eral examples are given by Mr. Adams of these terrible occurrences, which "indicate the tremendous nature of the pressure which has been required to even partially force the American bell cord into use in that country."
But the stolid indifference of railroad conservatism is by no means confined to England. Mr. Adams remarks: "It will not do for the American railroad manager to pride himself too much on his own greater ingenuity and more amicable disposition. The Angola disaster has been referred to, as well as that at Shipton. If the absence of the bell-cord had indeed any part in the fatality of the latter, the presence in cars crowded with passengers of iron pots full of living fire lent horrors almost unheard of to the former. The methods of accomplishing needed results which are usual to any people are never easily changed, whether in Europe or in America; but certainly the disasters which have first and last ensued from the failure to devise any safe means of heating passenger-coaches in this country are out of all proportion to those which can be attributed in England to the absence of means of communication between passengers on trains and those in charge of them. There is an American conservatism as well as an English; and when it comes to a question of running risks it would be strange indeed if the greater margin of security were found west of the Atlantic. The security afforded by the bell-cord assuredly has not as yet, in this country, offset the danger incident to red-hot stoves."
Mr. Adams gives an interesting account of the introduction of various other safety appliances on railroads, and shows that they were mostly repetitions of the bell-cord experience. Among these improvements none are more important than the brakes under the control of the engineer, for quickly stopping trains running at high speed. The American Westinghouse brake, by which an air-pump, attached to the boiler of the locomotive and controlled by the engineer, forces atmospheric air through tubes running under the cars, by which the brake-blocks are pressed against the wheels, is incontestably the most perfect contrivance for quickly stopping trains that has yet been invented, as by means of it the hand of the engine-driver is in fact upon every wheel in the train. This contrivance was of course delicate, and was at first liable to get easily out of order; but it was gradually perfected so as to become automatic and thoroughly trustworthy. "In this country, the superiority of die Westinghouse over any other description of train-brake has long been established through that long preponderance of use which in such matters constitutes the final and irreversible verdict." But in Great Britain its introduction was vigorously resisted, and, as it was energetically pushed, there grew up a war among the different contrivances, to which Mr. Adams devotes an interesting chapter under the title of "The Battle of the Brakes." A royal English commission on railroad accidents was appointed, and undertook a series of competitive trials with the different inventions. "Eight brakes competed, and a train consisting of a locomotive and thirteen cars was specially prepared for each. With these trains some seventy runs were made, and their results recorded and tabulated; the experiments were continued through six consecutive working-days. The result of the trials was a very decided victory for the Westinghouse automatic, and upon its performances the commission based its conclusion that trains ought to be so equipped that in cases of emergency they could be brought to rest when traveling on level ground at fifty miles an hour within a distance of 275 yards." The result was sufficiently decisive, and the Board of Trade urged upon the English companies the adoption of the brake which had
