The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-14 00:00:00

Cheap Trains for Working Men.

On the Ist of next month the great boon which
the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway have
agreed to give the working classes will come into
operation, and from that date mechanics, artisans,
and daily labourers, both male and female, will be
entitled to receive a weekly ticket at a cost of no
more than one shilling, which will be available over
the line between Victoria and Ludgate-hill for one
journey each day in each direction. The necessity
for such a gift to the working classes has long been
felt, and in the case of the Metropolitan Railway a
clause was introduced into the act by which the com-
pany are bound to run at least one working man's
train each way each day at uniform rates of a penny
per passenger. In the case of the Chatham and
Dover no such clause was introduced, nor, consider-
ing the length of the line from Ludgate to Victoria,
would it have been fair to insist upon it. The gift,
therefore, has been purely voluntary on the part of
the Chatham and Dover management, who have
merely taken care to secure themselves from damage
by obtaining an act passed last session, which, in
relation to these working men's trains, modifies some
of the provisions of Lord Campbell's act
eaacdtaish o
tor
the
compensation to be awarded in case
in-
jury to passengers using thesebintrdaiintsse.lfOtfo
run
course,no
railway could be expected to
work-
ing men's trains over a costly line at so low a rate as
a penny per passenger in the face of the heavy in-
surance upon passengers which Lord Campbell's Act
imposes. By the act passed last session, therefore
(27th and 28th Vic., cap. 195), the liability of the
company under any claim to compensation for in-
jury to passengers travellingwith such working men's
tickets is limited to a sum not exceeding £lOO, and
to avoid law costs the amount of compensation is to
be determined by an arbitrator appointed by the
Board of Trade, and in no other way. No tickets are
to be issued for a period less than one week, and the
maximum price of such tickets is, as we have said, to be
ls. Various precautions are taken to prevent the trans-
fer of tickets, for which penalties are enforced, and
a person so convicted can never receive a ticket
again, while the company claim a reasonable time
after each application to ascertain, if necessary, if
the person so applying is really what he professes to
be—an artisan, mechanic, or daily labourer. Con-
sidering how the poorer classes have suffered by the
extensive evictions which metropolitan railway im-
provements and extensions have caused these work-
ing men's trains are really no more than a just re-
turn for the loss and inconvenience they have suffered.
The united areas occupied by new railways and ex-
tensions in London during the last few years are
equal in extent to several metropolitan parishes.
The demolition of poor neighbourhoods has been
carried on wholesale, and the result generally has
been to drive the artisans and labourers to live in the
outskirts of London, or else to overcrowd the cheap
neighbourhoods which are yet left to them in the
midst of the metropolis. Within the last 10 years the
number of inmates to houses in poor neighbourhoods
has risen in the ratio of 7 to 4, and, with this steady
rise in overcrowding, has come an equally steady
rise in the Registrar's returns of fever cases, which
during the last three years have been more than
double the annual returns for nearly a quarter of a
century back. There seems no reason now, however,
if the Chatham and Dover and the Metropolitan
can afford, under such wise precautions and safe-
guards, to run working men's trains at these low
fares, why other lines—such as the North London,
Blackwall, North Woolwich, and other short lines
of the same kind—should not do likewise within
a short distance round London. To the working
classes it would be difficult to over-estimate the
value of these facilities, and it is to be hoped
that the day is not very far distant when
other suburban lines will follow the liberal
example of the Chatham and Dover. Only one thing
more will then be needed, which is to issue third-
class tickets, and thus entirely reimburse the work-
ing classes for the introduction of metropolitan rail-
ways, by which,up the present, they have suffered a
good deal, and got very little in return.

A provisional agreement ;has been entered into
to-day between the London, Birmingham, and South
Staffordshire Bank and the European Bank, for a
transfer of the business of the former to the latter,
to take effect on the 16th March. The nominal capi-
tal of the London, Birmingham, and South Stafford-
shire Bank is £1,000,000, of which £120,000 is paid
up, and that of the European is £2,000,000, of which
£600,000 is paid up.
ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL.—The weekly board of
this charity has received intimation of a bequest of £5OO by
the late Itirs. Elizabeth Hill Morgan, of Berkeley-place,
Cheltenham, as a testimony of her appreciation of the great
bonefits conferred upon the poor through its agency.