The Sun. — 1848-09-19 (London, England)

SHROPSHIRE UNION AND CANAL. The fourth half-yearly meeting of the company was held on Thursday, at Shrewsbury; the Earl of Powis in the chair.  The report stated that the works from Shrewsbury to Stafford are progressing steadily, and the line will be ready for opening next spring. The whole of the land is in the possession of the company, and the purchases which had been completed were effected generally on fair terms. The Bill authorising the purchase of the Shropshire Canal had been withdrawn, and an agreement had been entered into which carries out for a limited period the terms originally agreed upon, and there was no doubt before the expiration of such term all difficulties with respect to the completion of the arrangement will have been removed. The directors will not undertake any new work without the previous sanction of the proprietors. Arrangements are being made for working the canal traffic, in conjunction with the railways of the district, in a profitable manner. The engineer's report stated that the works are proceeding satisfactorily ; that upwards of twenty-one miles out of 297 (the distance from Shrewsbury to Stafford), are ready for the permanent road, a portion of which is already completed. At present there were 3,300 men, 280 horses, and one locomotive employed on the works. The whole line from Shrewsbury to Stafford will be ready for opening early in the ensuing spring for passengers and merchandize. The capital account to the 30th of June showed that 603,0731. had been received, and 381,491/. expended, and 5411. advanced to the canal department, leaving a balance of 221,0411, in hand.  The number of passengers, according to the return recently published, who have travelled by railway (luring 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 maybe 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 map, woman, and child, in the United Kingdom, a certain distance, within the short period of six months, at a speed previously unattainable, 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 engineers 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 servants, labourers on the lines in construction, and persons 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 ing out his brains has to do with the safety of firearms. Of the accidents to those regularly employed by the companies, a large proportion seems to have have arisen from the carelessness of the men themselves, and we have no data as to the per-tentage, nor of the labourers ; but, w hen the nature of their work 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 be 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 relaxation of any precaution that can tend to preserve life and limb, but when railways and their directors are held 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 comparative safety with which one million of people shift from town to town and from village to village every week, or to bring the numbers to lower denominations, a host of 144,000 souls.is daily on the move. —Railway Chronicle.  [A.