The fares by the Belgian trains are, from all these circumstances, reducible to a sum much below the cheapest rate of railroad travelling in England; in their first-class conveyances “Berlins” (which were equivalent to the “mail carriages” on our lines, but are now withdrawn), the fare from Antwerp to Brussels was only _two shillings and eleven-pence_, whilst for the same distance, thirty miles, it was _six shillings and six-pence_ from Manchester to Liverpool. In their present, most expensive carriages, the “diligences,” the charge is _two shillings and six-pence_, whilst those in England are _five and six-pence_--and in their “chars-a-banc” or second-class, _one shilling and eight-pence_, whilst ours are _four shillings_--they have also an inferior trainstill, “the waggons” for which we have no equivalent, that carry passengers for _a shilling_. As these rates are something about one-half the old fares by the conveyances which railroads have superseded, the increase of intercourse has been augmented in a ratio that almost exceeds credibility. The number of passengers between Antwerp and Brussels before 1836, was estimated at about 8000 annually, but since the opening of the road throughout, in that year, they amounted in 1837 to 781,250, and though the numbers diminished, as the attraction of novelty wore off, in 1838 they still exhibited an increase of from five to six hundred per cent over the old mode of travelling. The rate of travelling does not exceed twenty-six miles an hour, and in general does not average more than twenty; and by the statement of M. Nothomb, the minister for public works, of the number of accidents there appears to have been but one man wounded in 1835, one in 1836, five in 1837, twelve in 1838, and seven in the six months to June 1839, when the return was made up. All of these catastrophes are ascribed by the minister to the wilfulness or imprudence of the parties themselves, “no possible blame being attachable to any officer of the company.” One man was drunk, and another was deaf, a third would persist in riding on the balustrade of the waggon, and a fourth stood upright in passing a viaduct, several were killed in looking after their hats; and one formidable accident alone admits of censure upon the officials, when a train returning at night, after leaving King Leopold at Ostend, went by accident into the Lys, near Ghent, the guardian of a drawbridge, which had been opened to allow a lighter to pass, having gone to drink in an adjoining cabaret, without taking the trouble to close it! The engine actually cleared the gulf by its velocity, but was dragged back into the river by the weight of the train, and the engineer and his assistant killed upon the spot.”