The greatest number of accidents was on the Lancashire and Yorkshire: 2,793,764 passengers were conveyed in the term specified, and 17 individuals were killed and 24 injured. On the York, Newcastle, and Berwick, 15 were killed and injured, 1,613,123 passengers having been conveyed. On the Midland, 2,658,903 having been the number of passengers, 9 persons were killed and 7 injured. On the Great Western, conveying 1,220,507½ passengers, 2 individuals were killed and 1 injured. On the London and Blackwall, with 1,200,514 passengers, there was 1 man killed and 16 injured. The London and Greenwich supplied the means of locomotion to 1,126,237 persons, and none were killed and none were injured. These deaths on the railway, for the half-year cited above, are in the proportion of 106 to 34,924,469, or 1 person killed to every 329,476; and the 106 killed include 2 suicides and the deaths of 28 trespassers and others. The total number of persons who suffered from accidents was 218, which is in the proportion of 1 accident to every 160,203 persons travelling; and when the injuries arising from this mode of conveyance are contrasted with the loss of life by shipwreck, which, as before stated, amounts to 1 in every 203 individuals, the comparative safety of railway over marine travelling must appear most extraordinary. Mr. Porter’s calculation as to the number of stage-coach travellers (which I cite under that head) shows that my estimates are far from extravagant.
Inland Navigation.
The next part of my subject is the “water-carriage,” carried on by means of canals and rivers. The means of inland navigation in England and Wales are computed to comprise more than 4000 miles, of which 2200 miles are in navigable canals and 1800 in navigable rivers. In Ireland, such modes of communication extend about 500 miles, and in Scotland about 350. As railways have been the growth of the present half-century, so did canals owe their increase, if not their establishment, in England, to the half-century preceding—from 1750 to 1800; three-fourths of those now in existence having been established during that period. Previously to the works perfected by the Duke of Bridgewater and his famous and self-taught engineer, James Brindley, the efforts made to improve our means of water-transit were mainly confined to attempts to improve the navigation of rivers. These attempts were not attended with any great success. The current of the river was often too impetuous to be restrained in the artificial channels prepared for the desired improvements, and the forms and depths of the channels were gradually changed by the current, so that labour and expense were very heavily and continuously entailed. “Difficulties in the way of river navigation,” says Mr. M‘Culloch, “seem to have suggested the expediency of abandoning the channels of most rivers, and of digging parallel to them artificial channels, in which the water may be kept at the proper level by means of locks. The Act passed by the legislature in 1755 for improving the navigation of Sankey Brook on the Mersey, gave rise to a lateral canal of this description about 11¼ miles in length, which deserves to be mentioned as the earliest effort of the sort in England. But before this canal had been completed, the Duke of Bridgewater and James Brindley had conceived a plan of canalisation independent altogether of natural channels, and intended to afford the greatest facilities to commerce by carrying canals across rivers and through mountains, wherever it was practicable to construct them.”
The difficulties which Brindley overcame were considered insurmountable until he did overcome them. In the construction of a canal from Worsley to Manchester it was necessary to cross the river Irwell, where it is navigable at Barton. Brindley proposed to accomplish this by carrying an aqueduct 39 feet above the surface of the Irwell. This was considered so extravagant a proposition that there was a pause, and a gentleman eminent for engineering knowledge was consulted. He treated Brindley’s scheme as the scheme of a visionary, declaring that he had often heard of castles in the air, but never before heard where one was to be erected. The duke, however, had confidence in his engineer; and a successful, serviceable, and profitable aqueduct, instead of a castle in the air, was the speedy and successful result. The success of Brindley’s plans and the spirited munificence of the Duke of Bridgewater, who, that he might have ample means to complete his projects, at one time confined his mere personal expenses to 400l. a-year—laid the foundations of the large fortunes enjoyed by the Duke of Sutherland and his brother the late Earl of Ellesmere.
The canals which have been commenced and completed in the United Kingdom since the year 1800 are 30 in number, and extend 582¾ miles in length.
Mr. M‘Culloch gives a list of British canals, with the number of shareholders in the proprietary of each, the amount and cost of shares, and the price on the 27th June, 1843. The Erewash, with 231 shares, each 100l. returned a dividend of 40l., each share being then worth 675l. The Loughborough, with only 70 100l. shares, the average cost of each share having been 142l. 17s., had a dividend of 80l. and a selling price per share of 1400l. The Stroudwater, with 200 shares of 150l., returned a dividend of 24l., with a price in the market of 490l. On the other hand, the 50l. shares of the Crinau were then selling at 2l. The 50l. shares of the North Walsham and Dillon were of the same almost nominal value in the market; and the shares of the Thames and Medway, with an average cost of 30l. 4s. 3d., were worth but 1l. Of the cost expended in construction of the canals of England, I have no means of giving a precise account; but the following calculation seems sufficiently accurate for my present purpose. I find that, if in round numbers the 250,000 shares of the 40 principal canals averaged an expenditure of 100l. per share—the result would be 25,000,000l., and perhaps we may estimate the canals of the United Kingdom to have cost 35,000,000l., or one-tenth as much as the railways.
The foregoing inquiries present the following gigantic results:—There are employed in the yearly transit of Great Britain, abroad and along her own shores, 33,672 sailing-vessels and 1110 steam-vessels, employing 236,000 seamen. Calculating the value of each ship and cargo as the value has been estimated before Parliament, at 5000l., we have an aggregate value—sailing-vessels, steamers, and their cargoes included—of 173,910,000l. Further, supposing the yearly wages of the seamen, including officers, to be 20l. per head, the amount paid in wages would be 4,720,000l.
The railways now in operation in the United Kingdom extend 6000 miles, the cost of their construction (paid and to be paid) having been estimated at upwards of 350,000,000l. Last year they supplied the means of rapid travel to above 63,000,000 of passengers, who traversed above a billion of miles. Their receipts for the year approached 11,250,000l. of money, and nearly three-quarters of a million of persons are dependent upon them for subsistence.
The turnpike and other roads of Great Britain alone (independently of Ireland) present a surface 120,000 miles in length, for the various purposes of interchange, commerce, and recreation. They are maintained by the yearly expenditure of a million and a half.
For similar purposes the navigable canals and rivers of Great Britain and Ireland furnish an extent of 4850 miles, formed at a cost of probably 35,000,000l. Adding all these together, we have of turnpike-roads, railways, and canals, no less than 130,000 and odd miles, formed at an aggregate cost of upwards of 386,000,000l. If we add to this the 54,250,000l. capital expended in the mercantile marine, we have the gross total of more than 440,000,000 of money sunk in the transit of the country. If the number of miles traversed by the natives of this country in the course of the year by sea, road, rail, river, and canal, were summed up, it would reach to a distance greater than to the remotest planet yet discovered.