After the _Carriers' Act_, which applied to all carriers as well as to railways, the first general railway Act of importance was the _Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act_ of 1838. This Act enabled the Postmaster-General to require railway companies to convey mails by all trains and to provide sorting carriages when necessary, the Royal Arms to be painted on such carriages, and in 1844, under the _Railway Regulation Act_, it was further enacted that the Postmaster-General could require, for the conveyance of mails, that trains should be run at any rate of speed, _certified to be safe_, but not to exceed 27 miles an hour! As I have said, the Select Committee of 1840 reported against the right of the public to run their own engines and carriages on railways. They made recommendations which led to the passing of the _Railway Regulation Act_ of that year, and in that Act powers were, for the first time, conferred upon the Board of Trade in connection with railways. It was the beginning of that authority, which since has greatly grown, but which the Board of Trade have in the main exercised with an impartiality, which public authorities do not always display. The Act empowered the Board, before any new railway was opened, to require notice from the railway company. This power was repealed by an Act of 1842, and larger powers granted in its place, including the right to compel the inspection of such railways before being opened for traffic. The Act of 1840 also required the companies, under penalty, to furnish to the Board of Trade returns of traffic, as well as of all accidents attended with personal injury; and to submit their bye-laws for certification. Of the _railway mania_ period I have spoken in a previous chapter. For a time enormous success attended some of the lines. Amongst others the Liverpool and Manchester and the Stockton and Darlington enjoyed mouth watering dividends; the former ten, the latter fifteen per cent.! Said the Government to themselves, "'Tis time we saw to this," and accordingly they passed the _Railway Regulation Act_ of 1844. This Act provided that if at any time, after twenty-one years, the dividend of any railway should exceed ten per cent., the Treasury might revise the rates and fares so as to reduce the profits to not more than ten per cent. This expectation of high dividends, I need hardly say, has not been realised, and the Act in this respect has been a dead letter. The Act also conferred an option on the Treasury to acquire future railways at twenty- five years purchase of the annual profits; or, if such profits were less than ten per cent., the price was to be left to arbitration.