Srarisiacs.—A return issued by the board of trade to the house of commons gives the following statistics for the United Kingdom for the year 1876: Number of miles open, double lines, 9,169; single lines, 7.703—total, 16,872. Number of passengers (exclusive of holders of season and periodical tickets), first class, 44,859,066; second class, 66,478,195; third class, 426,950,034—total, 538.287.295. • .Minerals carried, 123, 044,533 tons; general merchandise, 82,920,481. The traffic under all these heads ha.s been more than doubled within 10 years. Miles traveled by passenger-trains, 105,918, 921; by goods-trains, 106,139,327—total, 215.71,789; equal to near 9,000 times the cir cumference of the world; or 420 to the moon. and much more than a double journey to the sun. Receipts from passengers. S23,057,731. Receipts for excess luggage parcels, carriages, horses, dogs, etc., £2,418,057; receipts for carrying mails, £684,533. Total receipts from passenger-trains, £26,163,551; an increase of fully 64 per cent iu 10 years. Receipts for live stock, £1,230,948; for minerals, £13,526,213; general merchandise, £18,985,090—total of goods-tratlic, £33,754,317; an increase of fully 93 per cent in 10 years. Total receipts from all services, £62,215,775. Working expenses including maintenance of way, locomotive power, repairs and renewals of carriages and wagons, etc., £33,535,509; net balance of receipts over working expenditure, £28,680, 266. Proportion of expenditure to receipts, 54 per cent. 'Vehicles of all sorts employed, 464,527. The traffic receipts per in. of line open amounted to £3,551, and per in. tray eled by train, to 5s. 64d.; in 1872, the figures were £3,244, 5s. 4id., and iu 1854, £2,510, 5s. 63d. respectively. The receipts per train mile were highest in 1856, 5s.11id.; and
lowest in 1870, 5s. 1d.
The authorized capital by shares was £540,095,705; by loans, £192,706,822—total, £741,802,527. Total paid up on shares and debenture loans, £658,214,776. The propor tion of paid-up capital to total length of line open was £89,012 per m., the highest pro portion yet reached, having risen gradually from 1863, which was the lowest, viz., £32,804 per mile. Of the total capital, about 45 millions received no dividend at all; the highest dividend received was 13 per cent; but the greater part received from 4 to 5 per cent. For the first time since 1858, the returns for 1878 showed a falling off of 0.31 per cent in traffic. At the same date, the amount of authorized capital in shares, and loans was £778,872,572; of paid-up capital, £698,545,154; the length of single and double lines, 17,333 m. ; gross receipts, £60,454,375: per In. of line open, £3,488; per train mile, 5s. 51d. The number of third-class passengers had increased 4 per cent; while there had been a decrease of first and second.
Accident& —During the six months ending June 30, 1879, the number of railway acci dents (collisions, running off lines, breaking of axles, etc.) in the United Kingdom was over 200—Passengers killed, 34; passengers injured, 442; number of servants of com panies, trespassers, etc., killed, 370; injured, 955—total, killed, 404; injured, 1397. A large proportion of the accidents to passengers were due to causes within the control of the sufferers. The number reported killed in 1878 was 1053, and injured, 4,007; the list of casualties in 1876 was considerably larger, 1245 killed and 4,724 injured.