An Act to extend and regulate the liability of employers, and to provide for compensation for personal injuries suffered by workmen in their service, came into force in 1880. It was called the _Employers' Liability Act_, and was the first step in that class of legislation, which has since been greatly extended, and with which both employer and employed, are now familiar. That great convenience the _Parcel Post_, which for the first time secured to the public the advantage of having parcels sent to any part of the United Kingdom at a fixed charge, and which seems now as necessary to modern life as the telephone or the telegraph, and as, perhaps, a few years hence, the airship will be, was brought into existence by the _Post Office (Parcels) Act_, 1882. Under that Act it was ordained that the railways of the United Kingdom should carry by all trains whatever parcels should be handed to them for transit by the Post Office, the railway remuneration to be fifty-five per cent. of the money paid by the public. The scheme was a great success. During the first year of its operation the parcels carried numbered over 20 millions, and in the year 1913-14 (the last published figures) reached 137 millions. The _Cheap Trains Act_, 1883, was passed to amend and consolidate the law relating to (_a_) railway passenger duty, and (_b_) the conveyance of the Queen's Forces by railway. It did not apply to Ireland. Passenger duty was never exacted in that happy land. In Great Britain the Act relieved the railway companies from payment of the duty on all fares not exceeding one penny per mile; provided for the running of workmen's trains; and prescribed a scale of reduced fares for the conveyance of Her Majesty's soldiers and sailors. After this Act, and until the year 1888, no further general railway legislation of importance took place. CHAPTER XVI. BELFAST AND THE COUNTY DOWN RAILWAY