The Sun. — 1864-07-18 (London, England)

THE "EXAMINER" ON RAILWAY COMMUNICATION.—On railway carriages should be written, " He who enters leaves hope of help and protection." No matter what may happen, the passenger is cut off from all succour between one stoppage and another. The carriage may be on fire, or the wheels broken, and the bottom knocking to pieces against the road, or some personal outrage may be in process of commission—robbery, rape, or murder, and there are no means of making known the danger, and stopping the train and obtaining assistance. All this has long been felt ; but the terrible murder on the North London line, and some recent outrages against women, have produced a fearful conviction that there is no safety in the system of isolation in the railway carriage, and that there must be an end of it. The surest and best method of communication is the Continental, by a gangway running along the side of the train, by which the guard visits the carriages, takes tickets, arid performs other services of the road. If this mode of communication were adopted a signal of alarm would summons the guard to the spot, and he would judge whether or not the occasion was one for communicating with the driver and stopping the train. The objection that nervous people would be stopping the train for foolish fancies cannot, therefore, apply to the arrangement. The check to outrages and crimes would be most effectual, for though a villain might hope to so master his victim by a sudden attack so as to prevent recourse to the means of alarm, yet he never could feel secure against the guard's visits to the window. At any moment the guard might be passing by and hear the sounds of a struggle or cries for help. But these visits of the guard, it may he said, are not pleasant on foreign lines, and people will not like to have the guard poking his head into carriages to see what is going on. Well, but the question is whether a little intrusion (if it amount to that) is not preferable to robbery, rape, or murder. The face of the guard appearing when he is not wanted is not so bad as the face of a grinning maniac. And is not improved safety wort: some small inconveniences ? For the last twenty years the answers to all demands for legislation to place railway management under three or our broad and simple rules for the public safety,f has been "Do not diminish their responsibility. Leave them to their responsibilities." But what has their re. sponsibility availed ? Simply to make them pay damages; but not to cause them to correct the imprudences through which the mischief' has hap. pened. We could name a company which had to pay many thousands for a disaster attended with loss of life, and frightful injuries permanently disabling several persons, all through the practice of running trains on the same line at intervals of three minutes. Yet a feai days after the catastrophe the practice was resumed, and has been continued. It seems quite an infatuation of companies to run these risks, for which they have sometimes to pay so dear, and which might be avoided with so little inconvenience or disturbance of their arrangements. But they prefer chancing it, to borrow the phrase of the most impudent of men, sailors. The responsibility upon which such reliance has been placed has, after a trial of a quarter of a century, effected nothing for the improvement of the public safety, removed no proved causes of danger, and the only remedy lies in legislation. The interference need not be much, and should be confined to a few rules, which cannot possibly do any harm. though it may be easy to dispute the advantage of them, such, for example, as a longer interval between arains, and communication between passengers and guards, and between guards and drivers.  A