OCR Text |
Show CHEAPER TO KILL. Horrible disasters are seldom missing miss-ing from our enterprising press. The supply Is kept up in generous degree by the railroads. The grade crossing has the distinction of being as perilous peril-ous as it is avoidable, but there are plenty of devices almost as full of danger and as free from any excusing need. During the first three months I of this year there were 1,787 collisions ! and 1,321 derailments. It is reckoned that in the state of New York, where there Is a law for the gradual abolition aboli-tion of grade crossings, an end. will come, under this beneficent legislation, legisla-tion, when 800 years have passed and lCD.OOO more individuals have been slain. The block system of signalling, which is in full force in Great Britain and several countries on the continent, conti-nent, is almost universally held to be far safer than any merely human agency, agen-cy, and one of the principal, causes of safety abroad. The quality and type of car used in America is also frequently fre-quently much below what it would be under efficient supervision by the state, and there are a score of undisputed undis-puted ways in which the excessive danger accompanying American vail-way vail-way travel could be diminished. The only obstacle is the expense to the roads, which find it cheaper to pay what they must for the lives destroyed, destroy-ed, after fighting in the courts and compromising with relatives. who have not time, money, or evidence enough for successful legal controversy. contro-versy. Great Britain and Ireland, transporting over a billion passengers, outside of suburban service, to our 750.000,000, killed 23 persons in 1904 to our 4,000. and injured 769 tci our 30,-000. 30,-000. Railroads" in Great Britain are not so free as they are with lis to conduct con-duct their own business as they deem best. Collier's Weekly. |