The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-02 00:00:00

Notwithstanding the favour with which the public generally
have been disposed to regard railways, and the large degree of
alowance with which for a considerable time after the opening
of those finished wholly or in part they were willing to bear
with errors of management and grievous disappointments in
the promised accommodations as to comfort and punctuality as
well as safety, it cannot be denied that this patience begins to
fail, and that complaints are heard on all sides that railways,
as at present conducted, have been far from realizing the
fine promises made in the outset by their projectors. There
would appear to be not only a want of system among the ser-
vants of the Companies along the lines, but also of subordi-
nation, which necessarily creates often much confusion
which it would seem there was no competent autho-
rity to remedy. As an example of the sort of managemen,
and the inconveniences to passengers, the following remarks
recently made by one on the London and Birmingham line
may serve to place the subject in a proper point of view. The
time of starting was eight o'clock in the evening, and the
train was detained at each station from eight to twenty mi-
nutes. Between Coventry and Birmingham the detention ex•
needed two hours, in consequence of the engine, for want of
sufficient power, having to be sent back about two miles to
Coventry for the assistance of another engine, so that even-
tually the train did not reach Birmingham until half past nine
o'clock in the morning, thus occupying 131 hours in a journey
formerly made by coach in about 12 hours. In proceeding
from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, a distance of 13 or. 14
miles, neatly two hours were spent. On arrival at Warring-
ton, where the train separates, one part for Liverpool and the
other for Manchester, the guard was heard making the in-
quiry what engines the people there had ready, to which
the immediate answer was not caught, but the rejoin-
der of the guard was distinctly to the effect that " then
we shall be two hours in going to Manchester." Such,
indeed, was the fact. After a heavy drag of seven
or eight miles, the train came to a dead stand, and the en-
gine could no longer move it. After some time spent in fruit- I
less efforts, the engine was detached, passed to the rear at
about a quarter of a mile behind, and then, being turned upon
the same line of rails, was directed with full force against
the train, without any previous warning to the passengers.
The shock, of course, was terrific ; the thick glass plates of
several of the carriages were shivered to pieces by it, and se-
veral of the passengers were thrown down or pitched forward
by it, and some more or less bruised or shaken. As predicted,
the two hours were occupied in the passage to Manchester, a
distance of 16 or 17 miles. The train leaving London at 8
in the evening, and the regular hour of arrival at Manchester
being half-past seven, the next did not, in fact, reach_ its
destination till half-past one. Much of the irregularity and
mischief migl.t be avoided if a proper responsibility were
lodged in the proper quarters, which does not appear
to be the case at present. Backed by the passengers, one of
the guards on another occasion did finally succeed at Birming-
ham in procuring an assistant engine, for which he insisted,
on seeing what a heavy train there was, and how inadequate
the power laid on. It would seem that the proper quarter
in which to vest more power, and therefore a greater respon-
sibility, is these guards themselves, with whom alone the
passengers can hold communication now, and are naturally
disposed to rely on or apply to, as under the system of com-
mon coach travelling. It is stated that these servants are but
inadequately paid, which, if the case, is but a short-sighted
policy. The preferable way to insure the services of respect-
able and competent persons would be to have a respectable
scale of remuneration, and lodge in the proper hands a greater
share of authority.
The railroad system of management, with reference to the
carriage and delivery of the mails, creates moreover much
dissatisfaction. So much is this the case, that petitions have
been signed, or are signing, in various parts of Yorkshire,
praying the Post-office to discontinue sending by railway,
and to replace the mails on the road, and forward the mails
by them as before. The management of railways, it will
thus be seen, has become one of great public interest,
and it is probable must become a subject of inquiry in the
ensuing Session of Parliament, when it will perhaps be
found that too large a discretion, and powers too ex-
tensive, have been conceded to the railway companies
without providing those necessary checks and responsibility
without which abuses will be multiplied. At present both
the public and the Post-office are almost entirely at the mercy
of the companies, to whom monopolies of the most extensive
nature have thus been granted without the reservation of the
power of it terference in the proper quarters.
These remarks are not made with any view of injuring the
immense property now embarked in these undertakings, but to
stimulate all concerned to the fulfilment of the duty they have
incurred to the public in connexion with them, by which alone
they can become valuable to the community and profitable to
themselves.— Times.

