The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-12 00:00:00

NEEDED RAILROAD REFORMS.

(From the Round Table.)

A bit of experience which befell us the other clay
was so illustrative of certain features of railway
travel that we may claim pardon for whatever of
egotism there shall be in its narration. The writer
had undertaken to convey a child upon a journey
long enough to be wearisome, and which lay over
several lines of travel. For its preliminary stage
the train had to be entered at a way-station, when
of course a full seat was not to be had, and the
little one was of necessity compelled to endure
what scant comfort was attainable until we reached
a city which was to be crossed preparatory to taking
one of the main lines of travel. Arrived at its depot
a ticket was refused us on the score that the next
was a " through train," and that, although the ad-
vertisements made no such exception, although the
train received and discharged passengers at
the place of our temporary destination, although
tickets to it were issued at the initial terminus and
from the present station to points beyond it, it was
not permitted us, as we were informed with all the
hauteur characteristic of railway and hotel clerks, to
do otherwise than await the arrival of a following
way train. That is, in the route A B C 1), on a
train stopping at A, B, C, and D, and on which
tickets are sold from A to C and from B to D, we,
being at B, could not go to C ; while even our de-
mand for the ordinarily accorded ticket to .D was
ineffectual, because of the disclosure of an intention
to stop at C. The horrid prospect of amusing a
tired child for several hours in a crowded depot was
sufficiently unendurable to stimulate us to other
expedients, and, finding an official of the road, we
gained from him an order for the ticket, to the uncon-
cealed chagrin of the evil genius of the ticket office.
On the train, however, the old spectaclepresented it -
self—scores of people each comfortable in the seclu-
sion of a full seat, but no whole seat unoccupied, no two
empty half seats in fair proximity, and no apparent
escape from riding several hours with a child on
one's knee. Once more we found refuge —this time
by the interposition of the " gentlemanly conduc-
tor," who fortunately is by no means the extreme
rarity and conventional figment of reporters' imagi-
nations that he is popularly supposed—and were led
to one of those recesses which exist unsuspected in
many railway trains. Here we were given a corn,
partment equal in size to a quarter or third of a car-
without stationary seats, which we had the power of
locking against intruders, and which, with arm-
chair, book, and cigar, a sofa for our little charge,
ample room, and perfect seclusion, the remainder of
the railway journey was scarcely less comfortable
than the length of time passed in one's library.
Without doubt there are every day travellers who
would be glad to pay for such conveniences as on this
occasion we were fortunate enough to secure, at rates
which would make it worth the while of the railroad
companies to afford them. No less certainly there daily
are thousands who encounter without escape just such
annoyances as we managed to elude. For reform
in this respect our hope, we imagine, is from the
commercial enterprise of companies such as those
which maintain sleeping-cars on the long routes,
rather than from any favour at the hands of the
companies which, even in the cases where the con-
ciliation of the public becomes a matter of import-
ance, endeavour to accomplish it rather by providing
useless splendour than substantial comfort. An
undertaking of this sort would find abundant re-
muneration from the general disgust for a system
which forces together en masse all sorts and condi-
tions of men—sensitive people keenly alive to what
goes on about them, filthy and revolting people,
nervous people who cannot endure turmoil, robust
people who, require open windows and abundant
air, delicate people to whom a draught is little
less than fatal. A refuge from such annoyances
would be well paid for, and such refuge it would be
easy to provide. The necessary equipment would be
simple—cars without the fixtures and costly uphol-
stery generally in vogue, but divided into compart-
ments of various size and furnished with chairs or
other seats, freed by their structure from the cur-
rents of cold air and the nuisance of pedlars and
others who move about the long aisle. In these
one could order, by telegraph if need be, any num-
ber of seats he might see fit to pay for; enter
at a wayside station with the certainty of find-
ing them; leave them when the train stopped
without a prospect of disputing possession with
squatters on one's return ; preserve a party from
being divided or intruded upon—in a word, secure
those details of comfort, health, and decency
which every traveller now forfeits, and to obtain
which travellers enough would pay largely to yield
good returns upon the investment. The system
once inaugurated, its general extension in some
degree could not long be retarded.
Against another, and most important, class of
travelling evils remedy can only be afforded by
legislation such as Congress, under its authority
over inter-state commerce, has the power to make.
It has long been evident that from no other quar-
ter can come adequate provision against the " ac-
cidents," detentions, and varied forms of injury,
failure to fulfil contracts, and illegal exactions, for
which it is practically impossible to find in the
courts redress against these corporations. The
category of needed Congressional enactments is a
long one,—penalties for recklessness and neglect,
for the worn-out roads, bridges, and rolling stock,
neglected repairs, insufficiency of the employ6s
necessary to safety ; for such detentions as those of
last winter, which a few ice-boats and snow-ploughs
would have prevented ; for that general disregard
of the time-table which on many roads is the
general rule ; provisions against the dangers of a
single line of rail ; of crossing roads and streets on
the same level ; of leaving the track open to the
incursions of cattle ; decisions whether passengers
may be denied the service they have bought on the
plea that tickets are " good for this day and train
only ;" whether, on the score that " all baggage is
at the risk of the owner," servants have immunity
to smash and mutilate it at their own sweet
will ; whether the purchase of a seat really con-
veys a right to the possession of one. By
strictness on such of these points as conduce to
safety, not only would there be an immense saving
in life and limb, but it would be possible without
danger to obtain a degree of speed not absolutely
contemptible.*
It is not only because of the size of the country
and the consequent great amount of travelling and
transportation to be done that the facilitation of
them becomes important. There is a class of
people a:ready large and rapidly increasing who are
forced to spend a part of each secular day in the
railway cars. Whether from motives of economy,
or a desire to have their children grow up out of
cities, or because it is refreshing when the day's
work is done to get away from the din and dirt and
brick walls among mountains and pure air or beside
the water, a large part of the business population
of most of our large cities have suburban
homes whether they go daily by rail. In the
case of New York—although on the side of

