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ACCIDENT STATISTICS] line is about as large in England as in America, the density of population and of traffic in Great Britain apparently counterbalancing the laxity of the laws against trespassing in America. In the thickly settled parts of the United States the number of trespassers killed on the railway tracks, including vagrants who suffer in collisions and derailments while stealing rides, is very large. In New York and four adjacent states, having about as many miles of railway as the United Kingdom, the number in the year ending June 30, 1907, was 1552. In the United Kingdom the number for the corresponding year was 447, or less than one-third.

As was suggested at the outset, railway accident statistics are useful only as showing how to make life and limb safer, though in pursuing this object increased economy should also be secured. Railways have always been held by the legislatures and by the courts strictly accountable for their shortcomings, so far as accountability can be enforced by compelling the payment of damages to victims of accidents; but in spite of this, a want of enterprise and even some apparent neglect of passengers’ and servants’ plain rights, have often been apparent, and the Board of Trade, with its powers of supervision, inspection and investigation, must therefore be classed as one of the most beneficent factors in the promotion of safety on British railways. Its powers have been exercised with the greatest caution, yet with consistent firmness; and the publicity which has been given to the true and detailed causes of scores and scores of railway accidents by the admirable reports of the Board of Trade inspectors has been a powerful lever in improving the railway service. Useful compulsory laws regarding the details of train management are difficult to frame and hard to carry out; but the Board has exercised a persistent persuasiveness and has secured most of its objects. Its investigations justified the law making the block system compulsory, thus removing the worst danger of railway travel. Its constant and impartial expositions of cases of over-work and insufficient training of employés have greatly helped to elevate the character of these employés.

In the United States the governments have done far less. A majority of the states have railway commissions, but the investigation of railway accidents, with comparatively few exceptions, has not been done in such a way as to make the results useful in promoting improved practice. Many of the commissions have done little or nothing of value in this respect. The Federal government, having authority in railway matters only when interstate traffic is affected, gathers statistics and publishes them; but in the airing of causes—the field in which the British Board of Trade has been so useful—nothing so far has been done except to require written reports monthly from the railways. These are useful so far as they go, but they lack the impartiality that would be secured by an inquiry such as is held in England.