seat that
he is not about to furnish materials for some such
story. In any other country than this the selfish
inaction of mercantile companies would be corrected
by the interference of the State. What, indeed, is
the use of a Government if it cannot protect the
lives of the people by controlling the chief means of
travelling ? Yet Mr. Gibson contents himself with
telling us that the Board of Trade has no execu.
tive power or authority in the matter, and that he
has no intention of introducing a bill to compel the
railway companies to provide means of communi-
cation. If anything is to be done, it must, then, be
through the exertions of the public, which suffers
from the present mismanagement. There is a stolid
obstinacy in the railway world with regard to this
question which will only yield to the resolutely ex-
pressed will of the travelling public. What the ob-
jection of railway directors and their dependents
can be to the simple expedient of allowicg the pas-
sengers to make known their position to the guard
by a bell or other wise we have never been able to
discover ; but for some reason or another they will
not consent to do anything. Talk to them, and yon
will have some such answer as " It would be im-
practicable, extremely inconvenient ; it is unsuited
to our system ; it would be attended with many
difficultieswhich only those concerned in the work-
ing of railways can appreciate." But if to this uni-
versal chorus of "It can't be done" you reply with
"Why not ?" the reasons given areentirely puerile.
You tell them that not only in America, where they
have cars, but in other countries, where the carriages
aro constructed like our own, there is complete
facility of communication ; and all that they can
answer is that our carriages are not built for the
purpose ; that cur trains travel too quickly ; that if
passengen could communicate with the driver they
would be always stopping the train on some fancy
or another,and introducing unpunctuality into rail-
way arrangements. These are, we believe, the only
pretexts that have even an air of plausibility; and,
when they are considered for a moment, how frivo-
lous they are. In the first place, if our carriages
are not constructed so as to allow the guard to pass
along the outside, let them be altered. A handrail
and a continuous ledge for the guard to walk upon,
as on the French railways, are all that is wanted ;
and this simple machinery would also allow the col-
lection of tickets during the journey, and save the
waste of time and the danger of collision caused by
the foolish stoppage for the purpose at half a mile
from the terminus. Then, as to the speed of the
trains, is it not the fact that the guard performs this
duty of walking along the carriages even on the
fastest express trains, such as those from Calais or
Boulogne to Paris—trains which equal or exceed in
speed the expresses of our English lines ? So much
for the objection on the ground of mechanical im-
possibility. An active guard could with perfect ease
leave his seat and make his way to any carriage to
which he might be cal ed; and with such an arrange-
ment passengers would feel a security against vio-
lence or accident which, unfortunately, they do not
now enjoy. There only remains the argument that
the train would be continually stopped by mis-
chievous or nervous persons. On this point we
believe that even if the passengers could communi-
cate with the driver there would be no folly of the
kind; but no one recommends that they should com-
municate with the driver. What is asked is, that
they should communicate with the guard, who then
would come to the carriage, and if he saw sufficient
reason would himself communicate with the driver
and stop the train. When these so-called " difficul-
ties" are looked at for a moment they vanish, and
we are constrained to believe that the only real dif®
culty lies in the inveterate prejudices of the railway.
authorities. It seems strange to talk of stolid Con-
servatism with respect to a scientific invention little
more than 30 years old, but it is strange how quickly
everything hardens and crystallises in this country.
These Tories of practical science require to be urged
on to reform, and if, with the lessons of the last few
days before us, we omit to urge them, the fault will
be ours as much as theirs.