Connecticut and of New York State, the depots are
so distant as to be almost inaccessible, although
railroad management on Long Island is such as to
drive thence all who can escape, while of the five
New Jersey roads ono is under the dominion of a
churlish autocracy, and another is famous from its
proclivity for collisions and danger—the number of
people who come hither only for the day is immense,
and in other cities it is proportionately scarcely less.
In a matter of this daily recurrence, and upon
whose satisfactory management the substantial
comfort of thousands of citizens largely depends,
legislation ought to insure them the rights
which corporations lack the sagacity to sec that
it would be for their own interest to protect of
their own accord. Through New York State
one judicious step has just been made toward the
substitution of order for chaos by uniforming the
emplopis—a measure which must coliduce to the
promotion of discipline and vigilance. Very much
more important results, we hope, will be effected
by the movement for railway reform which made its
first demonstration in the meeting last week at the
Cooper Institute under the auspices of the Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science and Art. At
this meeting was very strongly asserted the neces-
sity of Government intervention in the matter, and
of the perfection of bills now pending in Congress
for the facilitation of inter-state commerce. The
gentlemen to whose care it was entrusted will give
it, we trust, the thorough exposition it needs, and
so exhibit the national importance of a reform that
Congress shall be forced into some practical action
in lieu of the unprofitable talk about it wherewith
they have rested content during so many sessions.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

COLCHESTER—Noy. 9.

This market was moderately supplied with wheat to-
day, and the business done was not so brisk, but generally
prices were the same as last week. Barley was in fair
supply, but trade slow, and prices is lower. Beans and
peas were unaltered.

IVheat, white 74s 8)s Beans, Mazagan......404 428
red 6,5 72s I Middle and small. 415
Barley ... Ps 498 I PeaB, white 385 128
Oats ..... —8 —8 I grey ...365 928