To say nothing of the numerous accidents which are con-

tinually occurring upon railroads, not a day passes that we do
not hear of the insolence, the extortion, and breaches of faith
which the proprietors of railroads sanction or permit. When
the habits of a whole people are to be changed by the intro-
duction of new and untried experiments, persons who have
charge of the matter have generally the common sense and
the policy, if we may so say, to " gild the pill," by making
the change as imperceptible and as little inconvenient
as possible. The persons in question appear, however,
to be influenced by no such caution or restraint. Having
obtained from the Legislature powers with which they
ought never to have been intrusted, they openly declare war
upon the public, and having driven, for a time, all other
modes of conveyance from off the roads, they resolve to ren-
der their monopoly in the very outset, as onerous and offen-
sive as possible. Not satisfied with innumerable one-sided
rules and penalties particularised in their Acts of Parliament,
they possess the power of making by-laws, enforced by pe-
nalties, which have the same authority as the law of the land ;
by which means the Directors may, if they please, to-morrow
inflict a penalty of 51. on any person wearing his hat, or
his nightcap, blowing his nose, or singing a song, in any
of their carriages, while for delays and losses on the road,
or any of the numerous inconveniences which the public
who travel or send by them experience, no remedies or
redress are provided. It has been said, and we think truly,
that the public will not long put up with these things. Either
these railway people must alter their manners and conduct, or
Parliament must make them. We admire the new and splen-
did powers of steam, and would give .every reasonable en-
couragement to their extension. But those who have the
charge of these experiments defeat their own object when they
render their adoption offensive to the community, whose sanc-
tion of them is essential to their success. We write strongly,
but in no unfriendly spirit ; one of our objects being to protect
the public from injury and insult; the other, to show the per.
sons in question how much they are enemies to themselves.—
Morning Herald.

THE CREW OF THE BRIG THETIS SAVED.---.
The London, Leith, Edinburgh, and Glasgow Shipping
Company's steam-ship Royal William, Captain Richardson,
arrived at Leith yesterday morning from London. On Mon-
day morning, before making Fiamborough Head, the Royal
William discovered a boat to the eastward of her with two
blankets spread for sails, and immediately went to her as-
sistance ; but, from the heavy swell running, and the be-
nu -abed state of the persons in the boat, it was with dial 9
culty that they could be removed from her, They proved
to be the crew, twelve in number, of the brig Thetis of
London, Captain Paine, from Hamburgh bound for London,
which, early on the morning of Saturday, had, in very thick
weather, struck on one of the banks to the southward of the
Leman and Over, and after heating over the shoal, sunk in
deep water. They had barely time to get the long-boat
out, and to get a small quantity of provisions and a compass
into her, before she went down ; bid the compass being
broken in putting it into the boat, and having no water, they
were buffeted about by the waves for fifty hours in this me.
laucholy plight before the Royal William fell in with them.
By the attention and kindness of Captain Itiohardsoe, they
are all now doing well.---Vcolsman of Wednesday.
The punishment of imprisonment, without precau,,
tionary measures at the expiration of the term, is„ in nine
cases out of ten, wholly insufficient, The beggar or the
reputed thief is let loose again to resume his former occu-
pation, and to be retaken and again imprisoned, so on to
the end of the chapter. At a recent meeting of the Mid..
dlesex Magistrates, Mr. Ballantine suggested that when
the term for which vagrants and reputed thieves were colnstead of their being turned loose
prison gates, they should be gent by
rn-
tinipitotieldthweawsoerixdpiarteddr
a turnkey to the police office whence they were committed,
and gaoler. If this course were
adopted, miseryNagistrates of the office to
l
and crime might easily
be thence.
he delivered
pro,nco Huez n,ta os;iuesureh r
et Q
the the
d.
which he belonged would,in all such cases, readily make
inquiries into the individual's case, and if they found he
had on place to which he could immediately resort for shel-
ter, or any hope of employment, compel the officer of the
parish where the act of vagrancy of which he had been
convicted
wast
take care of him for a day or
twos be done, either by passing him to
e tliing committed,
eeuid9
his parish, or finding him work, to prevent the absolute
necessity of leis resorting again to his former practices as
a means of existcnoo,
AI,I4PORP INTERMISSION IN THE FLOW OF
till
so
RivEns.—Loose accounts have lately appeared in some of
the journals of a nearly simultaneous suspension of the ;saw
of the Nith, the Teviot, and the Clyde, doring a short in-
terval, and about the time of the late remarkable depres-
gip Q the bacortieter. It is to be hoped that individskals
Who may have opportunities of collectieg authentic observa-
tions regarding the alleged (wuqences, will take pains to
d 9 sot sntl to 1-fankinii them to some scientific friend here,
tor, the purpose of being laid before the Royal Society, and
used in the investigation of the causes of such phenomena.
—Scotsman.