The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,


TIM Eg. —On Friday evening there happened one
of those events which excite alarm and commisera-
tion even in these days, when loss of life by accident
is so frequent and on so large a scale. Tee express
train from Brighton, proceeing at an immoderate
speed, ran completely off the rails down an embank-
ment between Balham and Streatham, causing the
death of four persons on the spot and inflicting
wounds on 30 others, some of whom are still in
danger. An accident of this kind, though it does
not destroy life so largely as the wreck of an emi-
grant ship or an explosion in a northern colliery,
has a deeper interest for the community at large.
We do not all rush in swift steamers among the fogs
and icebergs of Newfoundland; only a limited class
tempt the mine, or the fishery, or the powder mill ;
but railway travelling is part of the life of almost
the entire nation. Every year a larger and larger
number of persons are carried by train, for the most
part over short but rather dangerous distances, from
the hearts of great towns to spots in their suburbs.
Thousands live a few miles from their business, and
use the railway as their regalar means of convey-
ance. To all of those the late accident must come
home forcibly, for they hear of a train, without any
fault in the engine or the rails, without any mis-
taken signal or unremoved obstruction, being
dragged down an embankment, and the carriages
shivered to pieces, with 30 wounded victims lying
among the fragments. They learn that the cause
of this excessive effort was the fact that the train,
which had left Brighton at 5 o'clock, was actually
20 minutes late at Croydon, having arrived at that
place at 20 minutes after 6 o'clock instead of at 6
o'clock ; in other words, that an express train was
20 minutes late on a journey of a single hour. As
to the precise details of the accident we must await
the investigations that are being made. All that is
known has already been stated in the newspapers.
The accounts vary as to the number of carriages,
but it appears that the train was a large one, as no
less than 16 passenger carriages formed part of it.
There were about 200 men of the Grenadier Guards,
who were returning from a course of rifle practice
at Eastbourne. As soon as the train left Croy-
don it went at excessive speed, and one of the
wounded soldiers states that the jolting was such as
to be noticed by all the men in his carriage. It
passed the Balham station in safety, but just after-
wards the engine left the rails, taking with it the
whole train. The boiler of the locomotive exploded,
and the whole train, both locomotive and carriages
was mixed in one mass. The unfortunate Guards
suffered most. Two were killed, and there are 28
of them in the Grenadier Hospital. Col. Burnaby,
who was in command, showed much coolness and
resource. He formed all his effective men, as soon
as he could get them out of the carriages, iu two
lines, and employed them, in good order and
without panic, in extricating the sufferers. One
lady was killed, and several of the passengers,
including the Rev. Canon Cureton and his family,
were seriously hurt. No wonder that such an
occurrence as this should receive some notice in
Parliament. Lord Brougham thinks that the pro-
per way to prevent such accidents is to limit the
speed of trains to 25 or 30 miles an hour. From
this proposal we need hardly say we dissent.
We hope that with the progress of science and
enterprise trains will not only travel as fast as
now, but increase the facility of communication by
rates of speed hitherto unattained. Experience
has shown that with proper care in driving, with
welaeonstructed locomotives, and well-laid rails,
there is little danger in the very highest rates of
speed. The legislation which should pretend to
limit the advance of science would be certainly
disregarded. We do not wonder that the mer-
cantile men in Lord Brougham's Congress were
opposed to any such interference as his Lordship
recommended. The true point was touched by the
other speakers. It is probable that the late acci-
dent happened because an excessive speed was put
on a train in an incautious manner and at an
improper place, in order to make up for a most in-
excusable unpunctuality. This is the matter to
which attention must be directed, if there is to
be legislation at all. We know the advantages
we enjoy over the Continent in the superior
average speed of our trains, and we have no wish
to make invidious comparisons. But any traveller
in France, for instance, must contrast the exact-
ness of French railway timing with the scanda-
lous unpenctuality of the English lines. It may
be said of some of the lines out of London that
for a train to arrive at its destination at the time
promised is rather the exception than the rule.
While a traveller from Paris to Calais or Lyons, or
even Marseilles, may be almost certain to be put
down at the terminus with the greatest exactness,
no one can travel 60 miles on the lines we speak of
without preparing to be 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or
perhaps 20 minutes late, and correspondingly with
greater distances. On ordinary occasions this is
productive of simple inconvenience and disappoint-
ment, should any one be so simple as to think that
on coming up from a town on the south coast be
will be able to catch another train in London, or do
some particular business before a certain time. But
every now and then more serious consequences fol-
low. If Parliament is to interfere at all, it should
be to force the companies to keep better time.
There is no danger in a train going 40 or even 50
miles an hour at a proper place, bat such "spurts"
as a driver sometimes makes to remedy his own or
somebody else's delay cannot but be full of peril.
POST.—The population of the Northern States
are certainly not unanimous in the desire to substi-
tute a military despotism for free institutions. The
arbitrary arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, a citizen of
the State of Cincinnati, and his trial and conviction
before a military tribunal, have not been allowed
to go unchallenged. In New York, the metropolis
of the union, one of the most numerously attended
of the many " monster" meetings which have been
convened in that city since the commencement of
the war has passed a series of resolutions denounc-
ing the conduct of the Administration in respect to
Mr. Vallandigham's arrest and trial, whilst the
Governor of the State of New York has written a
letter in which the manifest illegality of the acts
complained of, and the consequences to which they
must inevitably lead if allowed to pass unques-
tioned, are pointed out in language which must
carry conviction to the minds of all. It is one of not
the least curious of the many strange phenomena to
which the present war has given rise, that a nation,
which not only enjoyed but had secured for itse.lf.
eS:
its own prowess the institutions which distinguished
the American Government could so
readily upon
submitted to the reported outrages
it by the weak Administration which,i:bfoer
two years has conducted its affairs:
Lincoln,
when not
historian
of of the Presidentship of Abraham,i,lo
financial schemes
chronicling disastrous campsairo
°with an inconver-
for conducting unfolding the details of
tible paper curerxenPce;,siov
and jobbery, may fill his
administrative corruption
the many instances in which Mr. Lin-
pages with
trampled under foot the laws
coin and his advisers
theyexercise belonged alone to the
were boundtorespect, and arrogated to them-
selves powers whose
the
.Republic. It were now needless
Legislature o
to reiterate the various unconstitutional acts com-
mitted by the President and acquiesced in by the
American nation. The first battle had not been
fought between the North and South at Bull Run
before Forts Warren and Lafayette were filled with
prisoners accused of no definite crime, and who in
vain demanded their trial according to the laws of
their country. Later in the war the Habeas Cor-
pus Act was suspended by proclamation, and the
entire area of the Northern States, from the waters
of Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico, declared to
be subject to martial law. On the Ist of January
the President, of his own mere motion and by a
stroke of his pen, usurped the power which legiti-
mately belonged to the several State legislatures
alone, and affected to emancipate the entire slave
Population of the Southern States. And still the
people of the North patiently submitted. From
time to time a few of the organs of the press pro-
tested against this assumption of power, and mass
meetings passed resolutions condemnatory of the
policy of the Executive. But neither leading articles
nor resolutions availed to arouse from their apathy
a people which seemed bent alone on collecting the
Treasury notes which a profligate Government scat-
tered about in boundless profusion. Whether it
was that a pure despotism possessed the charms of