Railway Horrors Versus the Horrors of War: An Appalling Record
FROM the following, which is printed in the Scientific American of May 30, it would appear that in this country at least it is becoming increasingly unsafe to travel by the ordinary means of conveyance. Under the heading “Railway Horrors Versus the ‘Horrors of War:’ An Appalling Record,” the Scientific American says:— In a recent editorial on the subject of the alarming increase of accidents on our railroads, we called attention to the fact that the railroad companies seemed to place a very cheap estimate upon life, as evidenced by the fact that no special measures were being taken to check the rapid growth of fatalities among railroad passengers and employees. We have before us a government publication whose figures present incontestable evidence that the charge of negligence is well founded. According to Accident Bulletin No. 6, published by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the number of passengers killed in train accidents during the months of October, November, and December, 1902, was 266, and of injured, 2,788. Accidents of other kinds, including those sustained by employees while at work and passengers getting on and off cars, etc., bring the total number of casualties up to 12,811. Of these 938 were killed and 11,873 injured; from which we see that at the close of last year our railroads were killing people at the rate of 3,752 a year, and disabling them at the rate of 47,492, a rate of 51,244 deaths and injuries in a single twelve months. Now, these figures are surely sufficiently shocking in themselves; but we can better appreciate their meaning if we compare them with the casualties in some specified instance of the universally admitted “horrors of the war.” During the whole of the Boer war, which lasted about three years, the total number of casualties (killed, wounded, died of disease, and invalided home) in the British army was 27,732, of whom 5,727 were killed in action. The Boer losses, if we exclude the number of prisoners taken, were not so numerous as those of the British; but even if we allow that they were approximately equal, we find that the whole7number of casualties of British and Boers, throughout the three years, was only about equal to the total number of railroad casualties in the United States, supposing, that is, that the rate shown in the last three months of last year were to prevail for the whole year. Judging from the daily record of accidents during the first three months of 1903, this rate has not only been sustained, but has greatly increased.