From this unimpeachable record of scarcely credible statistics, it appears that at the end of 1849 there were, in Great Britain and Ireland, five thousand five hundred and ninety-six miles of railway in active operation; upwards of four thousand five hundred and fifty-six of which are in England, eight hundred and forty-six in Scotland, and four hundred and ninety-four in Ireland. Besides this, the number of miles which have been authorised by Parliament, and still remain to be finished is six thousand and thirty; so that, if all the lines were completed, the three kingdoms would be intersected by a net-work of railroad measuring twelve thousand miles: but of this there is only a remote probability, the number of miles in course of active construction being no more than one thousand five hundred, so that by the end of the present year it is calculated that the length of finished and operative railway may be about seven thousand four hundred miles, or as many as lie between Great Britain and the Cape of Good Hope, with a thousand miles to spare. The number of persons employed on the 30th of June, 1849, in the operative railways was fifty-four thousand; on the unopened lines, one hundred and four thousand. When the schemer of the infancy of the giant railway system turns to the passenger-account for the year 1849, he declares he is fairly “knocked over.” He finds that the railway passengers are put down at _sixty-three million eight hundred thousand_; nearly three times the number returned for 1843, and _a hundred times_ as many as took to the road in the days of stage-coaches. The passengers of 1849 actually double the sum of the entire population of the three kingdoms. The statement of capital which the six thousand miles now being hourly travelled over represents, will require the reader to draw a long breath;—it is one hundred and ninety-seven and a half millions of pounds sterling. Add to this the cash being disbursed for the lines in progress, the total rises to two hundred and twenty millions! The average cost of each mile of railway, including engines, carriages, stations, &c., (technically called “plant,”) is thirty-three thousand pounds. Has this outlay proved remunerative? The Commissioners tell us, that the gross receipts from all the railways in 1849 amounted to eleven millions, eight hundred and six thousand pounds; from which, if the working expenses be deducted at the rate of forty-three per cent. (being about an average taken from the published statements of a number of the principal companies), there remains a net available profit of about six millions seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand four hundred and twenty pounds to remunerate the holders of property to the amount of one hundred and ninety-seven millions and a half; or at the rate, within a fraction, of three and a half per cent. Here our parent of railway prospectuses chuckles. _He_ promised twenty per cent. per annum.