RAILWAY PASSENGERS.
A curious return has just been issued, showing the number of railway passengers who have travelled on all the railways in the United Kingdom during the half-year ending 30th June last, by which it will be seen that railway shareholders continue to be mainly indebted for their dividends to third-class traffic. During the above period the number of passengers who travelled were as follows, omitting fractions: First class, sixteen million one hundred thousand; second class, twenty-five million eight hundred thousand; third class, two hundred and forty-one million seven hundred thousand—the number of third-class passengers being more than five hundred per cent. in excess of first and second class combined; and the relative amount of receipts is in equal proportion. This remarkable difference applies to all the lines in common, the third-class passengers being in excess all throughout the kingdom. But the North London line is especially striking in regard to receipts, inasmuch as the receipts from the third-class passengers amounted to about eight hundred per cent. more than from the first and second combined! Within the same period, the Metropolitan and District Railways, and the North London Railway, carried over fifty million passengers; to which enormous return must be added, as showing the prodigious traffic within the area of the metropolis, that of the Great Eastern; London, Chatham, and Dover; London and Brighton; South-western; and South-eastern—a large portion of whose traffic is purely metropolitan.