Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/17

Rh ranks of engineers, firemen, conductors, and brakemen, one in every 123 was killed and one in every 10 was injured. This is about the average record of recent years. It means, of course, an appalling number of accidents, and these accidents are manifestly an eloquent reflection of the risks to which the traveling public is constantly exposed.

In many ways humanity is indebted to the railroad man to as great a degree as to the sailor. The latter, indeed, has greater hardships to endure; he is not nearly so well paid, and he has to submit to a much stricter code of discipline. But for some reason the railroad man has the more dangerous occupation, if one may judge from a comparison of the fatalities that occur at sea and on the rail. In a storm at sea, when battened down under closed hatches, with nothing to think about but the fury of the gale and our own helpless situation, we appreciate to the full our dependence upon the courage and watchfulness of the sailor. But the public does not consider a railroad man from quite the same viewpoint, for the reason, perhaps, that the unavoidable dangers on the rail are not to be compared with the ever-present peril that surrounds a ship in its battle with the elements. And yet when we come to compare actual results, that is, the statistics in regard to ship travel and train travel, one is quickly confronted with the conclusion that the