Of the remarkable increase in number and the profitableness of the third-class passenger traffic in England Mr. Jeans says:
"There has hitherto been a great lack of knowledge in this country as to the extent to which the different classes of passenger traffic yield adequate profit to the railroad companies. English passenger traffic differs from that of most other countries in this respect, that the chief companies attach third-class carriages to almost every train. The accommodation provided for third-class passengers in England is also much superior to what is found in other countries where there is the same distinction of classes. The effect of those two distinguishing features of the English railway system is that third-class carriages are much more and first-class carriages much less utilized than in other countries. The tendency appears to be towards an increasing use of third-class, and a decreasing use of first-class vehicles. But, all the same, the leading English lines continue to provide a large proportion of first-class accommodation in every train, and it is no unusual thing to find the third-class carriages of express trains absolutely full, while first-class carriages are almost empty. The natural result is that third-class travel is a source of profit, while first-class travel is not.... So far as passenger traffic is a source of net profit, that profit is contributed by the third-class. The total receipts from passenger traffic in England and Wales amounted in 1885 to £21,968,000. But if the average receipts per carriage over the whole had been the same as in the case of the Midland first-class vehicles, namely, £330, the total receipts from passenger traffic would only have been about nine millions. It is not necessary to be an expert in order to see that traffic so conducted must be attended with a very serious loss."
Of the stock-watering of American railroad companies Mr. Jeans says:
"It seldom happens that in the United States the cost of a railway and its equivalent corresponds, as it ought to, to the total capital expenditure. There is no country in the world where the business of watering stocks is better understood or carried out more systematically and on so large a scale. For this reason there is liable to be a great deal of error entertained in reference to the natural cost of American lines."
There are many financial journals that are so closely identified with the speculative interests of the country, and many railway papers that depend so largely upon railway men for support, that railway managers are never without a medium through which they can present their views to the public. A systematic and concerted effort is also constantly made by the railroads to pervert the press of the country at large. The great city papers generally yield to their influences and enlist in their service, and yet there are notable exceptions to this.
In speaking of the extravagant sums which the railroads paid to the great dailies, ostensibly for advertising, but in fact for their good will and other services, a railroad superintendent recently said that it was an infamous outrage, and yet it was the best investment of money that his company could make. The country papers have shown more integrity in maintaining their independence, but the railroads are not without their organs among them. It is not unfrequent to find some of them defending railroad abuses with all the apparent zeal of a Wall Street organ, and a glance at their columns often reminds one of Mr. Lincoln's story of the Irishman and the pig. Mr. Lincoln defended an Irishman against the charge of stealing a pig. After the testimony was taken in court, Mr. Lincoln called his client aside and told him that the testimony was so strong against him, and that the case was so clear, that it was impossible for him to escape conviction, and he advised him to plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the court. "No, Mr. Lincoln," said Patrick, "you go back and make one of your great speeches and swing your long arms and talk loud to the jury, and you will win the case." Mr. Lincoln, in accordance with that disposition to accommodate so strongly characteristic of him, did as he was directed by his client, and to his great surprise the jury promptly brought in a verdict of not guilty. After it was all over, Mr. Lincoln said: "Now, Patrick, tell me why that jury acquitted you. I know that you stole the pig, and my speech had nothing to do in securing your acquittal." Patrick replied: "And sure, Mr. Lincoln, every one of those jurymen ate a piece of the pig."