• -

Palways glad when the time
comes round
a
. for rerenewing the annual grant to the
British Museum, and, if it should then transpire
that the estimates of expenditure for one year be in
excess of those for the year preceding, assuredly
that circumstance is not of a kind to awaken in our
mind any parsimonious feeling of regret. It would
be difficult to over estimate the value of that truly
excellent, if heterogenons, mingling of the sources
of human knowledge which constitutes the British
Museum; therefore when Mr Walpole on Monday
represented the Museum expenditure of the year,
compared with the last, to be as £96,327
against
£94,841,thus evidencing an increase of some £1,486,
no ton. member, we feel assured, grudged in his
own mind the increment. It seems that whilst
there has been an increased expeudhure of some
£4,724 under the general heads of salaries, book..
binding, and printing of catalogues, there has been
a reduction of £3,238 on expenses of building and
furniture. baying
before the house a statement of
the purchases effected on behalf of the trustees of
the British Museum during the past year, Mr Wal-
pole furnished a presentment that will be alike
gratifying to men of science and men of cultivated
artistic tastes, First in his expository list came the
notice of the collection--so.
interesting t p4leon-

tological sense—of one of those caverns near Abbe'
ville, the relics of which have of ls.te been disturb-
ing the minds of paleontologists relative to the
stupendous question of man's antiquity upon earth.
Then followed the notice of relics of less ezzciting
though far mare general interest. First, a bronza
lamp, found on the site of Julian's palace, supposed
to be of Greek workmanship at a time before the
Christian era. Then—since, indeed, the estimates
were made up, as Mr Walpole states—the very im-
portant and interesting acquisition has been made
of the Farness collection that lately belonged to
the King of Naples, comprising amongst its chief
attractions a beautiful statue of Mercury, and an
antique equestrian statue—one of three only in the
world, and the only specimen of the kind in Eng-
land. These acquisitions are very satisfactory; less
satisfactory, however, the manner of lodging them.
To be conscious of possessing such numerous and
varied treasures is no doubt a source of gratification
to the British scientific and artistic mind ; but
the gratification is dashed with a strong feeling of
sorrow and regret on calling to memory the fact
that, for want of suitable accommodation, the ac-
quisitions above cited—as well as many others—
are no less inaccessible to public vision than if they
belonged to his Majesty the King of Ashantee. This
dearth of room begins to tell very injuriously
against the best interests of the British Museum,
after having marred, for some years past, the archi-
tectural beauty of what, left to itself, devoid of the
cucumberframe lateral excrescences, set up tempor-
arily by way of accommodation, would be a very
fine building. So pressing is the inconvenience for
want of room that all who use the British Museum
for business or recreation will cordially second Mr
Walpole's expressed desire that some action may
be taken by Government to remedy the evil during
the coming recess. Our readers will call to mind,
without being prompted, some lively debates upon
this matter upon many previous occasions—debates
in the course of which the South Kensington site
has been strenuously recommended on the one band
and no less strenuously depreciated on the other.
Although Mr. Walpole did not do more than urge
that the question of ample and sufficient space
might be settled and acted upon before next session;
although he refrained from urging the adoption of
any particular site, yet, speaking for ourselves, we
are disposed to believe that the arrangement best
conducive to the interests of all parties using the
Museum would be such as should reserve the premises
in Great Russell-street mainly to Library uses, and
promote the transference of other branches of the
existing museum to South Kensington. Except out
of a spirit of contradiction, we do not know why it is
that such a violent feeling of opposition has set in
against the Government relative to the appropris'
tion of the South Kensington property to purposes
connected with science and art. Conceding that it
might have been inconvenient for the Royal and
other learned societies, which have evening seances,
to be established there, this can hardly be said to
furnish an argument that applies in any degree
to the British Museum, or at least such portions
of it as we have suggested might be transferred
from their present quarters. Conceding the supe'
rior advantages—even the necessity—of reserving
the present site for library purposes, it could hardly
be made out, we think, that the site of South Ken'
sington is far enough out of the way to incon-
venience any frequenter of the British Museum.
Not too far for the holiday visitants, assuredly ; not
too far for the art student ; not too far for the zooloA
gical or mineralogical visitors. However, the
question of site is one that has not only given rise
to much lively debate, but will probably give rise
to more before a final resolve is taken. Like Mr-
Walpole, we are amongst those who would like to
have the argument out and the action taken. At
present the British Museum exterior is an orchid
tectural eyesore ; its interior, all save the librarif
too much like a curiosity shop, full of great but
unproductive treasures—a suite of lumber rooms
crammed with unopened packages.