The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-19 00:00:00

A NATION OF TRAVELLERS.
The number of passengers, according to the return
recently published, who have travelled by railway
during the half-year ending on the 30th of June last,
amounted to 26,330,492—which is just about the
population of England, Scotland, and Ireland—and
some idea may be formed of the tide of human beings
who have passed over the country, as Mr. Locke says,
"by means of two parallel pieces of iron," when we
reflect that the official numbers actually represent the
transmission of every man- woman, and child in die,
Lam uisLance; wai,auu Lab 311 a,
period of six months, at a speed previously unattain-
able, and with a reduction of danger, considering the
mass of human beings thus transferred, almost
infinitesimal. Archimedes is recorded to have
said, if he had standing ground he could
move the globe, and though our modern engi-
neers have not exactly attempted to work out
that problem, they have satisfactorily solved
another, which a few short years since would almost
have been thought as visionary. The number of
accidents figure as 189 ; 90 resulted in death, and 99
in injuries, more or less severe. Of
passengers, six
unfortunately were killed and 60 hurt from no fault
of their own—a wonderfully small proportion when
we consider the enormous aggregate who now use
this mode of locomotion ; the remainder of the
casualties is made up from accidents to railway ser-
vants, labourers on the lines in construction, and per- ,
sons who have taken this novel mode of committing
suicide, by precipitating themselves from trains or
into their way, but who, in fact, have as much to do
with the safety of railway travelling as a man blow
lug out his brains has to do with the safety of fire-
arms. Of the accidents to those regularly employed
by the companies, a large proportion seems to have
have arisen from the carelessness of the men them-
selves, and we have no data as to the per-centag.e,
nor of the labourers ; but, when the nature of their
wort: is taken into account, we are surprised
that there have not been more deaths ; and we
have little doubt that many other employments would
give a much higher rate of mortality and mutilation
than railways, and it must also he recollected that
when finished a great cause of damage is at once cut
off, which just now, whilst so many are employed on
the lines in construction, must largely increase the
average. We make these remarks without any wish
for concealment of the number of accidents, and
merely to call public attention to the real state of a
question all are interested in ; we urge no relaxa-
tion of any precaution that can tend to preserve life
and limb, but when railways and their directors are
hell up as a sort of public executioners, it becomes
our duty to place the matter in its true light, and we
boldly assert that the statement from which our
' figures are taken is a wonderful evidence of the cor
hift
n-
' parative safety with which one million of people s
from town to town and from village to village every
week, or to bring the numbers to lower denomina-
F tions, a host of 144,000 shuls_is daily on the move.
—Railway Chronicle.

ADVERTISEMENT ]—Cared by Holloway's °int,
meet and Pills, wounds in a leg, after more than three
years sutfuring.—The wife of Mr. James Springle,
schoolmaster of the town of St. Patrick, Grenada, had
been suffering with an ulcerated leg for more than three
years, which was so bad that it baffled the skill of the
professional practitioners in the island who could not
possibly heal it, after every other remedy had failed,
Holloway's Ointment and Pills were resorted to, and by
their powerful efficacy the wounds were soon healed,
and a perfectly sound cure effected. These medicines
excel all others in the cure of Scrofula, or King's Evil,
Glandular, and other unnatural swellings. Sold by
all druggists, and at Professor Holloway's Establish-
ment, 244, Strand, London.
Tan Loan BISHOP or AIANCHESTER.The Right
Rev. the Lord Bishop of Manchester arrived in this
city on Thursday night last by the express train from
London. His Lordship, who was unattended either by
his chaplain or secretary, immediately proceeded to the
Palatine Hotel, where ho is at present staying. His
Lordship visited and inspected Sedgeley House (which
has been mentioned as a suitable residence for his Lord-
ship) yesterday morning, and, we are glad to learn, con-
cluded an agreement for a five years' lease of the house,
which will consequently become the episcopal residence,
at all events for the present. To-day his Lordship will
go over to Preston, where he is to preach to-morrow, in
the parish church. His Lordship is expected to stay
some time in the neighbourhood, as be has appointed
several ordinations and confirmations to take place about
this time.—Manchester Guardian.
PAROCHIAL ACCOUNTS.—By an Act of Parliament
passed on 31st last month, if overseers of poor shall
lawfully, by virtue of their office, contract any debt on
account of the parish, within three months prior to the
termination of their year of office, and the same shall not
have been disehargea by them before their year of office
shall have determined, such debt is to be payable by and
recoverable from their immediate successors, and charge-
able upon the poor-rate of the parish. And if such debt
shall have been contracted more than three months prior
to the termination of their year of office, the amount is to
be payable by and recoverable from their immediate
successors in office, if the rate-payers in vestry assembled,
and the poor-law commissioners, shall consent. Solicitors
having tells against parish officers need not now pre-
sent their accounts against the parish until the business
is completed, but if not presented within a year after
the tertnination of the business, the parochial funds are
not to be made liable to it. This Act also contains
useful provisions as to balance in the hands of outgoing
powers of auditors Are restricted
overseers, &c.; and the
and *defined,